And here we go....

Here it is! Our new project car. Ever since Patrick posted up his original pics on Focaljet.com I've been jealous. For some reason the idea of a Fiesta project always sounded very intriguing. But good luck trying to find one in the US! They're pretty rare these days. I'm sure 99% of the ones East of the Rockies are lumpy piles of rust by now!

I haven't had a project car in a few years... although I've enjoyed that 'break', I've kind of missed having something fun to modify and tinker on. We decided that we'd want something small, fun, easy to work on, and that we could take to a track day or an auto-x and have a good time in. Oh, and did I mention 'cheap'?

So, when our beloved Patrick sent me a message saying that he'd be off for bootcamp soon (Go Navy!) and that the MouseTurd was up for sale... well.... yeah. We wanted it. Turns out it almost didn't happen, as the car lived about 8 hours away from us, up in Beale AFB north of Sacramento. But when our Focaljet NorCal bethren learned of this, they said 'hell no, you're getting that car!" and they offered to go fetch it for us. (it's a bit closer of a drive from the Bay Area). Our friends rule! And it just so happens that they all seem to have a fetish for small 4cyl hatchbacks, so go figure.

Did I mention that our friends totally freaking rule?

Well, they do.

Anyways, onto the images. I'll delve into our plans later on in the blog, as I have a metric crapload of images to post. Yay, procrastination! lolz...

This is how the car looked when Patrick dragged her home from Auburn earlier this year.



Can you say 'Sat outside for almost 8 years"? I knew you could.



Dead leaves add 15 whp.



He'd already started gutting the interior and ridding it of spiders.



Fast forward 6 months later, at the Bauer household. Here is the Fiesta, sitting next to Ryan's Sylvia-Powered Dime (Datsun 510). Yeah, his car is just kind of bad ass!!! The tires on the MK1 were dry-rotted, and since we were going to put her on a tow dolly for the ride home, we decided to put some new rubber on her - stock tire size is 155/80/12 in case you were wondering. Amazingly, America's Tire in Redwood City had 4 in stock.



Ryan also got the car running, to our amazement (and happiness), and threw on some front brakes, since the pads were gone and the rotors were toast. Did I mention that our friends kick ass?



What a cute butt! Almost as cute as a Focus. ;)



I think we're going to need some custom seat brackets.



And here she is, heading home!



Once we got it home, Robb proceed to tear into the car with glee. Funny that a guy who's almost six and a half feet tall loves small compact hatchbacks. Go figure.

First of all, the requisite garage beverage of choice (there were no Man Laws broken in the process of working on the car). It also happens to be the official beverage of Team Focaljet NorCal and Vacuum Vulture Racing.




Progress!



This pile stunk up the garage in a big way until we threw it outside yesterday. (that's the arsenal of sk8boards in the background ;) )



The engine bay as it sat a couple weeks ago:



Robb at work.



Bumpers are off, and those holes are going to be filled. Until then, it's the '50 Caliber Machine Gun Mod' lolz... grille will be exchanged for some Euro-spec goodness, courtesy of a fellow member on http://fiesta-mk1.co.uk/forum/index.php :)



And here she is after this weekend. I took a few pics for reference so I can do a rendering (since EVERYONE is asking for one, although I have the hardest time conceptualizing my own stuff! But I'm inspired now).









Robb, in his Happy Place, dreaming of the bus stop at Buttonwillow....



The Black Pearl (aka our tow vehicle) approves of this project car.



The interior as of a couple hours ago - Robb drained the radiator and took out the HVAC. I'll post up more pics tomorrow of what we found, etc... Time to go feed the brain and get a glass of chardonnay.



Thanks for looking!

Kristina & Robb