The build-up of Fox' car:
My first Taunus. A 1978 1.6 GL. A brand new Mercedes hooked in it just before we wanted to start modifying:
The second Taunus. Not in a very good condition, but it was free of accidents. Again a 1600cc, but a "L" and from 1979. We used the other one as donor-car. The backplate is modified in the meanwhile to fit 6 Opel Manta lightunits in it:
A whole lot of things needed to be replaced, like the complete front and interior:
In between we tried to find round headlight units which would fit into the front. A pair from an Austin Allegro would do, but was replaced with 6 square headlights later. The Austin lights made a comeback after an accident I got when the car was just finished:
And this how it looked like right after the first paintjob:
And again from the front, with allready some parts re-assembled:
Hifi was expanded with 3 times a 15" subwoofer and 2 dedicated amplifiers. Also an Atari 600XL homecomputer was built in with a homemade interface which controlled all the head- and rear-lights. I wrote special software to let the lights flash in all kind of patterns. Well, I needed a TV screen for it, so also a small TV was built in, together with a XF551 diskdrive to load the software from.
Since the car would get a whole bunch of electronics gadgets inside, many cables were needed:
Under the car, everything was painted red, gearbox and axles included:
A first impression of how it would look like in the field. It still has no scope and just the standard wheels:
A view from the rear with the Manta units built in:
And again with the unpainted wing on it:
In addition to the wing on the back, I mounted a front-wing from a Taunus type-1 on it, sideskirts from a BMW 320, back-skirt from a Taunus type-3, and a scoop on the hood.
Finished! Well, the exterior, that is. The interior was never finished, since more and more electronics would be build in:
A bit too dark to get an impession I think:
As of today, I had to disassemble the car cause it was controlled by the police that many times I didn't had a living any more.
I didn't want to sell it, so it's taken apart, and the remaining chassis has been given to a banger-racing-team who're gonna use it on the circuit. After 12 years and thousands of Dutch guilders the car is no more, but it was worth it!
Since I live in a small town, everybody knew the car. With all the lights on the front, 3 meters of antenna on the back, and about 120Db of music it was kind of hard to ignore. With pain in my heart I had to end this chapter...
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Another Taunus I owned. It's a 2.0L 6 cylinder. Right after I got it, I immediatly replaced the 4 cylinder engine from the black one with a 6 cylinder 2.8L Granada engine with a Sierra XR4 5-speed gearbox. There's no substitute for cubic inches. Meanwhile I have a 3.0L Ford Zodiac engine laying around. Too bad my Taunus has gone, and it doesn't fit in my Ford 17M. |