I had no idea just how much time it takes to fix the body of a 50 year old car. I thought that getting reproduction sheet metal, and I mean the good stuff, would mean very little body work. After all, they didn’t have to mess with filler and fixing all the little dings that accumulate over the years.  This has been my education in auto body art.

I was surprised to see just how rough the new metal is. They started by sanding the first coat off and showing all of the high and low spots. It looks more like a spotted pony than a Mustang at this point.

A little better view of the highs and lows. Notice the hood is still the old blue and has no directionals. The new one is still on back order. Fortunately, that can be dealt with at any point. I hope it gets here before the project gets too far ahead of it though.

A view from the back. I thought it was curious that the extension seams were filled in. It turns out that a smooth side happens when you sand it all together. they will seam it and remove the extension before painting and paint them separately.  Also, though the roof looked good from rust, evidently it was pretty dinged up and took some significant time to make perfect again.  Also, another rough spot was the area at the lower corners of the rear window. That too took some craftsmanship to rebuild and reshape.