We have a pretty wild project going on right now here at Southern Octane Garage! We're working away 7 days a week to get this wicked custom '65 continental convertible ready to debut at this year's SEMA show in Vegas. The owner of the car is a Suicide Slabs member (Joshua Bazzetta) that came to us originally about a year ago to get some rust repaired and floor pan & rocker panel patches installed/fabricated. We originally finished up the floors and rockers and sent the car back out to the customer to tuck back away to "finish" the project on his own and with some other shops in the mix.
About 3 1/2 months ago this slab landed back in our shop to get the bodywork ready to send it off to paint. Well one thing led to another and we saw that the bodywork and sheetmetal on the car needed to be addressed more than originally thought (we had to strip this bitch all the way down!). The original build plan was much much, much more mild than this but we saw a great opportunity to build something truly amazing as we started to tear into the car. With the customer already discussing an airbag suspension setup, and a 4.6 ford mod motor swap -- we kicked around multiple ideas and ended up taking things to a much more in-depth build.
Long story short, this particular Continental had a lot of rust and rot in the inner rocker panels, the main frame sections under the passenger area, and had bondo piled sky high on multiple body panels. Sooo, we worked up a build plan and vision and began cutting everything away to get back to square one.
We decided on sourcing a 2003+ Lincoln Navigator so that we could build this restomod project around the 5.4 mod motor AND utilize the majority of the interior electronics and creature comforts from the Navigator as well including the dash, steering column, gauge cluster, etc. Once it's all said and done this 1965 Continental will think it's 2006 Lincoln Navigator with working OBD2 wiring.
The build highlights include:
- Chassis & Suspension:
-- Custom designed & fabricated full tubular chassis
-- Custom designed & fabricated IFS with power rack and pinion based on Mustang II geometry
-- Tubular upper & lower control arms designed & fabricated in-house
-- Ford 8.8 rear end narrowed and new axles for 5x5 bolt pattern
-- Airlift bags front and rear with AccuAir E-Level air management system
-- 14.25" 4-piston Brembo front brakes
- Drivetrain & Performance:
-- 2006 Lincoln Navigator 5.4 3v mod motor (rebuilt and all VVT issues addressed including billet cam phaser lockouts)
-- Ported & polished heads
-- COMP Cams Mutha' Thumpr camshafts (very aggressive and choppy idle!)
- Interior
-- 2006 Lincoln Navigator dash modified and sectioned down to fit
-- 2006 Lincoln Navigator full body/chassis harness & wiring to support electronics and creature comforts including cruise control, gauge cluster, power adjustable pedal assembly, etc.
-- Custom door panels
-- Rear bench seat split into pseudo bucket seats
-- Front and rear seats re-foamed and bolstered design
-- Custom leather upholstery from the dash through the rear
-- Navigator console sectioned down and extended thru a custom console running thru the rear seats
-- German square weave carpet
- Exterior
-- 22" Asanti Forged Wheels
-- Laser straight body work (you don't need to modify much on these slabs for them to look trick as hell -- just get them straight and slick!)
-- Fresh chrome and brightwork
-- Ford Kona Blue w/ extra pearl by Matrix Automotive Finishes
-- LED headlights and taillights
We're excited to build this one for sure, and we're documenting the entire build process through weekly build update videos. I'll post those all up here too.
