Page 15 - Beep Beep May 2025

Google Lens was
introduced to me by
young friend and
enthusiastic helper.
For those who don’t
know what Google
Lens is, it is a vision
b a s e d c o m p u t i n g
capability that lets you
search what you see
using your camera.
O n t h e G o o g l e
Browser Bar there is a
camera icon on the far
right – simply type in
1970 ford mustang
and point the phone
camera at my shiny
new part and all will
be revealed, brilliant!!!
As the shelves were
filling up I decided to
start thinking about the
paint job. My wife loves pottery and enjoys the
social side of making “stuff” whilst chatting with
friends and it turns out one lady’s son was a panel
beater and had restored and painted his own car.
He drove his wonderfully painted Falcon around to
my shed where we met and the timing of his desire
to start a new project was born. He moved into the
shed and I cleared the other cars out and he began
to make the mess and weave his magic. Our
friendship grew. My youngest son whom had his
own classic of his era (1986 BMW red convertible )
said it needed to be “Black on Black” and to be fair
whilst that was going to be a real challenge, turns
out this colour determined a great deal of what is
now a superb restoration.
I had located the engine which was in the garden of
a marvellous mechanic whom I am pleased to say
is a new friend and respected car enthusiast. He
rebuilt it with a youthful enthusiasm and put his
personal touch on the cam and torque and all
things mechanical under the bonnet to create what
he considered the ‘prefect storm’, knowing now that
we were talking about a Black Mach 1.
Regarding the rebuilding of the FMX auto original
gearbox, one name of a guy on the coast kept
cropping up who lives near Beerwah. I so enjoyed
the conversations and the mystery of the hundreds
and hundreds of parts that are intertwined to make
this engineering wonder of 50 years ago. Seeing
the gearbox in all its glory on the bench and
knowing there was only one way it went back
together was like learning Cantonese to me, but in
a matter of months it was ready for picking up and
placing on the shelf ready to start the rebuild.
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