Project Hunter
CLASSIC FORD PROJECTS YOU SHOULD BUY AND TRANSFORM.
When it comes to classic commercials, we all know that the Ford-badged versions are the best, and these two projects will be the bestest once we’ve given them some tender loving care. Starting with the Thames, we’ve gone back to the early ‘90s with some custom-inspired touches, the most glaring of which are the luscious coats of Porsche Rubystone Red, a popular shade with the custom crowd of the time and one which has been applied not just to the bodywork — once we’ve done some smoothing, relocated the rear numberplate and made a onepiece rear door out of the Squire’s split tailgate affair — but the chrome as well, leaving just some black for the window surrounds. Those 15 inch billet alloys are bolted up to a set of coil-overs front and rear to allow us to get this 300E seriously low. Pop the bonnet and you’ll find a smoothed engine bay painted peppermint green while power comes courtesy of a 1700 Crossflow on throttle bodies with all the wiring hidden. Inside, think much black suede, retrimmed Recaros and a black carpeted rear bed with a so-’90s ICE install. Bass — how low can you go? In this case, very.
When is a Transit not a Transit? When it’s an A- Series of course. The much bigger brother came in all sorts of guises though this one looks to have some kind of farm trailer- type canopy fitted to its pick- up bed. It’s not the prettiest rear in the world, but it does give us an idea to use our favourite worldwide courier livery — UPS — and turn this beast into a multi- drop monster. We’ve got some work to do first though, starting with the chassis which is never going to allow this A- Series to run that low, so we’ll fabricate a new one kitted out with the finest air suspension so that we can go low, and then go lower. The cab and pick- up bed and can be refitted, and an aluminium frame and cover made for the latter featuring a roller shutter rear door, before applying coats of Pullman Brown ( the official UPS shade) followed by the signature gold pinstripe. Sitting inside the A- Series’ bulbous arches are some 22.5 inch diameter Alcoa truck steels which have been modified to take lowprofile whitewall tyres then painted black with a silver rim edge ( again aping the UPS vans), while under the bonnet is a seriously- smoky Cummins diesel. All we need is some brown uniforms and we’re good to go!