2012 was quite a year for the
Hell Snake that we built for Dave Pulley back in March. The Hell Snake came about from a carbon fiber hood that Dave wanted airbrushed with a cobra. Sometimes a small project can turn into a major build and in the case of the Hell Snake it was a six week build.
Now the Hell Snake is on the cover of the February 2013 issue of
Muscle Mustangs and Fast Ford magazine.
Dave had purchased products for his 2010 GT500 from
Bangastang before;
Bangastang Radiator Cover, Coil Covers and a Appearance Package that we do for the 2010-2013 GT500. This time Dave wanted to step into something more custom and called us about a
carbon fiber Venom Hood from Trucarbon. Dave had attended the
Sturgis Mustang Rally in North Dakota and the customizing bug bit him. The Sturgis Mustang Rally takes place on Labor Day weekend and has become quite popular for Mustang enthusiasts. Several hundred Mustangs owners converge in Strugis for a weekend of fun.
When Dave called us about the hood and his idea to have the underside airbrushed with a cobra our first course of action was to have our airbrush artist Robert Gagon, a 35-year veteran of the custom airbrushing world come up with a few different sketches of cobras for Dave to select from. Robert is an old school artist that creates his images from freehand drawing. Robert drew three different images of a cobra and Dave picked his favorite.
One thing that had to be considered was the layout of the hood and how the cobra would be airbrushed. The Venom hood has two billet heat extractors and a functional Ram Air system, we wanted to make sure the cobra was proportionate to the hood. Another factor were the color of the
carbon fiber along with the colors that would be used to airbrush the cobra. Carbon fiber is black with dark grey tones, if we painted the cobra using black and grey tones it would blend into the carbon fiber with very little contrast. We knew that red would be our accent color and would be the perfect color to make the cobra pop. Flames, why not? This would be a perfect opportunity for some true flames to highlight the cobra.
So how did we go from a airbrushed hood to a complete custom makeover.....stripes? Dave wanted us to paint the the stripes on the hood. Painting the stripes was not the problem but to insure that the stripes on the hood would line up with the vinyl stripes on the front fascia would be impossible. With over 60 hours of labor into the airbrushing of the cobra we wanted to make sure it was done right and to second guess would be a big mistake. The only way to make certain the stripes on the hood would align with the stripes on the fascia we would need the car.
After talking with Dave he agreed to have his GT500 transported to our shop in California from Wyoming. We contacted our friends with
Awesome Auto Transporters to have Dave's Shelby shipped to us in a enclosed trailer. Awesome Auto Transporters is experienced in transporting high end muscle cars, luxury and exotics and we knew that Dave's Shelby would be well taken care of.
Before we started the custom build on Dave's car we needed a rendering. When it comes to customizing a car having ideas is great, but you must see what the car will look like. Designing a car is like making Gumbo, there are a lot of ingredients that go into the recipe if one is wrong it throws the taste off. I put in a call to my friend Danny Whitfield from
http://www.dannywhitfield.com.
Danny is a graduate of the College of Creative Studies in Detroit Michigan and has been involved in automotive design and art for over 30 years. College of Creative Studies is one of the top schools in the world for automotive design. After talking with Danny about my vision for the Hell Snake within two days Danny emailed me a rendering that was dead on to what I had described.
Carbon fiber would play a big part in the customizing of the Hell Snake along with a paint scheme that would highlight the accessories on the GT500. Our goal from day one was to create a custom GT500 that was tasteful, balanced and would win on the car show circuit. We didn't want a one dimensional car, we wanted horsepower, handling, show quality paint, custom interior, engine dress-up and custom one off parts. I've been to countless car shows and too many times owners miss the boat when it comes to customizing, they either do too much or the wrong thing.
We wasted no time in getting Dave's GT500 ready for paint, his Shelby needed to be ready for the 50th Anniversary Shelby Team Bash in Las Vegas in March. When building a car everything needs to go smoothly, parts must arrive on time, no power outages, flu bug, broken bones or bad attitudes.
It only takes one hiccup to delay the build which could put you back for weeks. One of the first
priorities is to have all the parts on hand for the build. You would be amazed at how long it could take for one simple part to arrive when it's out of stock. Before you start a build make certain that all the parts are available.
One of the most time consuming parts of the build was laying out the stripes. All of the graphics on the Hell Snake were done with paint, no vinyl was used. A laser was used to line up the stripes on the top of the Hell Snake and along the rocker panels. Our painter Pat Smith spent two days laying down the tape lines and measuring them over and over to insure they were accurate.
Once the
Hell Snake was painted it was time for color sanding and buffing. Four coats of PPG paint and six coats of PPG clear were sprayed onto the Hell Snake. All of the carbon fiber parts was also re cleared for a deeper shine including the JLT Cold Air Intake. The wet sanding process involved
several grits of sand paper from 800 to 3000. We were after a mirror finish and with a black car you can't mess around.
While we were busy painting the Hell Snake the interior was being reupholstered with upgraded leather interior that included front and rear seats, headrests, door panels, shifter boot, e-brake boot, custom trunk lid liner and a custom shift knob. The interior on the Hell Snake would match the exterior.
Performance would not be overlooked in the Hell Snake with a 2.9 Whipple sitting on top of the 5.4
we wanted to put down some serious horsepower to the rear wheels. One major issue that needed to be addressed with the 2010 GT500 was the pounds of boost that the coming from the Whipple, 21 lbs. On a stock bottom end 21 lbs of boost was too much, something was going to break. We called on Greg Rentis with CCC Motorsports
http://cccmotorsports.com for some custom dyno tuning but first the right pulley had to be installed along with Ford GT fuel pumps and a Kenne Belle Boost a Pump. Greg worked his magic and dialed the Hell Snake to 686 RWHP and 627 RWTQ on 93 octane gas with no headers. A set of long tube headers would push the horsepower to over 720.
The suspension was upgraded on the Hell Snake with a complete suspension package from Whiteline
that included sway bars, control arms, chassis brace and a Watts Link. The Hell Snake would handle
as well as accelerate and with the 6 piston brakes from Shelby it would stop on a dime.
It was time to put the Hell Snake together and let the people see it for the first time. In March we unveiled the Hell Snake to a large group of people at our shop in Ramona California. Several Mustang clubs in the San Diego area attended including Wicked Stangs, Rebel Stangs and the San Diego Mustang Club as well of other local Mustang enthusiasts.
Based on the feedback that we received at the unveiling we had a good feeling that the Hell Snake would be well received on the car show circuit. The first stop for the Hell Snake was the 50th Anniversary Shelby Team Bash in Las Vegas were it won 1st place in it's class. In 2012 the Hell Snake has placed 1st in several car shows around the country including "The Mustang Steamboat Roundup", "Sturgis Mustang Rally" and the "Ponies on the Plains".
SEMA.....back in March when we completed the Hell Snake several people that attended the unveiling suggested the Hell Snake should be a featured car at SEMA. SEMA is the big stage for customized cars and aftermarket products. We felt the Hell Snake was worthy of SEMA and a good place to display our work but we had no idea of the surprises that would come at SEMA.
On Wednesday our second day at SEMA, while we were locking up the Hell Snake for the evening and heading to hotel for dinner, Cleo Shelby stopped by to see the Hell Snake. Cleo Shelby is the widow of legendary Carroll Shelby and quite a automotive enthusiast. Cleo was very impressed with the Hell Snake and stated "every house should have one", coming from the woman that was married to Carroll Shelby our chest poked out a little further and our waistline suddenly decreased a few inches. Cleo agreed to sign the Hell Snake alongside her husband's signature....SEMA was quite a week.
Cleo would spend a good hour with us on Wednesday and telling some great stories about Carroll and how they met. Dave Pulley, owner of the Hell Snake popped the big question when he asked Cleo if she would accompany him as a passenger for the SEMA Car Cruise on Friday, she said "yes". What would happen next?
The Hell Snake was selected by Optima Batteries for the Optima Challenge. The rollercoaster was still going up and we were just trying to hang on. Dave was interviewed by the Optima video crew for the upcoming competition on Speedvision. Now it was time for some seat time on a track competing against several other street cars for a grand prize.
The
Hell Snake has been quite an interesting experience from day 1. We set out to build a custom GT500 that would perform, do well on the Mustang car show circuit and display our talents as a Mustang customizing shop, we've accomplished our goals. Bangastang intends to restore, customize and build classic and late model Mustangs and Shelbys that raise the bar in styling and craftsmanship.
If you're interested in having Bangastang customize or restore your Mustang visit our website
www.bangastang.com. For more info about the Hell Snake package here's the link
Bangastang Hell Snake
Mr. Bangastang
Posts
