The Pony Car Project-A Place To Rest My Head

When I bought the Pony Car, I knew that there was a lot of missing parts. It seems like someone took the car apart and then lost  a bunch of the parts and then when they put it back together they just left out the missing pieces.

Another curious thing is that the black interior may be the third color for this car. The first color was probably grey. After the grey, it looks like pink was used. Yes pink! Pink is showing through some of the parts that have been recoated to the current black color. Someone did try hard to make the current interior all black and replaced many of the interior pieces with new black components or painted parts black. I have painted some of the interior parts to match. The paint I used was made for interior and even soft parts like armrests.

It also looks like the seats have been recovered recently with new material and are in great shape. BUT, in true "if it is missing, don't replace it" fashion, there are no headrests. There are not even any holes in the top of the seats for head rests. To me this is a safety issue. I have been in a rearend collision and I know how whiplash feels. Also this car has a drivers side airbag that could push my head back if it deployed. A few months ago when a guy approached me in the Lowes parking lot with an interest in the Mustang, the first thing he said was "where are the headrests?". I did not have a good answer for him.

So, I searched Ebay and found replacement headrests in the appropriate black color. That was the easy part. The real problem was that the headrests don't just plug into the seat, another part called the guide sleeve is needed to plug into the seat frame and then the headrest slides into it. Those did not seem too available.  After some more searching, I did find the appropriate hardware. Both the headrests and guides came from Venice Florida but from two different salvage companies. The funny part is that both companies seem to share the same email address. Strange! And the sleeves arrived in about four days and the headrests took a week and a half.

The install was easy, but the cutting of a slot in the upholstery was nerve wracking! In the back of my mind I kept thinking "what if I cut in the wrong place? or the seats are not really made for the headrests?". I could feel a "void" where the headrest should go, so I took a chance. I hit the right location and the sleeve slipped securely into the slot in the seat back and was followed by the headrest.

So, a side benefit of replacing the headrests was that my searching on Ebay led me to three used parts companies that specialize in Mustang parts. I bookmarked these companies. One has the hatch trim panel that I also need. It is on my watch list.....

Nice! I have headrests now!