We trial-fitted the body so we could locate the scuttle exactly. Here is a shot showing the car with body and scuttle ready for drilling and attaching. I am using M6 hex head bolts with rubber roofing washers into M6 rivnuts to fix the scuttle, with three bolts per side. The roofing washers are the kind used for fixing corrugated clear plastic roofing (alsynite?).

Initially we drilled 1/4 inch holes for the M6 bolts through the fibreglass lip of the scuttle and the sides, but we then enalrged those holes to 13mm, as it was too difficult to align using the small holes. The washers seem to hold the scuttle very tightly.

Here is a shot of the front, showing the Yoko A032R's off very nicely. The rims are Performance Superlight 13x6 with Yokohama A032 R 205/60x13 tyres. They look really nice and chunky. Hopefully, they will give adequate ground clearance. I am glad I bought the 13 inch rims. The only other option was 15 inch as there are limited tyre choices for 14 inch rims. Also, the 15 inch rims weigh about 3kg more each for the wheel alone, so I have saved probably 15kg in unsprung weight, not to mention reducing rotational inertia. The wheel centres are charcoal coloured, and will look very nice with the proposed yellow bodywork.

Amother shot from the front showing the 4AGE engine and throttle bodies. The car will be registered in it's gel coat grey colour, and driven around like that for a while, until the panels have settled in, the adjustments and hacking has been completed (air inlets, cooling fins etc), and until I have enough money to paint it.

This shot shows the car with bonnet fitted. The Westfield supplied bonnet is too long (purposely). The bonnet is not cut to length in this shot, just fitted over the nosecone. Once we have established the correct length, we will trim the bonnet. It's starting to look finished!

We are using self tapping screws to fit the body to the frame at first. When I am happy that the fit is correct, I will replace the self tappers with 5 or 6 mm nutserts. This shot shows the cutout for the exhaust. The hole will eventually be finished with a sheet metal panel, possibly chromed.

This shot shows the cutout for the pod airfilter. This hole will be covered by the bonnet bulge, until I can work out a better system of getting cool air into the engine. Reinhold (from Whitepointer Fibreglass) recommends I attach the bulge from the outside using screws through rivnuts in the body. However, I will probably get him to glass the bulge to the body from beneath prior to painting. I think it looks neater that way.

The car is looking more finished with the instrument panel in place. We have only used the four instruments from the half cut, so we are missing an oil pressure guage, otherwise, we have all we need. I expect we will need to replace the panhead bolts with flat screws, or something, but I intend to fit a rubber surround to the dash rim anyway. Should look good.

We have fitted the lights, and headlights. These are the Hella lights with sealed beam H4 unit. The grille is ali mesh from Repco, and is meant to be used for this purpose. It's actually chrome plated ali, and I preferred black, so just painted it. This shot shows the grille in place with rubber surround to prevent rattling. It looks like it has a face now.

Here's the Whitepointer bonnet bulge Cleco'd in place over the air filter. Before painting, I'll get this fibreglassed into place from under the bonnet, so it looks an integral part of the bonnet. For the moment, it is screwed into place with panhead screws into rivnuts. I will probably paint it black or grey before the full paint job, the white colour looks awful.

We machined 10mm spacers for the cycle guard mounts, and mounted them using M8x1.25 bolts to the Cortina uprights. I drilled through the steel tube into the GRP guards from underneath to get the alignment right. This meant removing the wheels, which was made easier by using the amazing trolley jack. I used plated flat head roofing bolts to attach the guards.

As the Queensland Department of Transport inspection is probably not due for another few weeks, I decided to paint the car in the meantime. So all the panels came off. This was a big job, as we had to cut wires for indicators etc. As anyone who has ever painted anything will know, preparation takes the most time, and the car is no exception. We sanded, filled and sanded again until the body looked ready for the primer. The Westfield supplied body is pretty good, but there are a couple of moulding faults on the finish resulting in 'spiders web' patterns. These were fairly easily taken care of with a few coats of primer.

I still hadn't decided what colour to paint the car up until I arrived at Budget Auto Spares. I really wanted a titanium charcoal finish like this. Many people had talked me into yellow, so the other option was an Australian Standard colour Y14 'Golden Yellow'. I knew what this colour looked like, but didn't know exactly what I wanted in charcoal. So, I decided on yellow with charcoal nose and guards. I was going to get a carbon fibre nose and guards, or a carbon fibre look (see here), but these were expensive options, so I did the nose and guards in good 'ol charcoal hammercoat. It looks great against the yellow.

Spray painting is a lot harder than it looks. I think for a couple of amateurs using a spray gun for the first time, we did a pretty good job, but not perfect. We did a few practise runs, then got straight into it. The results are a bit patchy. The paint is glossy in some areas, but dull in others. We experimented with the mix of paint to thinners, and found it worked much better with a 1:1 ratio instead of the 1:1.5 recommended. The charcoal hammercoat went on really well and looks great. Anyway, the finish is a bit dodgy, so we will try to lift it with a cutting polish. If that doesn't work, we may have to repaint it. Charcoal all over?

I finally received *the* letter from the Queensland Department of Transport. The car has been accepted as passing all relevant ADR's for registration, and now only needs to be presented to a DoT testing centre for their inspection and review. I am fully expecting to be knocked back on some small items, and have to bring it back after fixing the problems. So I am prepared for this. With any luck, I will be on the road by Christmas. Of course in Australia, at least in Queensland, Christmas is really too hot to be driving an open-top sports car. Anyway, getting ahead of myself here. One step at a time!