I remember the car before and after it became the French connection it was originally metallic blue and a genuine 351 boss mustang , a pretty rare car which at the time meant nothing , it belonged to a mate in strood who was an ex motorbike/sidecar racer down in Kent and was for sale along with a few others he had at the time , he dabbled in a few yanks he sold it and it went to dartford just up the road , I dont remember the buyers name now but at the time we all used to hang around another mates paint shop in Rochester , Pete darwell he owned mech spray and still does ,he was the man to go to in those days for any form of custom paint , the car was brought to him for custom paint and transformed into the original French connection paint job and ray done all the mural work , we were all fascinated at the time by the little Sony rear view camera in the car, quite a few best paint trophies and magazine cars rolled out of that little shop at miles place in Rochester kent in the early days of British customising , here's a few some of us older folk may remember , puddle jumper pop , American graffiti corvette , my own old pop the magician, my old and
ex mark lamode gto then known as sweet painted lady , Ian Dawes black 41 Willys Pete works alongside his son Darren at mechspray and his wife Joan still takes care of the office side of things mech spray are now one of top corvette restorers in the country , I still take a wander up there for a mug of tea relive the old days and see what's in the shop whenever I,m back home they have a fantastic photograph collection of old paint jobs from the golden era of british rodding/customising.
