Install a Hood

The NASA-scooped hood is a staple of the ’71-’73 Mustang crowd. As with red paint on a car, this type of hood has been placed on more cars per capita than those that originally came with it. Who can blame the owners? The hood is quite cool-looking and adds muscular flare to an otherwise fleet—if somewhat mundane—Pony.

But sadly, accurate information on the black-painted hood has been minimal. This has caused many to end up with Mustangs that sport oddly applied or highly glossy topcoats. The blackout, according to Bob Perkins, was put on the car via a template after the paint was completed.

Our blackout was pulled from an all-original-paint ’73 Mach 1. The blackout is what we would term typical. That is not to say that there might have been some variation in length or semigloss. Overall we think that the stripes are spot-on for what Ford did. The black paint was—according to the ’71 literature—a two-tone finish in black or argent. Our hood—which was painted by Jeff Thompson at Michael’s Auto Body in Winter Haven, Florida—still had the blacked-out inner panel when we found it, but more on that later.