Stripes by Scotty : I'm not even sure what happened...

Looks like it has been at least 6 months since I've posted on here... So here's some updates on the truck, pinstriping, and life in general.

Last August-ish I got to do complete paint and pinstripe jobs on a couple of bikes built by my friend Tyler (Bang Moto) for a local show called the Salty Bike Revival. It was a great show and for some of my first complete tanks I was pretty happy with the results and look forward to more projects where I get to do more than just a few stripes.

I started school at Utah Valley University last fall as a Collision Repair Technology student and have been loving going to school for something that I have a passion for. I didn't completely abandon all of the business and accounting base I built for myself at LDS Business College though, I'm enrolled in the Bachelor's program for Technology Management at UVU which essentially is a business management type program with a trade emphasis such as automotive, computer science etc. Mine is obviously in body and paint. I'll move into the second year of that Fall 2016 and hope to graduate within a year after that.

With school in that field, I've been spending afternoons prepping for an awesome painter at a body shop in Pleasant Grove. We do mostly collision work which I'm totally fine with. Just like my time at Joe's turning wrenches, you've got to learn the basics and create good habits on the regular cars before you deserve time on the high end or cool stuff. Oh hey, speaking of Joe's...

That motor we built at his place before I went on my mission... Well its torn apart and on the stand again, and the truck itself is in similar shape. I started tearing into it at school last October after Kulture Krash was over since it completely took over my life until the show was over. I've been running all of the social media marketing for the show and its been a lot of fun to plan and create content to create hype for the show. The show went great last October, I'll post some of the artwork I did for the auction etc... we raised over $14,000 that got passed on to local charities to help Utah families and children in less fortunate circumstances. ... Later in October I had the awesome opportunity to get to go and tag some various spots throughout an awesome restaurant up in Park City called Billy Blanco's: Motor City Mexican, if you're a gearhead, you need to check out this place!
Oh back to the truck... Some big changes.

I'm finally following through with the idea that sparked 6 year ago when I first got my Mercury Marauder FE valve covers when I thought about creating a Mercury M100 clone with the truck instead of the usual F100. Everybody looks under the hood and gets confused when there's big bold script that says MERCURY instead of Power by Ford anyways, so why not. I've been posting photos of the build on Facebook as well as on Instagram with #projectmarauderm100 ... The 390 is going back in it but under some different circumstances.

The body is being reworked for paint right now. I've shaved seams along the front of the hood, roofline on the cab, rear end caps on the bed and still have the main seam on the bed to weld and smooth. The frame got sectioned 12 inches as well as the bed so the truck will now be sporting a 7 foot bed instead of 8. Everybody is already asking, "Is that a short bed?" "Nope" "Well is it a long bed?" "Nope. Its a medium bed!" Its completely different in its own way. I'm going for what a late 60's/early 70's sport truck could have been. I've also been working on the Crown Vic front suspension swap that has become fairly common on these trucks to get rid of the I Beam and drum brake setup. I could go on and on, but I'd rather just show you.
Check out my facebook page for more pictures: facebook.com/stripesbyscotty
Thanks for visiting!
See you in Manti in June!