Fender apron

[shelbymann1970]

When did the ribbed(rev limiter) DS front apron start showing up on Dearborn cars?

[TOBKOB]

About the time Boss 302's came out I believe. My April 7th car has the ribbed version.

TOB

[shelbymann1970]

About the time Boss 302's came out I believe. My April 7th car has the ribbed version.

TOB

Thanks. I am trying to find the earliest known date that they started appearing  and the latest the flat panel was still being used. Possibly an overlap depending on how the stock was rotated. 

[TOBKOB]

Here is a thread from CMF site that might help...https://www.concoursmustang.com/forum/index.php?topic=19904.msg125833#msg125833

TOB

[shelbymann1970]

Here is a thread from CMF site that might help...https://www.concoursmustang.com/forum/index.php?topic=19904.msg125833#msg125833

TOB

Excellent article. That sums up a lot. I wonder if Jeff or Bob (or Ed) has an update on this since it was last updated almost 4.5 years ago.

[Bill]

About the time Boss 302's came out I believe. My April 7th car has the ribbed version.

TOB

Thanks. I am trying to find the earliest known date that they started appearing  and the latest the flat panel was still being used. Possibly an overlap depending on how the stock was rotated.

To date, 1584 (March 31st, 1969) is the earliest known ribbed inner fender panel. In addition, also the earliest known "non prototype" big suspension car.

Bill

[J_Speegle]

Excellent article. That sums up a lot. I wonder if Jeff or Bob (or Ed) has an update on this since it was last updated almost 4.5 years ago.

Just check my spreadsheet. Not sure how long ago I updated this specific page.

From cars we have real completion dates on from Dearborn the last (that I have records and pictures of) was completed March 25th and the earliest completed car with a ribbed panel is March 31st. So we have a 5 day spread. Depending on if Ford wanted the old style panel pulled and not used up the change may be a hard change or if they wanted to use up the earlier design there may have been a "soft" change. We don't know. Like in other examples the earlier versions could be moved over to the service replacement division and sold to dealers and body shops like other body panels.

Do have examples of six cars with lower VINs than the March 31st example but we don't have real completion dates for those cars. All six could have been built after the 31st or between the 25th and the 31st. We just don't know currently.

Hope this helps

[crossboss]

I believe it was a requirement for crash standards.

[shelbymann1970]

I believe it was a requirement for crash standards.

The ribs would have made it stronger so not exactly a crash standard item. They want the panels to give easier to absorb the impact.That would be my take. All our sheet metal we design and engineer at GM has all kinds of buckling points built it and that is why hoods buckle into a upside down V and not just shear off hood hinge bolts and decapitate a driver. Chrysler had that problem with their 70 Challenger shaker hoods(Cuda hoods are different and were not a problem) so the hoods became NA for much of the 70 year until the fix was made to the inner hood dies and why the T/A hood was offered on non T/A cars(fresh air drag racing).