I bought my second white 302 auto trans bucket seat 71 Grabber yesterday, but the last one I had 20 years ago in High School. This one came from the origional owner and has lived in the same California city its entire life. It is a red interior car with A/C, my childhood ride was a blue interior without A/C. This one is stone stock down to the whitewalls, origional licencse plate frames from the dealer, origional paint etc... It has never been hit. It has 196,000 miles and the engine has never been opened up! The car has had regular maintenence, fresh suspension and steering componets, engine asccessories, and brakes as needed over the years. The transmission was overhauled 25,000 ago. All of this is in a logbook and a pile of old receipts. The engine has power and runs well but is tired. Should I keep it stone stock or install a hidden 300-400 HP roller cam engine? I would paint the aluminum heads and intake blue after removing the logo's and try to use the stock aircleaner by letting in extra air with hidden holes (I know it is a compromise). Any Maverick fanatic in the rust-belt want this car more than I do? I am not sure that I have the time for it at this point in my life, but I could not pass it up when I saw it.
I am in Sacramento. I have never posted a picture before (anywhere!) so I am going to try it now with a picture of my daily driver mustang. It just happens to be on this computer. Please bear with me. I have a nice camera I use for pictures at work, and I have sent them by mail, but I am just a web-posting neophyte. If I can figure this out, I will post pictures of the Grabber next week after it is clean and I can use the company camera to take some pictures of it. As a side note, did you know that it takes a 71 Grabber 12.1 seconds and 1165 feet to complete a US DOT "High Speed Pass" (there is a diagram) and 185 feet to stop from 60 MPH? In with the owners manual paperwork is a printout from Ford with my VIN on it and a bunch of "Consumer Information" on it.
Awesome! Welcome to the board! I'm interested in the Grabber as well. email me norcalmavnut@hotmail.com -Corbin
I just bought a 71 v8 Grabber as well. Mine is white with red interior also but is probably not nearly in the condition yours is. I am very interested in seeing some pictures. How much did it cost you? -Erick
The car is not perfect. The hood stripe is faded through and the body has 33 years/196,000 miles of accumulated door dings etc... The origional paint and side stripes seem like they will survive though with some attention. Has anybody tried to repaint the hood stripe (black area) over an origional? The stock stuff feels like vinyl stucco! Can it be shot with regular paint with some flattening agent in it? Yesterday I put sparkplugs in it, I forgot how tight these cars are (especially with A/C hoses on the right). Not as bad as my old 390 mustang with smog/air injection, but not easy either! If you have a power brake booster installed, do you have to get at the rear of the left bank from below? On the immediate need list is the Maverick emblem for the drivers fender (looks recently AWOL), two decent red armrests (torn), and a red drivers sunvisor (sags because of broken fiberboard inside of it). Anybody got spares for sale?
