1968 Mustang GT 2+2 Fastback by Revology | Purple Pony

Hi, I'm Tom Scarpello of Ravology Cars, and this is car number 362, a 1968 Mustang GT Fastback in velvet purple metallic with black Nappa leather interior. Today I'm going to take you on a walk around of this car and we're going to go for a drive. Let's get started. Okay, 1968 Mustang GT Fastback. You know, a lot of clients ask me, Tom, how do I get my car featured in one of your videos? You know, we're building about eight cars a month these days, and we might do two videos a month. We don't have time to film every car. Well, painting your car purple is one good way to get in a video for sure. So this is velvet purple metallic. It's a beautiful color on a beautiful car. You know, I think the 60s Mustangs are some of the most beautiful automotive shapes, and there really isn't any color that they don't look great in. This velvet purple metallic is a beautiful color. It's a Porsche color. I think you can still special order it on your Porsche these days. It's interesting when a car goes through the assembly plant and all of the technicians comment on it favorably. You know, you've really put together something special. This is one of these cars that everyone just gives the thumbs up. It's just really sharp, really unique. I love it. I think it's a great color. You know, the 60s Mustangs have that iconic style because it's just a beautiful shape. You know, this is the way they looked in 1968 at the front. You know, you've got the turn signal hood. That was the deluxe hood. It's a neat feature. You can see the turn signal flashing from the driver's seat. This car's equipped with the Magnum 500 wheels. That is not an original wheel for 68, but it is correct for the era that wheel came out in 1969. The GT had a little ornamentation here at the quarter. Of course, you've got your quarter vents there. That was part of the 68. Of course, in 1968 you had the safety regulations required, your side marker lamps and reflectors in the rear. The rear of the 68 Mustang is as per the original. You've got the GT fuel cap there, the Mustang emblems, the quad tips there poking out under the valance. So, really original. The only tip-offs that you would see to the trained eye is the ceramic frit on the backlight glass and on the windshield, the lack of an antenna mast, the lack of a key cylinder on the passenger side, and that's about it. Otherwise, you're looking at a 68 Mustang. Of course, it's velvet purple. That might get your attention. This is black Nappa leather with the brushed aluminum accents. The car is equipped with an automatic transmission. This is the 10R80. This is our design T-handle shifter. This car is also equipped with the optional leather-wrapped steering wheel, which gives a really nice feel. So, very original looking interior. However, significantly elevated craftsmanship and fit and finish, as well as ergonomics and seat comfort. Really nice driving environment. So, speaking of driving, let's go for a ride. All right, we're driving car 362 1968 Mustang GT Fastback. So, we've stopped building the naturally aspirated version of the 68 Fastback. We're still doing the Cobra Jet, the supercharged 68 Fastback. We're doing the 68 Convertible as a naturally aspirated, but we just have to limit the complexity a bit because we've added the new models with the Boss 429 and the Boss 302, both as a 69 and 70 model for each of those. So, I think what we'll see more of in the future is, you know, us bringing models in, running them for a while, and then taking them out and replacing them with other models so that we can have a bit less complex manufacturing operation. It just makes it easier to manage, you know, as we're getting up to higher volume around eight units a month. You know, it's important to manage that complexity and that allows us to be efficient and to produce the highest quality vehicle possible. So, at least for the time being, we're not building the 68 naturally aspirated Fastback. So, this is one of the last of this particular configuration. So, you know, one of the things people ask about is, you know, how many vehicles are ordered by the customer, specced out by the customer, versus built to stock and then sold as an already completed or already restored vehicle. The vast majority are ordered by the customer. So, like this car obviously was. The neat thing about that is you can build it exactly the way you want and, you know, this is how you get a beautiful velvet purple 68 Mustang GT. Someone has a vision and we execute that vision. But we do build some inventory cars and the reason that we started to do that was we found a lot of customers that when they decide they're ready to buy, they're ready to buy. And if we didn't have a car and they had to wait six to nine months for a car, that was too long and they just weren't willing to wait and they would go off to the auction or something and buy. So, we thought it made sense to, you know, build some inventory cars and do them in conventional colors. And to an extent that works, but longer term, you know, maybe we'll do less of that and really focus more on cars built to the customer specification because, you know, it's really difficult to predict, particularly when you have a complex lineup, what people are going to want. Not just in terms of colors and trims, but also, you know, which model. You know, our Shelby models are really popular right now, but there was a period of three months I remember we didn't build one Shelby at all. And the reason I remember is that, you know, we make our royalty payments quarterly and that quarter we had zero royalty payments to Shelby. And it's like sort of interesting and then we changed our mix to reflect that and then all of a sudden the demand for Shelby really increased. You know, there wasn't anything that we had done to drive it. When you're dealing with such low volumes, it's hard to read patterns because you don't have a statistically valid sample size and you're just seeing, you know, variability, you know, a couple of units variability for us. I mean, that's a big swing, you know, it means a lot financially. It's risky to guess wrong and build the wrong car as an inventory car because you could be stuck with it for a while until you find the right buyer that's looking for that particular configuration. So I would say probably future state is going to be fewer cars built to stock and more emphasis on built to order. We had a visit from Rick Schmidt and Scott Halseth from National Parts Depot. For those of you that don't know, National Parts Depot is one of the premier retailers of restoration parts for classic automobiles. They've got four warehouses and carry a massive inventory and just like everything you could possibly need for your classic vehicle project. All different brands, great customer service, great responsiveness. You know, we've worked with NPD for a long time. I used to buy NPD parts when I was a teenager working on my first car, my 65 Mustang. They were in to the factory, visited, you know, a few weeks ago, took our Boss 429 for a test drive and Rick was on a podcast, the Muscle Car Place podcast shortly after. Had some really nice things to say about Robology and about his time in the car. We'll put a link to that podcast. So thanks Rick so much for your comments. We really appreciate it. You know, it takes a lot of talented people working together for a long time to execute something like this. You know, it's not just the work of a handful of people. It's really great to see that work appreciated by someone who is truly an expert. That's really meaningful for us and we really appreciate it.