Cars In Depth

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Once the chassis and body modifications are done, the cars go to the interior trim department. The Stage 3 Roush Mustangs come with a complete interior package with embroidered leather seats with suede inserts, suede door panel inserts, a suede shift boot and lots of contrasting detail stitching. As an aside, I’m getting a little tired of contrasting detail stitching on leather car upholstery. In real life, my day job is running a small embroidery shop and I understand why that detail stitching is popular: it looks good. When you put running stitches on leather like that, it doesn’t just create color contrast, it creates texture because the stitches end up quilting the leather just a bit. I use contrasting detail stitching myself on the club patches for one of the motorcycle clubs that I work for. Why? Because it looks good. However, it’s become one of those styling fads and it would be nice if more automakers used contrasting piping, like Jaguar does. Either way, the Stage 3 interior is rather nice. After the upholstery on the seats is replaced, because the seats contain air bags, the air bag deployment system has to be recalibrated and validated with a rather expensive testing cell, which is the white apparatus over on the right side of the interior department.

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At the end of the initial assembly line, technicians start to apply the decals and stripes that identify Roush Mustangs. The red car in the video above is a Stage 3 car, you can tell by the wide fender stripe being applied. The video below shows a tech named James installing the hood stripe that surrounds the power bulge, from start to finish.

Start the YouTube 3D video player. Click on the red 3D icon in the menu bar to select 2D or your choice of stereo 3D formats

Start the YouTube 3D video player. Click on the red 3D icon in the menu bar to select 2D or your choice of stereo 3D formats

Once the Roush suspension pieces are installed on the Stage 1, 2 and 3 Mustang GT based cars (the V6 based Mustang RS is mostly an appearance package). The higher performance cars get Roush wheels and Cooper RS3 tires, which the tour guide told us have been developed specifically for the Roush Mustangs. The six cylinder cars get wheels removed from the Mustang GTs, so it is an upgrade.

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After the Mustangs and other vehicles are delivered to Roush Performance, the actual build process begins with the cars and trucks being driven into the building in sequence to fill specific build sheets.