I don’t really know how auto body shops actually fabricate new bumpers or how “body kits” are made, but after this week, I’m fairly secure in the knowledge that if the need arose, I could totally pimp out your Civic. After giving up on buying a new case, I did a complete and total 360 and decided not only to simply paint me old case but to completely overhaul/mod it, top to bottom.

What started with the idea to put some new paint on the case has spiraled dangerously close to crazy land. My latest brain child is to recreate and pay homage to the awesome Shelby Cobra Mustang. My inspiration comes from some of the photos of the 2008 special edition, more specifically, the front end.

I’ve taken the lower half of the front of my case and built up the equivalant of a body kit using modeling clay, wire mesh and Bondo. I’ve crafted it as close to the style of the Mustang as I can, with a thin sloped “lip” along the top, a thicker lower half with a bar across the middle and a deeper more inset grill on the lower portion. I’m applying the last layers of Bondo tonight and will start the sanding process to make sure all the angles are smooth. Then I’ll finish priming it along with the other front panel and the sides.

Tomorrow I’ll start in on the actual paint. Since I’m not a big fan of silver, I’m making the entire case metallic blue with a thin double racing strip, probably in silver. I haven’t decided if it’ll be strait vertical up the front as in the picture, or horizontal along the sides of the case, much in the same way the detailing on the actual car is done. We’ll see.

In part news, I ordered a not-so-smoking GeForce 8400GS, which will be here tomorrow, courtasy of the Egg. It’s only a stop gap for the time being. Compared to my current card however, it should still be more powerful, as well as DirectX 10 compliant. Not that I’ll be running Vista any time soon, but still, should the need arise, it’s nice to have.

We’ll see how the new parts shake out once I get it all together this weekend. I’ve got a horrible urge to play the Orange Box, mostly Team Fortress, and that’s an urge that simply can’t be denied.

Matt out.