This is the modern shape Mustang (S197 series) in alloy grey with dark grey (almost black) leather interior. It has only covered 15,000 miles from new. It is UK registered on a 56 plate and has MOT until February 2011 and road tax until the end of August.

Here is the full premium spec: Auto gearbox, air conditioning, angel eye headlamps (like a BMW), remote control central locking and factory alarm, remote control boot release, cruise control, Shaker 500 AM/FM radio and 6 CD in-dash multichanger player (that also plays MP3’s and has an extra port - presumably for an iPod or similar), 17” GT alloy wheels with Pirelli P6 tyres (tyres have done 1000 miles only), “MyColor” dashboard lights (which allows you to mix and match lighting at the touch of a button to create more than 125 colour backgrounds), heated front seats and electric drivers seat.

History: We imported the car ourselves in 2008 (with 8000 miles on the clock) from the reputable Andy Shaw Ford dealership in Sylva, North Carolina. This was Andy Shaw’s (the dealer principle) own personal car, hence the rare colour and high specification and equipment levels that are almost unheard of on a V6 model. (Copies of all the US paperwork and all import documentation come with the car too). The car is totally original and unmolested (apart from the EU lighting conversion naturally) and even still has the dealer tag on the boot and the “North Carolina Division of Motor Vehicles” safety inspection sticker in the windscreen.

I would describe the car to be in superb condition – if not showroom condition – inside and out. The pictures speak for themselves really. It drives absolutely perfectly and needs nothing whatsoever doing to it at all that I can find. It looks and drives exactly like a 15,000 mile car should. We have both original sets of keys and fobs for the car together with service books, handbooks, log book, MOT, etc.

Anyone who wants to check the cars history using the VIN number is more than welcome to do so. There is no finance on the car, nor has it ever had any accident damage or paintwork; potential buyers are welcome to check that as well. I also welcome any professional mechanical inspection prior to sale.

The car can be found on eBay here: eBay Auction Listing

From what I have read they seem to be a good reputable company. He has answered some of my questions on the Mustang forums without pretending that everything is a state secret like some service providers do. 

Surrey Mustang is also the manufaturer of the rear light units that have been converted from US spec by replacing one of the reflectors with an orange lense.  That is discussed on the rear light units page. 

If I needed to use a specialist for anything, I would use Surrey Mustang as my first choice. 

The website is here:  Surrey Mustang

Importers of American cars often end up using untidy motorbike sized plates and other odd items made up by various sign companies.

Here in the UK, the authorities try to restrict the purchase of number plates to only specialist suppliers they can monitor in true Big Brother style. They want certain sized fonts and often a postcode at the bottom of the manufacturer. Who wants that? Big daft fonts designed to fit on standard rectangle number plates squeezed onto small plates?

A few years ago there used to be a company called “States Plates” that used to make up my pressed aluminium style plates. They went bust in the last recession.

I found a place up in Manchester who would make UK style acrylic plates, but they always wanted copies of logbooks, licences and other stuff before they would make it. If the names didn’t match or you didn’t have the correct documents to hand, it was a pain in the arse.

The debate rages on about what is and isn’t legal with font spacing for cars. I have found that as long as it looks pretty reasonable and can be read, nobody really cares. When was the last time you saw a traffic cop with a tape measure examining font sizes? Exactly!

I have now found a number plate supplier where one can circumvent all the crap usually associated with buying number plates. They make German pressed aluminium ones, American pressed aluminium ones, and proper white and yellow acrylic ones made to the correct size for US number plate apertures, and more importantly, they will use a sensible looking font for the size you specify.

The trick to not having to tip up loads of documents is to simply tick “show plate” at the start of the buying process. This removes the requirement for them to have copies of all your documents to satisfy Big Brother.

We have used them many times for cars we have imported and never yet have I been disappointed. The banners to specific areas of their sites for different types of plates are below:

For American sized UK plates, go here:

For American style pressed aluminium plates go here:

For classic car black/silver number plates go here:

Remember to tick “show plate” to reduce bureaucracy and paperwork, and expect them in a few days! How easy is that?

Umm, well no dear reader. No doubt they will be in the coming months, but at the time of writing they are not. I asked the guy I spoke to at VOSA where to find them, and off he went to find out. It turns out that they are currently hiding on the www.transportoffice.gov.uk website in the forms section. Well where else? The Direct.gov website would be too easy right?

Lets’ make it easy for you; they are right here on our servers and you can get them now.

The application form is a MS Word document and you can get it here:

IVA Application Form

The guidance notes are a PDF document and you can get those here:

IVA Guidance Notes

The fees form is also a PDF document and you can get that here:

IVA Fee Schedule

How easy was that? Too easy for the government it seems. 

More on SVA to IVA on this post: New Individual Vehicle Approval (IVA) Test Information and Forms.

The Mustang forums have been bereft of information on the topic up to now. Rumours have been circulating about long delays and hiked prices. So, having a car I needed to test, I called up VOSA today and got the information we need.

They tell me that the test itself for our class of car is essentially unchanged, so all the SVA information on this site remains valid for IVA. I will be confirming this without doubt as I have a vehicle to take for a test in May and have just mailed off the new IVA form.

So what else has changed? The fees have increased as one would expect of this grasping government. The fee is £199 now, and a retest – if necessary – is £40.

The chap on the phone told me there were currently no worse delays than normal, which up here in the frozen wastes of Manchester usually run at around three weeks.

The government has made a great job of hiding the forms also. They will no doubt keep moving them, so you can find them on the IVA Forms Page right here.

Old SVA certificates are valid from 18 months from the date of issue in theory, but you cannot use them after October. If you have a car that got an SVA certificate, make sure you use it before October and it wasn’t issued more than 18 months ago.

I am also not going to go into great detail about where you should route individual wires, you will find your own way that suits you. I will say that your black four core cable goes through the bulkhead from the engine bay above the pedals where there are other cables already. From there it can go behind the inner sill trims, under the back seat and into the boot in the existing ducting you will find.

If you speak to an auto-electrician or an American car specialist, they will tell you how they solder and shrink seal joints where they cut into the wiring. This is the best method of course, and superior to scotch-locks but you have probably been joining bits of wire to other bits of wire for years so use whatever technique you are happy with.

Four relays, sited in the boot, right hand side of the wheel well, attach the DIN rail to the two captive bolts that stick out there already with 10mm nuts and washers. 

You are using the cars original feeds from the existing lights only to switch relays here. So spurs off your front indicators will switch the relays in the boot to work the back indicators. (And maybe back again to feed the repeaters too if you are not using LED’s), a feed from a front sidelight will feed your fog light switch, and out again to the fog light relay in the boot. A feed from the high level brake light will feed the relay for your new brake lights.  

You need a live next, it doesn’t really matter if it is a battery or ignition live. Straight from the battery is safest I think, not forgetting to run it through a suitable fuse (or fuses according to your taste) first of course.

This battery live will loop and power all your lights and be split and routed through the relays accordingly. The four core cable that runs from front to back is 1) LH indicator, 2) RH indicator, 3) from fog light switch and 4) The new live to feed your new relays in the boot. 

Drill a hole and site the fog lamp switch next to the main headlamp switch or nearby according to your taste. (As long as you can see it from the drivers’ seat.) An example is in the picture on the fog lamp page.  

When you plug in your new Euro back lights, the reverse light and tail lights will work already, there are plugs in the box – with them you can wire up to your new feeds from the relays so they plug on the appropriate lights, they are labelled at the lamp so it is not rocket science. The old brake/indicator light feeds are dealt with by the Euro lights. 

If you use modified lights (as opposed to Euro lights) you will need to put in resistors to slow the indicator flashers down and make the SJB think it is still doing the same job as before (Seek advice from the forums about exactly what and where if you are doing this). 

Wire your relays according to the information on the relay page. Remember to fit your back EMF protection diodes, and be aware that it is imperative they are fitted the correct way round first time. If in doubt, read the diode section again. Take the earth feeds for your relays from the earth tag you will see nearby in the boot. 

Time to take the headlamps out. The front bumper cover needs to come off – its only a few bolts. If you choose to drill the headlights and insert a sidelight rather than use “Angel Eyes”, take them out and do it slowly, upside down with an assistant nearby holding a vacuum cleaner tube next to the bulb hole. If you dont, you will fill the headlight with white plastic swarf (depending where you drill it) which is hard to remove. If you are using ‘Angel Eyes’ you just swap them over. Use the feeds from the original orange side marker light in the front bumper (that you should disconnect anyway for SVA) to power your new sidelights).

Your wing repeaters you can tap straight off your front indicators also; drill the appropriate hole in the wing to accept them. Lose the front amber marker light as described already, and to be on the safe side, take out the pop out rear red side marker units and remove the bulbs for the test. (Different testers take different views on those.) 

And thats about it! The next thing you should do is use the plastic ducting you bought to enclose any wires out of the way, so it looks like a proper job. Tape and/or cable tie all new wires at 300mm intervals anywhere an inspector may see them: boot, under bonnet and above pedals. This is part of the SVA/IVA test so hide and disguise them well, he told me everything should look like the manufacturer did it. So no spaghetti junctions, visible scotch-locks (yuk!) or cock-ups! Everything else other than lights on the S197 Mustang should fly through a UK IVA/SVA test without difficulty at time of writing. 

If you think I have omitted anything or made a mistake here, use the comment box below to say so.

The vast majority of items can be had by mail order, the advertisers on this site will be as good a source as any. The internet tends to make suppliers of this kind of stuff quite competitive as they know you are only a  mouse click away from another supplier who is maybe cheaper than them.

Throughout the articles you may find links to individual suppliers and other resources that I use. So, its time to double check your shopping list before you start. First, the specific parts you will be buying in: 

• A pair of Euro style tail lamps. 
• A pair of Angel Eye head lamps. 
• 4 Omron relays.
• 4 Omron relay bases.
• A short length of DIN rail. 
• A pair of side repeater lights for the front wings. 
• 4 diodes (they come only in packs of ten actually).
• An illuminated fog lamp switch. 
• A length of (black outer) four core suitable cable, probably around 7 meters long. 
• A fuse arrangement of your choice (in line or blade units) 

Thats the big stuff. Other than that, make sure you have some assorted automotive cable in various colours, and you will also need some plastic cable ducting (look under the bonnet if unsure – that stuff) together with the usual assortment of connectors, spades, tape, soldering stuff and cable ties that should be in any automotive toolbox. 

You are now good to go, lets make a start…..

If you know another one, you are welcome to add it using the comments box below. It tends to be the case that many people will cross inhabit both forums, and as a result there are many duplicate topics and posts by contributors. 

The forums are an excellent resource, but of course one must often wade through the off topic posts and white noise that forums invariably attract to get to the information you want. 

The first is the forum for the MOCGB (Mustang Owners Club of Great Britain) You can go straight to that forum by clicking this link. 

The second is a forum dedicated to the S197 Mustang. You can go straight to that forum by clicking this link. 

I am unaware of the connection (if any) between the two, nor the attitude of one toward the other. They seem to link and reference each other so it seems doubtful there is much rivalry between them.

Some people (on a V8) modify the front fog switch wiring to operate the rear fogs. I prefer to tamper with the original wiring as little as possible, so I fit a new switch. (V6 cars do not have a fog switch anyway so you have no choice but to fit a new one in that instance.)

You need an illuminated switch. It should be visible from the driving seat ideally in order to pass a test. I use an after market one and site it near the regular light switch. You can see where I put it from the picture below: 

Such a switch has three terminals.

1) Live in to operate the red LED in the switch, and to feed the switch. (Switch “in” if you like) I take this feed from a front sidelight (some people use a dipped headlamp, but then it tends to go off on main beam). This means the switch will only be powered when the lights are on as it should be. 

2) One terminal is an earth, merely to complete the connection for the  red LED in the switch. Just take one from the under dash metalwork. 

3) The third terminal is the wire that will be fed down to the boot to operate the fog lamp relay that you will fit. (Switch “out” if you prefer.) 

In the boot, you will have a relay you allocated for your fog light. This wire down from the switch will go to terminal 5 on your Omron relays. Refer to the relay page for relay wiring.

When a coil is switched off, a large BACK EMF appears across the coil. This back EMF may be several thousand volts in value, enough to destroy the SJB over time.

To deal with this we fit a diode at the relay, its low resistance short circuits the back EMF voltage and protects the SJB. You can get the diodes from any diode retailer, and they look like this: 

They are referred to as 4001 diode. You may find them listed as 628-9546 or 1N4007-E3 depending where you are looking. 

Observe that one end has a silver stripe on it, that is to ensure you fit it the correct way around. It is imperative they are fitted the correct way round. 

The diode goes between 1 and 5 on your Omron relay bases, bridging between the only feed from the SJB (being the light you have tapped from) and ground – with the black end of the diode going to the Nr 1 ground terminal.  Put another way, black end to earth, silver striped end to switching live from the light you tapped from.

Cover the exposed parts with some sheathing of some kind. I use household earth sheathing (like you might find in a plug socket) to cover the whole exposed diode. I am sure there is a politically correct colour that those who specialise in EU babble will know about – point being, just cover it up somewhow so nothing shorts out on it later on.