Well, as of today I’m the official owner of Ford Barn. It took me exactly a year to pay off Shelly with crisp green backs, but here I am… Owner. Editor. Moderator. Target of jokes. And it has been a great year. We’ve done a complete redesign. We’ve completely changed the site’s software. We’ve protected the past. We’ve protected the future.

In any case, I thought it would be interesting on this special day to go back and look at the stats of the site to see how we’ve done numerically. All of the changes we’ve done over the past year were actually quite risky. It’s amazingly easy to drive folks off with change and we did a whole lot of it… And you know what, I think we did a smash up job. These numbers prove it:

Pageview growth in the past 365 days: 72.34%
Unique visitor growth in the past 365 days: 49.5%
Average time spent on site growth in the past 365 days: 86.51%
Average number of posts per day growth in the past 365 days: 64%

Not too bad, huh?

Anyway, a special thanks to all of you fellas that have been so patient with me over the past year. This was a big hurdle to jump and we couldn’t have done it without all of you guys being understanding, willing to learn, and willing to give me a shot. I owe ya all…

In September of 1931, the New York Times asked Henry Ford what he thought life would be like in 2011. His answer was forgotten and mostly lost until recently when a South Carolina Law Firm stumbled upon the script. Henry’s answer was not specific so much as it was emotional and I thought you guys might get a kick out of it.

I love before and after shots… They are tangible evidence of dedication, hard work, passion, and everything else it takes to restore an old Ford. If a single picture is worth a thousand words, how many words is two worth?

Check out this great thread.

Have a pesky head on your banger that refuses to budge? No sweat… ElRod has the answer.

Check it out.

Wow… It’s been a crazy couple of weeks here at the brand spanking new Ford Barn World Headquarters. Acquiring the Ford Barn was not in the cards for this year, but we just couldn’t sit idly buy and let the doors close. We’d simply gotten too much out of the joint in the past to let that happen. A quick phone call to every man’s hero, Shelly, and the deed was done. Now you fellas have to put up with me as I try like hell to fill her huge shoes.

The first order of business was to get the Ford Barn into a more modern environment. You are looking at the new threads right now… Ain’t she grand? This was done for two primary reasons:

1. The old Ford Barn data is priceless and we wanted it preserved and searchable. The new format will allow us to search all of the great posts of old and learn from our past… and that’s what we are all about, right? While the old data has not been imported yet, it will be very soon. Hold your horses.

2. The old Ford Barn was also hard to use, full of spam, and just downright impossible to maintain. The new format fixes all of this and gives all of you many more options as far as functionality.

Now, I’m sure there is a contingent of you that is resistant to change. I get it. And I’m going to try as hard as I can to ease you into this new format. Take your time, be patient, and you just might be surprised with what we have put together here. A good place to start is with the basic tutorial I put together for you. Click here to check it out.

The rest of you are probably pretty familiar with our format. Jump in and have fun… This all for you.

To close, I just want to thank Shelly once again for giving me this opportunity. She has served this community so well over the years and I am honored to pick up the torch and give it my all as well.

See you fellas on the flip side.

Ryan Cochran

P.S. There are bound to be some bugs and broken links floating around the new site. If you see any, just post them on the Q&S forum. I’ll get em fixed!