joel and john - you beat me to it . earlier today - right after i posted the pic of the #96 , i tried to post the pic of phil bonner's t-bolt hardtop [ pictured below ] , but this blasted computer gave me all sorts of problems , so i got frustrated and shut it off . anyway , i was going to ask about the same thing - did HM build more than one fairlane ? the wheel openings are cut differently in the pix above . i'll tell you the little bit that i think i know about the car . before i start , joel asked about a #1 fairlane that he'd seen racing in nascar . the pic below shows pete hamilton in one of the daytona permatex races - tho i don' know what year . this could be the one that you saw - or not . lots of fairlanes were used on the short tracks back in the '60's - '70's . i'd always wondered why that fairlane was not raced in nascar grand national . phil bonner told me they couldn't make it handle , while ralph moody said nascar outlawed it . the former seems unlikely , as it certainly did well in the continental . but that squared off "C" pillar may have had something to do with it { like the '62 galaxies that ford was forced to race in '62 ] . on the other hand , the '64 fairlane had a 115 1/2 inch wheelbase [IIRC] - 1/2 inch short of the nascar minimum in '64 [ curiously , ford lengthened the '65 fairlane WB 1/2 inch , tho they never showed any inclination toward racing it ] - so perhaps that's the reason nascar outlawed it . let's skip ahead to phil bonner . phil's thunderbolt was wrecked by an employee in mid '64 . phil told me that ford gave him the fairlane HT , telling him he could replace his wrecked car with it . as phil said , he had the only thunderbolt HARDTOP authorized by ford . phil raced it as a match racer , as it was never a legal super stock . he sold it sometime later , but recovered it sometime in the late '80's , or thereabouts . he restored it and it was displayed at car shows . i saw it in the mid '90's at either the "all ford nationals" [ carlisle , pa. ] , or one of the first S/S reunions in VA. i bought this photo , then later took a bunch of detail photos of the car [ i'm a model builder ] . i can't remember if the car had the shock towers in it or not . if the towers were there , it's likely that it's not the car pictured in front of the HM shop , as i doubt phil would've put them back to go match racing . i'll see if i can find those photos . it would seem likely to me that HM may have built more than one fairlane , however . does anyone remember the '64 falcon that was entered in that same continental ? it was a factory built car , tho i can't remember if HM built it . it was driven by sports car driver walt hansgen , and used small block power . i think i have a few small pix of it . jack
here's another pic of the fairlane during the continental . the pic also shows the walt hansgen driven falcon . jack
Please excuse me intruding and my lack of stock car knowledge here, but what track was the photo of the Fairlane and Falcon above taken at? Again, I'm quite sorry for a stupid question, but what was the 'continental race' referred to? I never saw the smaller cars on the high banks and this is quite interesting to me. Thanx; Tom S. in Tn.
The track is Daytona. The 24 hour race there in the winter for sporty cars was originally called the Daytona Continental (even before it was a 24 hour long race, btw).
hey tom - don't feel you're intruding or asking stupid questions [ stupid questions are usually reserved for me to ask ] . no one knows it all , and this thread is all about sharing what we do know [ or think we know ] . jack
I have no knowledge of the round track Fairlanes. Phil Bonner did have his restored T-Bolt hardtop at a couple of my Super Stock Reunions about 15 years ago. He did explain how after the post car was destroyed he received the hardtop and then the Falcon. The last I heard Bonner lives in Costa Rica.
hi frank - i think phil devides his time between decator [ i know i misspelled that ] , georgia and costa rica .
I am one of the posters on the FE forum and as I said there, they tested the Fairlane in speedway configuration at Atlanta International Speedway but found that it didn't make a good speedway car. I have some old clippings somewhere that were in the Atlanta paper at the time showing Lorenzen and the car and the car on the track. A good fastback top sure would have been nice.
i hope you can post those clippings and photos . i , for one , would sure like to see them . i found my photos of phil's fairlane . they were taken at both the "S/S reunion" and the "all ford nats" - both in '95 . i'll post them shortly .
here are phil's thunderbolt hardtop photos . the first pic was taken by charlie morris at the ' 95 S/S reunion . the rest were taken by genuine jack , his own self , at the '95 "all ford nats" . the interior looks like a t-bolt , except for the lack of a back seat , window cranks , and the upholstery being the wrong color . but there are those shock towers . so now i'm wondering - might HM have built 2 fairlanes.....one with shock towers and the other without....for testing ? does anyone have any knowledge , comments , or speculation ?
Phil seemed to have a knack for coming up with a hardtop when everyone else had a sedan. When his first '62 lightweight sedan was wrecked in a towing accident he took the lightweight parts off and put then on a hardtop. This is the result, the Frank Vego car, and a later reproduction by Jacky Jones of the way it was raced after Bonner sold it to Oscar Parker:
actually , phil told me that the "bad news" car was the real thing - one of his original cars . but i have to admit that he seemed a little tentative when he answered me , as tho he might not have been sure . there were a couple of magazine articles , years ago , that also said it was a former bonner car . then there's the white hardtop . charlie morris and i saw this car race at one of the S/S reunions in the mid- '90's . it was owned and driven by ed lavender ; powered by an enlarged FE with 2 x 4 carbs , and beat up on everything that faced him . i've got pix i took that day , if anyone is interested . charlie later wrote a piece on the car called "if whales could fly" , as it was no lightweight !!
The car Jacky has is a reproduction, I used to help with the original back in '63. The Lavender car is a sedan and is represented as Bonner's second car. Photos of the Lavender car:
Well Jack, Those shots put an end to the belief that the Fireball car became the hard top T Bolt, don't they?
oops - i was thinking [ actually , "mis-remembering" ] that ed lavender's car was a hardtop . i hadn't dug out the photos yet , so i don't suppose there's any need to now . thanx for clarifying .
well , it sure does look that way , unless HM had built a second fairlane . it sure looks like the 2 1964 photos are 2 different cars .
Sorry guys if this derails our train of thought but, does anyone remember Darel Deringer? Did he drive any H/M prepped cars? His son lives a short distance from me in Indy and has alot of cool old NASCAR stuff
Darel drove Mercs for Stroppe and Bud Moore. Just about all of the '63-'64 Marauders were built by Stroppe. But Dieringer did later drive H&M built Fairlanes for Junior Johnson. Darel was also Goodyear's tire test guy. He intentionally ran over more than a few spikes at more than 100 mph during the development of the inner liner. It took large attachments to do that for sure. http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/...95300099.41289.157884174258948&type=1&theater of course, there was a certain other Holman Moody built Galaxie that Dieringer drove before he was a Mercury man. Let's see who can pick out the race, year and car owner.
That's FE Bob Fermier standing with Phil Bonner at Sol Stewart's Old Drag Racers Reunion dow around Panama City, FL area. FE Bob and his late brother ran a fast 385-406 Ford sedan back in the sixties. Joel
Thanks for the info. That is a great pic by the way. I will let darel jr know about this thread. He once gave me about eight milk crates full of magazines,photos and memorbilia to look through about his dad. He has his dads Southern 500 winners trophy and some driving suites as well. He worked for the Allisons andcan tell stories all day about 60's and 70's stock car stuff.
Here's a three paintings I've done of Ford H-M connected cars ... the first is Turner and Weatherly in their '57 convertables ... the second is an in-progress one of David Pearson's Talladega. The third is the H-M built Phil Bonner Daddy Warbucks Falcon. Joel
It was indeed. Wouldn't it have been cool to watch that Dieringer and that lumbering H&M Galaxie run down and overtake the little tiddler cars on the track? HA! The Owner was a young, well heeled lass named Maime Reynolds.
Darel Dieringer finished 7th in the '64 Daytona 500 in his Bill Stroppe '64 Mercury. I had a factory '64 Mercury 427-425 in the mid '80s (pictured below) and had it out at Charlotte Motor Speedway during qualifying and Darel couldn't get over the car. It obviously brought back some good memories. He was about 60 at the time and was very friendly.
Hi . Most guys dream of the good ol days . I lived them . I worked on the number 15 and 16 from Jones after my dads boss bought them . Also worked on the Don White and Norm Nelson cars after he bought them . Damn i feel old .
Thanx, and to all. I know a couple guys who are like me and were very intrigued to see this pic of the small cars running Daytona. Tom
Another picture I borrowed from Jimmy Tucker on my visit to H-M a couple weeks ago. Jimmy wrote down the names on all the guys but the far left. Can you name him? Do any of you know what the guys did (except Unser and the mystery man). I know what Charlie Gray and Paul Norris did but not the others.
The Jalopy Journal
