R model Fairlane

[MosportGreen66]

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Wow, and all built with open rear?

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From what I understand, Ford did not option cars with high numeric rears like GM and Mopar did. I do not know why, but this is my general understanding.

[370454s]

Open rearend is not too uncommon. All 65 Z-16 Chevelles had open 12 Bolts.
Mike

[68 Vert]

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Open rearend is not too uncommon. All 65 Z-16 Chevelles had open 12 Bolts.
Mike

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I agree that it's not uncommon...but 57 purpose built drag cars, built all the the same color with open rearend seems odd.

Not being a 'Ford guy', did the factory figure that the rears/gears were going to be changed anyways, so why add the cost to the car and put a peg legger in there?

Mike

[Charley Lillard]

LOL...Phil could answer you but he still can't acess the site.

[1970Bluel78]

Now that is one fine " SuperCar " Good Luck with the sale

[Xplantdad]

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LOL...Phil could answer you but he still can't acess the site.

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So why did you ban him Charley? LOL

[novarichie]

i don,t know,factory built race car with a heater?

[tom406]

Not so much a factory race car, such as a Thunderbolt, Z11 Impala, or '68 Hemi Dart/Barracuda, but an homologation special, just like the ZL1 Camaros. Build 50+ to get them OK'd for Stock/Super Stock, but still street legal and able to be driven on the street by those so inclined. ZL1 Camaros had heaters and while they didn't have open rears, they did have those restrictive 396 exhaust manifolds and exhaust systems.

As for Ford's delivering them with open rears- Equa Lock rearends are somewhat rare in the early/late '60's. I don't know if there was a reliability problem or what, but Ford Engineering and Carroll Shelby seemed to favor Detroit Lockers at this point for racing efforts, but their noisy action created a lot of unwarranted complaints at the dealership level. My guess is they wanted the car to be quiet and functional as-delivered, then subsequent Detroit Locker or spool installation would be on the owner. That's just my guess.

I don't think Ford was afraid of low (high numeric) rearends necessarily. T-Bolts had 4.57's I believe. But again, if some of these cars were going to end up on the street, 4.88's are just a pain and a warranty issue waiting to happen.

Its hard to sell a lot of purpose-built race cars. Even Shelby had to turn a good number of the 427 Cobra racing cars into S/C street cars just to make them go away.

TOM

[3macs1]

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i don,t know,factory built race car with a heater?

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Clear to me you have never driven one. If you ever get the chance to drive one on the strip through a set of headers and slicks you will see very quickly why the heater was left in .You will need it to dry your underware. I hate fords but respect these probally because it was the only car I have ever driven that scared me.And not just once.

[PhilS]

Actually a locking 4.11 was originally planned. I'm not sure why that didn't happen. It could have been many reasons as they had a devil of a time getting them to production. Initially they planned to build 70 units but problems prevented that. As for the heaters, I've seen some without but I'm not sure if they left Atlanta that way. The intra company communications make for some interesting reading. Really special cars.