My friend's 1957 Fairlane gasser

[AlanCasida]

Here are a few pictures of my good friend's '57 Fairlane. He has owned since 1978 and it has been a race car since 1964. At one point it sported a stack injected 427FE. He added the straight axle to give the gasser look plus that's what he has wanted to do ever since he first got it. It now sports a 512 BBF(460) and a TKO600 5 speed. HE is just about finished with the restoration and it is absolutely stunning, just a really beautiful car.   

[shady]

Nice. I loved '57s all of my life.

[57 lima bean]

         Nice ride Alan.Sad that people install 385 series engines in these.

[Dumpling]

Is there a reason for the crossover tube from engine to radiator?

[AlanCasida]

Is there a reason for the crossover tube from engine to radiator?

He is running a double pass radiator so the inlet and outlet are on the same side.

[jayb]

         Nice ride Alan.Sad that people install 385 series engines in these.

That's a fact.  You should be ashamed of yourself, Drunk Monkey 

[shady]

I get the whole 385 thing, but stacks and pie crusts would do it for me.

[AlanCasida]

I get the whole 385 thing, but stacks and pie crusts would do it for me.

The motor in it now is just to get the car going and the bugs worked out. He has a supercharged 557 that will be going in to it. Unfortunately, the injected 427 was ran back in the 60s and was long gone before he got the car. He looked into the pie crust slicks but the only ones out there are recaps and he didn't really want to run those.

[cjshaker]

Cool car! He should have painted it the "Flashback" colors, from the old AMT model kit Except for the wheels, it looks just like it.

https://www.google.com/search?q=flashback+amt+model&newwindow=1&client=firefox-b-1-d&sxsrf=ALeKk03YsP-YzJ5pO43mWgpS2uN_kg-vhg:1587742570747&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjf57H_sYHpAhVQBs0KHYqBAzwQ_AUoAnoECBUQBA&biw=1440&bih=758

[Rory428]

Nice looking car, although I do cringe everytime I see the cutout rear wheel wells on these old cars.  I understand thats how it was "done in the day", but the thought of sawing away at hard to find virgin sheetmetal ........, hope it was rusty to start with. I do like the "Gasser" look, but IMHO, nobody was using 385 series engines in Gassers back then, kinda like putting a Chevy LS in a 55-57 Chevy or Chevy 11 gasser, may well run great and be fast, but just "doesn`t fit" the style of car. Again, my opinion.

[Val406]

That's a beautiful car Alan. No shame in running a 385 series either... going to Monster Truck shows made a believer out of me. Back then they had a minimum weight of 10,000 lbs. They jumped 15ft. in the air with ease and did it all night too. Very nice car.

[cjshaker]

Nice looking car, although I do cringe everytime I see the cutout rear wheel wells on these old cars.  I understand thats how it was "done in the day", but the thought of sawing away at hard to find virgin sheetmetal ........, hope it was rusty to start with. I do like the "Gasser" look, but IMHO, nobody was using 385 series engines in Gassers back then, kinda like putting a Chevy LS in a 55-57 Chevy or Chevy 11 gasser, may well run great and be fast, but just "doesn`t fit" the style of car. Again, my opinion.

If you want to cringe, watch old demolition derbys. Those will make you cry. Or watching all the '30s Fords being cut up for roundy round racing back in the day. They were just unwanted old cars back then, but it's still painful to watch.

[frnkeore]

'57's are one of my favorite Ford's, too! But, (there are always "but's" online ) on '57's, the front bumper enhances there look so much. I think it would look much better with a fiberglass bumper. I could live with the lack of a bumper on the rear.

I like the radius wheel well, it was common in my day and MUCH easier to get the big tires on and off. The 385, not so much but, a Cammer, hell yes!!

In my day, there were lots of A/G and A/GS type cars, driven or towed on the street (SoCal) and weekly street racing. It was the class that everyone watched the results in. One of the most fun classes to watch at the drags, was AA/A and AA/FA (in those days, AA stud for AWFUL AWFUL )

This is my best friends '32 that we later put my LR in. We street raced it often.

[RJP]

         Nice ride Alan.Sad that people install 385 series engines in these.

Would you prefer it had an LS engine in it? May not be a FE but least it has a Ford in it.

[AlanCasida]

Nice looking car, although I do cringe everytime I see the cutout rear wheel wells on these old cars.  I understand thats how it was "done in the day", but the thought of sawing away at hard to find virgin sheetmetal ........, hope it was rusty to start with. I do like the "Gasser" look,

Well the wheel wells were radiused back in the 60s. The car does have some cool period pieces including fiberglass fenders, hood(not on car when pics were taken)  and trunk lid and the original custom steering wheel from the 60s . As far as the 385 series motor, it is what it is. Over it's lifetime  the car has had about every type of Ford motor known in it from a 292 Y block to what it has now. It also has a lot of local history which is cool.  Here are a couple of pictures of from back in the day. Probably at Salina or Wichita, KS.

[frnkeore]

Do you know how much it weighed with any of the engines?

[Heo]

Cool car! He should have painted it the "Flashback" colors, from the old AMT model kit Except for the wheels, it looks just like it.

https://www.google.com/search?q=flashback+amt+model&newwindow=1&client=firefox-b-1-d&sxsrf=ALeKk03YsP-YzJ5pO43mWgpS2uN_kg-vhg:1587742570747&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjf57H_sYHpAhVQBs0KHYqBAzwQ_AUoAnoECBUQBA&biw=1440&bih=758

I built that model as a kid with 8 stacks and bluestreak slicks on cromereverse wheels
painted red with white roof. Still remember how that Pactra spraypaint smelled

[gdaddy01]

NICE

[KMcCullah]

Cool hotrod. Thanks for sharing, Alan. I like the stance. Up just a little on the nose, but not like crazy high 70's Gassers. The front axle has some drop to it, it looks a lot better than the straight tubes that guys use. Which look like repurposed mobile home axles to me. My opinion of course.

   

[Tommy-T]

That's a great looking '57.

I like the cut quarters and the tube grille with no bumper. Too bad it doesn't have an FE but I understand it's "modernization".

Would be outstandingly cool with a tunnel rammed Y and fenderwell headers.

[cammerfe]

Most of a mile East of T&C Livonia was Plymouth-Laurel Sunoco. Owned by George Speaks. When the '63 'Zimmy' Thunderbolt was in use at T&C as a transmission test vehicle, they'd drive it over to George's to buy 260, open headers and all. Then you'd hear it for a while on the half-mile oval test-track next to the plant.

George had a '57 Fairlane into which he placed a '63 427 and T-10 four-speed. He built headers and had the front raised but retained the stock front suspension. There were a number of guys with hot rods of some sort that all hung out at his place, and, for advertising purposes, George ordered a bunch of light jackets with the station name on the back. We each bought one and had our names on them.

The summer of '64, The new X-way from our end of town over West to Ann Arbor was finished, but for some reason, the striping wasn't done so the ends of that stretch of M-14 were blocked with sawhorses, and nobody drove on it.

George got the idea of using it as an impromptu drag strip, so we passed the word that there'd be drags one weekend night, and at the right time, we moved the sawhorses on one end and as the group of cars filed through, we collected a dollar from each one. (The money was used to repay what we'd spent for functioning military walkie-talkies, so we could get an early warning if we were going to be interrupted.)

The race of the night was to be between me, in my '64 Custom/427 and George in his '57/ditto.

I opened the dumps on mine, and leaving Brother Lon and my future wife at the starting line, George and I 'had at it.' I drove away from him quite convincingly---I was running a 4.11 rear-end and he still had the factory 'pig' in his---and as I was shutting down and going under an overpass, I realized that there was a cop car setting on the overpass---with no direct way to get to us.

I quickly reversed, and collected both Brother Lon and the GF. By the time the cops finally got there, we were long gone.

They put more permanent barriers on M-14 until they finally got the paint-stripes down.

KS

[6667fan]

Love that contribution to this thread Ken. Just imagine if there was some 8 mm of that sort of action to view.

JB

[cammerfe]

Those were 'Box Brownie' days. And I hated to carry a camera around with me. That same GF bought me a camera to take with me when I made my annual trek to Sebring for the 12-hour race. I took a couple of rolls of film and then got tired of carrying it and put it in the car. I believe I still have pics around somewhere of the Cobras, and GT-40s. I should have taken a dozen rolls of pics.

KS