My friend's 1957 Fairlane gasser

[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