Tag Archives: Galaxie

Rising To The Top Again – Mercury Monterey 4 Door Sedan

With the dropping of the Park Lane and Montclair models in 1961 the the fifth generation Monterey was reinstated at the top of the Mercury model range when it was launched in 1961.

Mercury Monterey 4 Door Sedan, Goodwood Revival,

Styling of the new Monterey was similar to the 1961 2nd Generation Ford Galxie but with many detail differences in the trim detailing which was more refined on the Mercury.

Mercury Monterey 4 Door Sedan, Goodwood Revival,

Initiallly a choice of either 4.8 litre / 292 cui Y-block, or 5.8 litre / 352 cui and 6.4 litre / 390 cui FE V8’s was offered.

Mercury Monterey 4 Door Sedan, Goodwood Revival,

The engine choice was supplemented for the 1962 model year only with a 3.7 litre / 223 cui Milage Maker straight six for the 135 hp Monterey Six for “Top of the line luxury and power for the big car man”.

Mercury Monterey 4 Door Sedan, Goodwood Revival,

The big luxurious Mercury with a 120″ wheel base was offered with 2 doors in hard top and convertible form and three 4 door
versions were estate/wagon, pillarless hard top and sedan.

Mercury Monterey 4 Door Sedan, Goodwood Revival,

Today’s featured 1962 Sedan, seen at Goodwood Revival some years ago, is powered by a 5.8 litre / 352 cui motor FE motor that in this application were marketed as a Marauder engine up until 1962 after which it was marketed as the Monterey pending the arrival of the bigger 6.7 litre / 406 cui motors for the 1963 model year.

Thanks for joining me on this “Rising To The Top Again” edition of “Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres” I hope you will join me again tomorrow for Ferrari Friday. Don’t forget to come back now !

Cobra Hi Riser – Shelby Mustang GT 350

In order for Ford’s new 4 seat Mustang to compete in the SCCA’s B Production class Carroll Shelby set about building a series of Shelby Mustang G.T. 350’s to meet the series regulations which stipulated a requirement for a minimum 100 examples of a “2 seat sports car”.

Shelby Mustang G.T. 350, Niello Concours At Serrano

To power the new “sports car” Shelby used the K-Code 271 hp 4.7 litre / 289 cui V8 modified with the aid of the Cobra “hi riser” intake manifold fed by the scoop in the fibre glass bonnet / hood and dual side exhausts, to produce 306 hp.

Shelby Mustang G.T. 350, Niello Concours At Serrano

Having opted for limited engine modifications the SCCA permitted more radical race suspension options which in the G.T. 350’s case ran to lowered A arms, heavy duty shock absorbers and upper arms, a heavy duty Ford Galaxie rear axle and “over rider” traction bars fitted above the rear leaf springs.

Shelby Mustang G.T. 350, Niello Concours At Serrano

The space where the back seat had been was taken up by a full size spare wheel comprising Goodyear Blue Spot tyre on either a 15″ steel wheel or a 15″ cast magnesium Crager Shelby item.

Shelby Mustang G.T. 350, Niello Concours At Serrano

34 G.T.350 R race spec cars were built and between them they captured 3 consecutive B Production class SCCA titles from 1965 to 1967 with Mexican Freddy Van Buren winning the ’67 title along with the 1966 and 1967 Trans Am titles.

Shelby Mustang G.T. 350, Niello Concours At Serrano

The rest of the Shelby G.T. 350’s, including today’s featured car were built for road use though the owner of this one confesses that “Driving a 1965 Shelby Mustang G.T.350 is a blast for the first 20 to 30 minuets… after that it starts to hurt”.

Shelby Mustang G.T. 350, Niello Concours At Serrano

All 562 Shelby Mustang G.T. 350’s were painted Wimbledon white and had the Guardsman Blue rocker stripes with the G.T. 350 logo, only 28% had the full length Guardsman Blue Le Mans stripes from new, though now nearly all of them do.

My thanks to Geoffrey Horton for sharing his photographs taken at Niello Concours at Serrano a couple of years ago.

I hope you will join me again tomorrow when I’ll be looking at one of my all time favourate FIAT’s. Don’t forget to come back now !

14 from 103 – Ford Galaxie 500

On the 28th March 1964 reigning International Motor Contest Association champion Dick Hutcherson got his NASCAR career underway by winning pole position in his Ford for his debut NASCAR start at Greenville-Pickens Speedway in South Carolina.

Ford Galaxie 500, Sonoma Historics

Dick finished his first NASCAR race in the pits with broken lugs nuts but finished 2nd in his next NASCAR race at Hillsboro, started from pole and retired with wheel bearing failure at Spartanburg and finished 5th at Columbia in his final NASCAR start of the season in which he retained his International Motor Contest Association championship.

Ford Galaxie 500, Sonoma Historics

Holman Moody signed Dick up for 1965 to drive the #29 Ford Galaxie, like the one seen in these photographs, alongside Fred Lorenzen in the #28. After starting from pole 10 times, winning 9 races, finishing in the top 5 on 23 further occasions Dick finished second to Richard Petty on what should have been his rookie season, except NASCAR deemed Dick’s two consecutive IMCA championships and 81 IMCA wins, of sufficient stature to eliminate him from the Rookie Of The Year Award.

Ford Galaxie 500, Sonoma Historics

Thanks to Ford’s broken 1966 season Dick only made 14 starts in 1966 2 from pole and with 3 wins. In 1967 Dick continued driving the #29 Ford which was now entered mostly by Bondy Long and finished 3rd in the championship with two wins from 33 starts, he was easily averaging better points per race than eventual 1967 Champion Richard Petty, but the King who had a 10 race unbroken run of wins made 15 more starts than Dick.

Ford Galaxie 500, Sonoma Historics

After winning 14 races from just 103 starts Dick swapped the driving seat for the Crew Chiefs box in 1968 and guided his friend David “The Siver Fox” Pearson to two consecutive championships in ’68 and ’69.

Dick became general manager at Holman Moody but left in 1971 to set up the successful Hutcherson-Pagan Enterprises race car building and parts business with Eddie Pagan.

In 1976 Dick made a one off appearance at Le Mans where he drove a Ford Torino with Richard Brooks and Marcel Mignot until it retired with gearbox failure after 11 hours.

My thanks to Geoffrey Horton for sharing today’s photographs of the 1965 #29 Ford Galaxie taken at last years Sonoma Historic’s meeting.

Thanks for joining me on this “14 for 103” edition of “Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres” I hope you will join me again for Ferrari Friday tomorrow. Don’t forget to come back now !

THINK ! W.H.M. ? – Ford Galaxie 500

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Fred Lorenzen’s won his debut event, to see who would be the first to turn over a 1937 Plymouth, in Elmhurst, Illinois aged 15 in 1949.

He graduated to NASCAR by 1956, but it was not until after he had won the 1958 and 1959 USAC Championships in a Talarico Bros. built Chevrolet and run 10 races as an owner driver in the 1960 NASCAR series that he got an offer from Ralph Moody to join the Holman Moody team for the 1961 season.

Ford Galaxie 500, Goodwood Festival of Speed,

The new partnership made fifteen starts during the 1961 season and Fred won three of them at Martinsville, Darlington and Atlanta.

Prior to the Darlington win Ralph, a well respected former driver, coached Fred on how to beat one of the favourites Curtis Turner in the event of a showdown between the two of them.

Ford Galaxie 500, Goodwood Festival of Speed,

Sure enough as the laps wound down Fred found himself fighting Chris for the lead but could find no way past having forgotten Ralph’s instructions before the start of the race.

During a late pit stop a furious Ralph asked Fred in no uncertain terms “Think Boy ! What The Heck Is The Matter ?” Fred followed Ralph’s instruction’s to the letter going into the last lap and sold Chris a dummy to the outside which allowed his to go low and take the lead for the win in his open Ford Sunliner while Chris was busy acquiring a Darlington Stripe.

Ford Galaxie 500, Goodwood Festival of Speed,

During the second year of their partnership Fred crossed the line first twice more from 19 starts to finish a career best 3rd in points.

Fred crossed the line first 6 times from 29 starts in 1963 to become the first driver to win over $100,000 in a single season.

Ford Galaxie 500, Goodwood Festival of Speed,

In 1964 the partnership made only 16 starts from a possible 62, but astonishingly won 8 of them.

At the 1965 Daytona 500 Fred started 4th and came through to take the win in a vehicle similar to the one featured today and finished the season with 4 wins from 17 starts.

Ford Galaxie 500, Goodwood Festival of Speed,

Fred made a total of 15 more starts for Holman Moody in the 1966 and 1967 seasons winning three more races, he also made one start in Junior Johnson’s famous cut down yellow Galaxie known as the Yellow Banana, but crashed it after leading 24 laps.

Taking a break from the sport during the 1968 and 1969 seasons Fred came back for three more partial seasons with a variety of owners from 1970 to 1972 scoring 11 top five finishes from 29 starts leaving his career record at 28 wins from just 158 starts with 32 pole positions.

Last month Fred was inducted into the NASCAR Hall of fame, the car featured today is believed to be one of several replica’s of Fred’s 1965 Holman Moody Galaxy 500 originally built by Jack Sullivan with fellow wrenches Herb Nab and Freddy McCall.

Thanks for joining me on this “THINK ! W.H.M ? edition of “Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres” I hope you will join me again tomorrow for Ferrari Friday. Don’t forget to come back now !

Project Sunbird – Ford Consul Capri (335)

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To my mind the Ford Consul Capri has always epitomized the best of 1950’s era design from Ford of Britain, which is a shame because the world had already moved on from those opulent 50’s features when the car was launched in 1961.

The pillar less Capri coupé, like the Consul Classic with which it shares it’s running gear and chassis pan, was designed by Charles Thompson with scaled down influences from Fords Thunderbird and Galaxie Sunliner models.

With a 3 bearing 1340 cc 81.7 cui Ford 109E engine that, when sleeved down to 1092 cc / 66.6 cui was popular in Formula Junior cars at the time, the Capri was considered under powered, and in 1962 Consul Capri’s, like the 1962 model seen here at Goodwood Revival, were fitted with the 1498 cc / 91.4 cui 116 E engine which boosted the top speed to 79 mph with a 0 to 60 mph time of 22.6 seconds.

Body assembly was out sourced to Pressed Steel Fisher who sent the completed bodies to Ford’s Dagenham plant for final assembly. This method of production proved very expensive especially compared to the contemporary Ford Cortina.

Sales of just 19,421 Capri 335’s sold in two and a half years, make this one of the rarest vehicles Ford of Britain ever produced.

The Capri name disappeared from the Ford model palette from 1964 to 1969 when Ford came back with the ‘Car you have always dreamed of’ the more successful Ford Capri Mk 1′ which I’ll be looking at in the New Year.

Thanks for joining me on this ‘Sunbird’ edition of ‘Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres’, I hope you will join me again tomorrow. Don’t forget to come back now !

PS Don’t forget …

Automobiliart GALPOT Seasonal Quiz

December 26th – January 2nd

Win a set of Paul Chenard Greetings Cards

Set 1 Sports & GT Cars

Set 2 Phil Hill World Drivers Championship 50th Anniversary Edition

Set 3 1934 Season

Set 4 Grand Prix Engines of the 1950’s

or

Set 5 Mike Hawthorn’s Race Cars

The Automobiliart GALPOT Seasonal Quiz will comprise 8 categories.

Overall winner chooses one set of Paul Chenard Greetings Cards from the five sets shown above.

The cards measure 15.24cm x 11.43cm, come in packs of 12 with 3 copies of 4 designs in each set, plus A6 envelopes.

Which set will you choose ?

The free to enter Automobiliart GALPOT Seasonal Quiz will run from December 26th – January 2nd Entries close January 8th 2012, Winner announced January 16th 2012.

Full details on December 26th at GALPOT.

Looking for Automotive Seasonal Gift Idea’s? Visit Automobiliart Now !

Monterey Classic Meets Woodstock – Silverstone Classic 2011

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A couple of weeks ago I was looking around Silverstone regarding a film project while several teams representing over 100 years of the automobile history were fettling their vehicles for the forth comingSilverstone Classic 2011 meeting which runs from July 22nd to 24th.

If your into powered transport be it steam, diesel, petrol, 2 wheeled, 3 wheeled, 4 wheeled or more you will probably find something of interest during the day and if your camping there will be 2 nights of music headlined by the likes of tribute bands Legend, Queen On Fire and The Rolling Stoned on the first night, followed by Suzy Quattro, 10cc, Wishbone Ash on the second night topped off with an afternoon of classical music from Tetra Electra, Tenors Unlimited and the 40 strong Amadeus Orchestra.

What has really helped this event grow in stature is the participation of numerous owners clubs, the Jaguar Owners clubs have chosen this event to officially celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the E-Type and hope to gather over 1,000 of the 70,000 plus E -types built together at the same time, a race for E-types will be held with 58 entries.

Other marques including Porsche who also intend to gather in similar numbers, with smaller marques like Bristol being represented by the Bristol Owners Club.

Silverstone Auctions the event sponsors will be holding an auction at the Silverstone Classic on July 23rd that will include the sale of the last truely privately built and entered Formula One Car to win a Grand Prix.

For those less inclined to the racing which will include classic saloons, sports cars and Grand Prix cars there will be a fun fair, arial displays and gathering of steam powered traction engines to keep you entertained during the daylight hours while you wait for the music to start.

My thanks to Jonathon Gill who facilitated this fascinating day at Silverstone, I look forward to visiting the event in July and sharing more details of some of the vehicles I saw during preparations for it in the weeks ahead.

Thanks for joining me on this Silverstone Classic edition of ‘Gettin’ a lil’ psycho on tyres’, I hope you will join me again tomorrow when I’ll be sharing some photos of a fascinating workshop in Warrington. Don’t forget to come back now !