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History tasca ford

Discussion in 'The Hokey Ass Message Board' started by Jimv, Oct 31, 2009.

  1. Jimv
    Joined: Dec 5, 2001
    Posts: 2,924

    Jimv
    Member

    Heres some pics of what use to be the old TASCA ford from there racing haydays.They moved to a new location in cranston so this building is up for sale now.Lotta history happen here.
    JimV
     

    Attached Files:

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  2. Let's buy it..............................We can have a talent show to raise the money!!
    Come on Jim, I'll sing and you dance.

    I used to work on Bill Lawtons Harleys, I spent a lot of time at that dealership as a kid .......very good times there.
     
  3. Thirtycoup
    Joined: Jul 21, 2002
    Posts: 1,197

    Thirtycoup
    Member

    nice try tom but the only dancing jim does is lip dancing ... yak-yak-yak!!! :D
    he'll yak your fuckin' ears off!!
     
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  4. oj
    Joined: Jul 27, 2008
    Posts: 6,453

    oj
    Member

    I think the tasca ford a/gs mustang was one of the most beautiful cars ever built, whomever did it got that one right. Anybody have a pic of it to post?
     
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  5. Slick Willy
    Joined: Aug 3, 2008
    Posts: 3,053

    Slick Willy
    Member

    Found this one on 60sfunnycars.com
    [​IMG]
     
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  6. poprockcrusher
    Joined: May 17, 2009
    Posts: 123

    poprockcrusher
    Member

    another dead dealer
    a pillar of the community
    ...........that is some palace they built next to the jail
     
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  7. Tasca Ford is far from dead!!!!!!:rolleyes:
     
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  8. Jimv
    Joined: Dec 5, 2001
    Posts: 2,924

    Jimv
    Member

    Boy where did this come from?? If it wasn't for me telling you about events you wouldn't know what happening.
    JimV
     
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  9. Thirtycoup
    Joined: Jul 21, 2002
    Posts: 1,197

    Thirtycoup
    Member

    it was joke son - chill.
     
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  10. 64Cyclone
    Joined: Aug 30, 2009
    Posts: 1,496

    64Cyclone
    Member

  11. Angry Frenchman
    Joined: Feb 12, 2006
    Posts: 1,775

    Angry Frenchman
    Member

    nice pics 64cyclone. anybody got anymore early pics of the dealer ship?
     
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  12. tommy
    Joined: Mar 3, 2001
    Posts: 14,757

    tommy
    Member Emeritus

    Pretty effective form of advertising considering that we are still talking about it 40 years after they spent the money.

    My buddy has one of those pot metal dealer tags that they put on the trunk back in those days. He put it on his 1964 427-4spd clone 300 2 dr sedan.
     
    Last edited: Nov 2, 2009
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  13. Little Wing
    Joined: Nov 25, 2005
    Posts: 7,505

    Little Wing
    Member
    from Northeast

    Theres an f-5 In a yard round here the has Tasca right across the front of the hood,,wonder if theres and connection
     
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  14. LeadSledMerc
    Joined: Nov 29, 2003
    Posts: 4,105

    LeadSledMerc
    Member

    Now, now children...do I have to send you to your rooms for some quite time???;) hahaha

    Those are some cool pics that everyone posted...thanks!:cool:
     
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  15. NITROFC
    Joined: Apr 17, 2001
    Posts: 6,175

    NITROFC
    BANNED

    Interesting story of the Tasca Family ...............



    FEW AUTOMOTIVE DEALERS HAVE SOLD MORE CARS ON MONDAY WITH WINS ON SUNDAY THAN THE INNOVATIVE ENTREPRENEUR OF RHODE ISLAND’S TASCA FORD

    Prior to the current era of corporate sponsorship, many of the nation’s top drag racing teams relied on local car dealerships for financial and technological support. Quick to realize the benefits of the “Win on Sunday, Sell on Monday” philosophy, dealers attracted many young buyers to their showroom floors by handpicking the top racers within their area to promote their automotive brand and the services of their outlets. Among the more popular dealer/racer combinations of this period were Albertson Olds/Leonard Harris, Yeakel Bros. Plymouth/Tom McEwen, Sachs & Sons Lincoln-Mercury/Jack Chrisman, Russ Davis Ford/Gas Ronda, and Ace Wilson’s Royal Pontiac/Jim Wangers.

    Examples of dealers involved in motorsports are many, but in terms of behind-the-scenes developments, such as the creation of special engine/body racing combinations and potent engine packages and pioneering innovative promotional strategies, few dealers were more influential than Bob Tasca of East Providence, R.I.

    Not only was Tasca the longtime sponsor of drag racing legend Bill Lawton and a major player in the development of such memorable cars as the 427-cid ‘64 Ford Thunderbolt Fairlane, but he also helped create the famed 428-cid Cobra Jet engine and was the man who lured 12-time NHRA Funny Car champion John Force away from General Motors to compete under the Ford banner.

    Tasca’s dealership involvement began half a century ago, when he opened his first outlet in Bristol, R.I., in 1953. He moved to the present East Providence location in 1956 after Hurricane Carol destroyed the original operation in 1954, and he became involved in motorsports competition in 1961.

    Said Tasca, “Everybody was running Chevrolets back then, and there was this hotshot kid named Bill Lawton who always hung around our dealership and bragged about how his Chevy could beat our Fords. One day, I told him that he had just won his last race in a Chevy, and to prove my point, I had my top mechanics, John Healey and Dean Gregson, specially prepare one of our new 406-cid ‘62 Galaxies. The fastest Bill’s Chevy had ever run was a 13.66, and John shocked him with a 13.33 [in the Ford]. All of a sudden, Bill’s attitude about Fords began to change, and he asked me if he could drive our car. His first run was a 12.96, which didn’t surprise me because I knew he was a natural driver. After that, Bill came onboard with us to race Fords until his retirement in 1971.”

    One of Tasca’s first innovations was campaigning a ‘62 Fairlane with a 406-cid engine for A/FX competition. The car, called the Challenger, was built by Andy Hotten’s Detroit Steel and Tubing firm and required many modifications to shoehorn the large engine into the midsize engine compartment. A second version, Zimmy I, was built in 1963 with a 427-cid high-riser engine, and Lawton drove it to a new A/FX national record of 12.21 later that season.

    Ford was so impressed with the package that it authorized Detroit Steel and Tubing to construct 100 427-cid Fairlanes for NHRA Super Stock competition in 1964, and Lawton drove his ‘64 Zimmy II entry to new S/S national records of 11.69 and 122.22 at the Division 1 race at Maryland’s Cecil County Dragway.

    The Tasca Ford Zimmy III, an A/FX ‘65 Mustang equipped with Ford’s new single overhead cam (SOHC) 427-cid engine, was the most potent of the series, and Lawton drove it to wins at that year’s NHRA Winternationals, NASCAR Nationals, and inaugural Super Stock Nationals.

    With Lawton’s success on the dragstrip increasing the sales of new cars at Tasca Ford, Tasca also was becoming one of the country’s more successful merchants of high-performance Ford parts.

    Said Tasca, “We always measured performance in car lengths. Let’s say one of our customers was getting beat by two car lengths. We’d sell him the right parts to win by a couple of car lengths. And if he wanted to win by four car lengths, we had the parts for that, too.”

    Tasca’s extensive background in optimum engine-part combinations resulted in the development of the Ford 428-cid Cobra Jet engine in 1968.

    “By that time, our Ford SOHC 427 was the fastest engine in Top Fuel and Funny Car, but it wasn’t something we sold for the street,” said Tasca. “The best we could offer our customers was the 390-cid engine, and it just wasn’t cutting it against the new 396-cid and 427-cid Chevy engines that had been out for a while.

    “So I got together with Bill Gilbert, who followed my specifications and helped develop the unit,” he added. “We also worked with Bill Ennis, Bill Gay, John Cowley, Charley Gray, Danny Jones, Les Tinsler, and ‘Pop’ Sullivan, who did the work on the camshafts. We came up with the 428 Cobra Jet. It won right off the bat with a Super Stock victory at the 1968 Winternationals, and it proved to be the best street/strip engine that Ford ever had until that time. We ended up selling a ton of them.”

    Another of Tasca’s unique talents was producing positive results out of negative events. “Bill Lawton broke a Hurst shifter once on the 3rd to 4th gear shift,” Tasca remembered. “Even though he won the race because he was so far ahead, George Hurst was furious, but I told George to calm down because we could turn this into a good thing. We promoted the fact that Hurst shifters came with lifetime guarantees, and before you knew it, the Hurst sales went right through the roof.”

    Tasca’s reputation as a high-performance entrepreneur made him a major figure in all forms of motorsports, and he was able to coax Indy 500 hero Mario Andretti into taking part in a drag race.

    Said Tasca, “I came up with the idea of having Mario drive one of our specially prepared Mustangs against Frank Maratta, owner of Connecticut Dragway, on the Sunday morning before the week of the Indy 500. Mario came in on a private airplane, which landed right at the track, and Frank was there with a hopped-up Camaro from Norwood Chevrolet, which was located in Warwick, R.I. We had Bill Flynn make some runs with the Mustang to establish a baseline, and he ran in the 11.4- to 11.5-second range. Mario went 11.46 on his first run, then beat Maratta on four straight runs. Someone asked Mario why a famous Indy 500 driver like him would want to drag race, and he said that he knew that Bob Tasca would build a very good race car for him, and that made us very proud.”

    Following Lawton’s retirement in 1971, Ford asked Tasca to take over the operations of an unwanted Lincoln-Mercury dealership in seekonk, Mass., and with the assistance of his three sons, he introduced shortened trace cycles, unique option packages, and late-night service to become the largest-volume Lincoln-Mercury dealership in the -country. After setting a record customer-satisfaction score of 9.39 out of a possible 10 in 1994, the Tasca family returned to Providence to reopen the original Ford dealership. In just five years, the operation became the largest-volume Ford operation in southern New England.
     
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  16. RAY With
    Joined: Mar 15, 2009
    Posts: 3,132

    RAY With
    Member

     
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  17. Slim Pickens
    Joined: Dec 15, 2008
    Posts: 3,343

    Slim Pickens
    Member

    Great thread, as usual. It is amazing how the name TASCA jumped out at me even before I saw the shots that Slick Willy and ts3x65mph posted. The shots from 1961 that 64Cyclone posted are awesome. Big thanks to NITROFC for the history lesson. Thanks guys. Slim
     
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  18. 64Cyclone
    Joined: Aug 30, 2009
    Posts: 1,496

    64Cyclone
    Member

    I could have sworn that I had a pic of one of Bill Lawton's car in frt on Tasca Ford....maybe I'm thinking about something else??

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]
     
    Last edited: Nov 2, 2009
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  19. Great history lesson. I take it the Thunderbolt was one of the first Super Stock'ers in the elevins! Nice.
     
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  20. RAY With
    Joined: Mar 15, 2009
    Posts: 3,132

    RAY With
    Member

    No kidding. I learned a lot here and thought I knew it back in the days-Great thread
     
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  21. Thirtycoup
    Joined: Jul 21, 2002
    Posts: 1,197

    Thirtycoup
    Member

    The Thunderbolt is probably may favorite, great looking car.
     
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  22. Thirtycoup
    Joined: Jul 21, 2002
    Posts: 1,197

    Thirtycoup
    Member

    I think Jim's just "testy" because he can't wait for the Yankers to wrap it up tonight - go Phillies!!:D
     
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  23. Slick Willy
    Joined: Aug 3, 2008
    Posts: 3,053

    Slick Willy
    Member

    uhuhuhuh...you said "testy"...
    Someone around here south shore/cape has an early sixties ford wild looking car with tasca dealership labels on it...
     
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  24. The number 777 that appeared on several of their cars ( the 63 1/2 fastback ,for one) was the Tasca Ford street address number.
    Taunton Ave , if I remember correctly.
     
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  25. Chuck Carman
    Joined: Oct 19, 2009
    Posts: 238

    Chuck Carman
    Member

    Bob Tasca III is a real nice guy. He even returns my e-mails.
     

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  26. You'd think with all their history that they could turn that old dealership into a museum, I wonder what has become of all their old race cars?, I saw one on the TV on "my classic car" or one of those show, at the place in the Mid West I think..
     
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  27. 60s Racer
    Joined: Oct 5, 2009
    Posts: 17

    60s Racer
    Member
    from northeast

    I remember driving by the dealership late 1963 and they had several unsold '63 lightweight Galaxies out front. Who knew.
     
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  28. cool stuff...that 1961 is one heavy girl...it's bite'n hard and lift'n...
     
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  29. 35mastr
    Joined: Oct 26, 2007
    Posts: 1,899

    35mastr
    Member
    from Norcal

    I remember the dealership very well. Drove past it for years and stopped in once in a while when I lived in Pawtucket.

    Did not know that they moved.
     
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  30. zombiesarebad
    Joined: Aug 29, 2009
    Posts: 206

    zombiesarebad
    Member
    from Maine

    i used to have a car originally sold from Tasca... but it was a '95 Lincoln Mark VIII. Still, i thought it was cool just to have their logo on the decklid. They got quite a legacy.
     
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