Features Ford Thunderbolts Photos Wanted

Kentuckian:

You are correct in saying Les Ritchey was "The Man" in the Ford camp. From the earliest days in Super Stock, until his tragic and untimely death in 1966, Les Ritchey was to Ford what Grumpy Jenkins became to Chevrolet. Les was not as well known, because he was not as active as a driver, because he took care of his business and customers first, and raced when he could. His customers, such Gas Ronda were the beneficiaries. If you look closely at all of the top Fords of the early to mid-sixties, you will see a “Performance Associates” decal or lettering on them. In fact, in the 1963 picture of me sitting in the Bob Ford Lightweight Fastback, the back of a decal just over my shoulder behind me, on the right-rear window is a Performance Associates Decal.

Les defeated Gas Ronda to win AFX in his ‘Cammer AFX Mustang at Indy in 1965, and would have won more frequently except for the reasons above. Les was my friend and mentor, in fact we discussed my going to work for him prior to my working at Ford. His death saddened me greatly, and caused all of us to think about our safety in a sport we loved. I am glad his son Randy has continued in his father’s footsteps. Dave Lyall

 

Bill Holbrook would have the correct answers about the hoodscoops, as he was the man behind the decisions on the Black Bob Ford Lightweight, which was maintained as a test car under his capable and watchful eye at the Ford Experimental Garage in Dearborn. However, if I remember correctly, it was a Ford F800 Truck Hoodscoop. On the Ford Truck, it was mounted facing rearward, and it was a functional fresh air inlet feeding the air cleaner. So the “Shaker Hoodscoop” was only original in that it mounted to the engine, and the rear facing F800 scoop trumped Grumpy’s rear facing hoodscoop by almost 10 years.
Dave Lyall

 

Dave-I have a little off topic question on the 65 Falcon you ran.Did you use 180 degree headers on the car?I remember seeing it run at Detroit with those Formula One sounding pipes but i don't know if it was yours at that time or the Catron's.

 

I seem to remember Tasca's 63. Post the window sticker !

 

Was the truck actually lettered "F-100 XL" or ? Was it painted Rangoon Red? Any photos? I was aware that Ed Martin had a 32 roadster with a 427, but never knew they ran a 427 pickup. I have the Ed Martin Ford 1963 Lightweight. It started as a 62 Ltwt and was converted with a pre-production 1963 Fastback body, like the black Bob Ford car was. The truck would cetainly make an interesting tow vehicle.

Regards,
Dennis

 

Dennis:

I don't have any photos of the truck. I think it was red. It said F100 XL somewhere, I don't remember it being as prominent as the one you posted. I can't even guarantee it was a 427, but I would guess that it was. I remember the '32 roadster.
Was that driver's name Bob Turner? Can't remember. The driver had a deformed right arm, but that didn't stop him from banging gears on the 4 speed. Randy Bramwell (clone T-Bolt) may have some old photos from Martin's operation. Next time I see him I'll ask. He wants to buy my '63 1/2 R code, but I'm not quite ready to sell.

John

 

Don Turner was the driver, he was a cousin of Curtis Turner. I haven't talked to him in years and I'm pretty certain he passed away.

Regards,
Dennis

 

Kool66;
The 65 Falcon I built was originally equipped with a 427 Hi-Riser, and later we installed a SHOC Cammer Engine. The 427 Hi-Riser was equipped with 180 degree headers, which had looked good to me on dyno tests, and had the formula one sound. When we installed the Cammer, I had decided the 180 degree headers were not worth the extra trouble on a drag race application so I fabricated standard “each bank separate” headers.
The sponsor who was to fund construction of the Falcon experienced financial problems, and the car was sold to the Catron Brothers at the end of the ’65 season to recoup the investment and to pay the parts bill at Bob Ford, which was substantial as the car was built from a bare body shell using all-new original Ford parts.
I continued to drive the car for the Catron Brothers during the ’66 season. The big difference was the Catron Brothers converted the car from a legal AFX car to a match race car, which lightened the car by about 400 lbs. However it still fit the very liberal NASCAR Drag Race Rules. Dave Lyall

 

I heard an old story about the Pontiac scoops, which looked like the Ford truck scoops to me, being questioned by the tech. inspectors for not having a Pontiac part number. Pontiac added a part number and then the tech-man wanted to know the part number on the hole in the hood. I remember the old Motor Convoy trucks that hauled the cars from the Atlanta plant having the backward scoops. I think there are a couple of old trucks junked out around here with those scoops.

 

Thanks Dave for the info.It's good to know at 61 years i still remember some of it correct! It seems like only yesterday i was standing next to Gil Kohn's wooden rail fence and his safety ditch at Detroit Dragway watching you guys run!Good memories. Lou

 

According to Coachbuilt.com (Mark Theobald), DST built two 427 cid/425 hp F-100 XL's in 1964. But then, he also says that neither survives, and we know that not to be true (photo taken in 2005).

Any of you have a better interior photo of an F-100 XL that this one, that shows the bucket seats and console?

 

These are all I have on file and they are curtisy of our freind Plum. Dennis, there was a pretty good post about this/these trucks on the FE forum sometime ago.

 

Here you go. Truck is very cool.

 

Not to get this off topic...but where is that F100 now? Did it get back together? (it was missing the engine right?)

The only pics I've seen of it were the old ones and the "as found" pics.

 

Too much mis-information on the DST page from that website. Perhaps they are counting some of the earlier FE powered trucks built? See cut and paste from the website below:

For many years DST was also responsible for preparing Ford’s factory race cars. The Falcons driven by Joe Weath*erly and Chris Turner in the car’s first victory at Daytona were DST creations as were the 1964 Ford Fairlane Thunderbolt drag cars. The lightweight (3203lbs) Thunderbolts featured a stripped interior, Plexiglas side windows, Fiberglass and aluminum bumpers, a heavy-duty suspension and rear-end, larger brakes most importantly Ford’s powerful 425hp 427ci motor. A total of 111 were eventually built, the first 12 were stock 2-door Fairlane 500s taken from the assembly line and modified at DST while the remaining 99 were completely assembled at DST using parts supplied by Ford.

DST also built 2 1964 Ford Falcon 427 A/FX dragsters for Ford. They were similar to the Fairlanes but weighed about 800 lbs less thanks to their fiberglass doors, deck lid, front fenders, trunk, and front bumper.

Two Ford F-100 XL Pickups were also built by Hotton during the same period. Essentially an F-100 on steroids, it was planned to be a factory muscle truck and featured Ford’s 425hp 427ci engine, the same unit that was in the Fairlane and Falcon drag cars. No further examples are known to have been built, and neither vehicle survives.

Regards,
Dennis

 

It's still in Deleware as far as I know owned by the same fellow who got it from Friendly Ford. When I photographed it in I think '08 it had a low riser in it but did not run. They had kept the original paint but had freshened everything else up. I think the restoration has stalled now from what I've heard.

 

Thanks!

Did Friendly Ford add the vinyl top?

 

Dennis:

One of the F100 XL trucks built at DST was campaigned in BFX by Jack (Skinny) Fuche in 1965, as he and I towed togeather with my AFX Falcon on several occasions to booked-in events. Jack may know the real deal on these trucks, such as how many were built and where they went, as he worked at DST starting at least during the construction of the lightweight 62's and at least through 1965, when we occasionally traveled to do shows togeather.
Dave Lyall

 

I knew Skinny drove the truck for Hotton. Richter or Bill Holbrook mentioned there was a presentation at Detroit Dragway with Truck Div and they had it out there. It wasn't running well and they put Len in it to see if it would go faster. He staged using the rear wheels and impressed all the Ford people. I guess no one figured out from the truck group what he was doing. Wayne Fietzer is another one that would know about the truck. However, I think he said they only built the one and Hotton eventually sold it to Jack Whitby in Md. Unbelieveable it survived with the original paint and the lettering.

Regards,
Dennis

 

Any idea's on the color combination of the Read Mullan Ford? I'm doing research for a possible 1:18 scale version.

 

This is not my photo, but the only color one that I've seen.

I probably have some b&w's taken at the Winternationals.

Regards,
Dennis

 

The black vinyl top was on it at the Summer Nationals, still Stu Wilson Ford - Dbn.

Regards,
Dennis

 

I looked the truck over at DST when they first built it, as in 1964 Bob Ford had built a 427 F100 for a customer to use as a daily driver, using an out-of-the-crate 427 Low-Riser. Jack Gray introduced him to me, saying the customer wanted it taken to the strip to see what it will do. We took it to Onondaga, where I promply broke the 28 spline rear axle on the 2-3 shift, almost wrecking the truck. But that planted the bug with the truck owner (who owned a construction company) and he then had me set it up as a real race truck, including a Hi-riser engine, ladder bars, 31 spline axles, slicks and a 4" dia. Driveshaft. It ran mid-high 11's at about 118 MPH (which felt like 180 MPH in the high center-of-gravity truck) at 427 BFX weight of 3800 lbs. We campaigned it in BFX in in 1964, including Indy, putting it back on the street (including the original low-riser engine) after the season was over, and used the Hi-Riser to build the '65 AFX Falcon. Dave Lyall

 

Hey I am new here just ran across this website while looking for information for our 1964 thunderbolt. Its been sitting we got it to rebuild as a project but don't really have the time. Then recently someone came across us and said it was a holman moody 1964 thunderbolt drag and holman moody 427 side oiler. We wanted to see if any of you guys could give us any info thanks Included a few pics of what we have.

 

Whats the vin? Holman Moody didn't have anything to do with the production of T-bolts except for Bonner's replacement body but it isn't 1 of the 100. It was all DST.

 

The car is in a family garage and I am in Charlotte. I will not be going back to my hometown until the middle of next week but I had someone to look for the vin number the only visible numbers they could find was on the passenger side fender I think, Dont know what order the number are in but they found 622650 and 11 26d3 the numbers on the driver side was to hard for them to make out and also the numbers on the hood he found he could not really make out but its 2105 then either 56 or 26 not sure I have been reading up on this car and read that the cars were identified with serial number so I don't know if thats what a vin is or not. You can see the site here though.

http://www.angelfire.com/hi/427fairlane/thecars.html

 

That's not the VIN. I'm familiar with Craig Sutton and his website.

 

Looks like the fender aprons are missing and the drivers door has been changed. We all know what that means, there went the VIN. The car also looks to be a plain Fairlane with the painted window frames.

 

The "622650" (if that is the complete number) is the body code (62) and base part number to identify the stamping. The "1126D3" is the date code or Nov 26 Dearborn Stamping Plant, 3rd or afternoon shift. The date code is too late for the first fifty cars, and too early for the last fifty. Of course, the part could of been replaced if the vehicle was in a wreck.

Looking at the photos, I didn't see the typical T-Bolt DST mods, it has rocker cover plates, the drivers door has Fairlane not Fairlane 500 trim on it and I believe the holes for a side view mirror.

I also noted the hole was knocked out for the manual choke cable, only used with the 6 cyl engine.

There are a lot of other things to look for like the battery box, electric fuel pump bracket, etc ... . Additional photos would certainly help to confirm if this is an original car or not. At this time, I doubt it.

Regards,
Dennis