look at the hood on the Skylark, it does not wrap at the front like the Fairlane....it would leave a different shadow. Doesn't really matter, it's an early 60s car either way.
Pet peeve: most/many of the cars that get posted on threads like this don't have "straight" axles....an axle is only a straight axle if its freakin' straight....and many gassers and street freaks really did run straight axles...
I grew up in Queens and in the late '60s there were 3 neighborhood guys with T Bird street beasts! One was very similar to the one in the photo - a '57 with a straight axle and a big block Ford (it was dark blue with white top). On my block there were two others! There was another dark blue/white one (forgot what motor) and nose high gold '56 with 389 Pontiac! Everyone wanted the gasser look, and the baby birds weren't as coveted back then, so it wasn't considered a crime to cut one up. You can't imagine how cool it was to see those three cars rolling down the block!!
I know that " STREET BEASTS" dont belong on this site but damn I really have a soft spot in my heart for them, that's the style of car I grew up with, I'm sorry for saying this here but thats the way it goes. Mitch.
Here is a picture of my friends 55 T Bird. I will say it gets a lot more negative comments from the Thunderbird owners than my 57 Corvette gets from the "Corvette police"...lol
Found this one on Hot Rod's webpage, it's a '55 owned by Jim Jard. According to the article it was built in 2016. I googled T-Bird Gasser and found quite a few of them.
Even taking perspective into account, the T-bird just seems to be too large compared to the car in front and the one behind. The T-bird's overall whiteness compared to the rest of the picture. The comparative shine of the shiny bits. Not to say I couldn't be wrong.
The car is painted white, the surrounding buildings are gray...I expect that type of contrast to show up this way in a BW picture. Also, when making a BW print, one can use different grades of paper, and adjust the exposure time, to get whatever brightness and contrast you want. Maybe you haven't ever played with printing BW negatives, using an enlarger? Notice also that the Tbird has a lot of "perspective", the front of the car appears a lot larger than the rear. This is due to being shot with a relatively short focal length lens. This is why the Fairlane in the background looks so small, and the rear of the tiny Porsche on the left, looks so large. We landed on the moon, too....not every image that someone doesn't like, is fake.
This thread has been ongoing for over a month now, so I think I'm OK with another comment. So to just reinforce what I said earlier, I think an old axiom is applicable here"Just because you can,doesn't mean you should".
I'm not sold on it being a Fairlane.... My first thought was actually late 60s Dart, but that's not right either. The parking lights on an early 60s Fairlane are more inboard than the bumper in the pics.... I love this game LOL
I remember well seeing a white 55 or 56 T-Bird with a straight axle like this one and fenderwell headers in 1967. I know that the year is right because it was just before I went into the Army.
Missed this thread when it was first posted. But reading through it today made me chuckle at some of the responses. They reminded me of my mom's comments when I bought her pristine '57 Belair in 1967 and immediately set to work ripping all the stock suspension out from under it, and swapping in a late 50's Chevy pickup axle under it. Like some here, she agonized over how I was ruining that beautiful car. Until my dad stepped in and told her it was my car now, and I'd paid them for it, so I could do whatever I wanted to it. Glad some here understand that young guys did cool stuff like that T-Bird back in the day!
I like the photoshop comments. here's a guess, the people who think that the photo has been edited do not own photo editing software of any kind, have never edited a picture in any way shape or form, and are really just confused by the entire process.
had an axled 56 Bel Air around 1980. it had a roll bar made from plumbing pipe all threaded together. there was a business called "4 Star Plumbing" in town, and my buddy called it the "roll bar by 4 star".
My uncle Tommy built this in California in 1965, then went to my younger uncle and he brought it to Michigan, then it went back to California , then to Alabama where it was traded for a Harley. Heard it eventually was sitting at a body shop in Alabama, and they came in and scrapped everything. Had a 427 Ford.
The Jalopy Journal
