Jive-Bomber submitted a new blog post: The 1956 Ford Thunderbird Mexico Continue reading the Original Blog Post
@Jive-Bomber - Interesting stuff ... Thanks for sharing! Perhaps Mr. Tremulis' nephew Steve (@gyronaut) will chime in.
The Mexico was to compete in La Carrera Panamericana. The idea was that with less horsepower, the Thunderbird chassis could still win by using aerodynamics to gain a top speed advantage over the Mercedes. The course had more miles of straights where the Mexico could make up time and pass the Mercs than the curves where it would fall behind because of its inferior horsepower. In the end, the Mexico would win, on paper. It was never built, but it served the purpose of using a full underpan to lower the c/d and fins for straight-line stability. Part from the testing also ended up on Pete DePaolo's "Battlebirds". So the efforts weren't all for nothing.
The Jalopy Journal
