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OUT THERE ON THE FRINGE OF INTERESTS - 1959 THUNDERBIRD RACER

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Again , thank you all for your input on the 59 T-bird. What ever it was or is, it is a neat car. I am only trying to piece together conjecture sine 10 yrs of searching for anything concrete has found nothing. I know the car exists and its modifications must speak for themselves in what ever way they can be interpreted. There seems to have been no attempt at a roll bar installation. So that is a important in the conjectures. As far as the fender vents, when the inner fender shields are removed behind the front wheels, you can see the body work done to create the vents, each just a little different in final formation on the inner part of the fender. I have some pictures of that if I can find them. This is a unibody car so the front fenders were not removable. Someone was very very good with cutting those in. Same observation with the hood vent, the trough running back from the opening is very neatly sculpted into the metal. If it was a show car though, why all the suspension additions? I remember talking to an old stock car driver on one of my trips to the Carolinas. He said he ran some T-birds like mine. He said on higher banked tracks, the body would slide sideways downward and cut into the tires. He thought the mods I described might be an attempt to prevent that? It has a conventional rear leaf suspension and the front is conventional coil spring. Again, all speculation. By the way, the traction rods had the brackets welded to the body and welded to the rear axles and were adjustable. The pan hard rod was also welded in. The flip side of all this is if it had been some type of competition / race car, why such neat body work? Most stock cars I see raced are not all that concerned about the neatness of the body modifications. And none of the pictures of T-birds like mine that were raced ever had a hint of vents or radiused wheel wells. I will try to find pictures of the inside of the fender vents and post those. Again thanks for your replies.
 

xr7

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Poor T-Bird, Ford really blew it, the square bird sold well but the two seater still got all the love. I worked in a T-Bird junkyard for about six years. The farmer I worked for had a collection of T-Birds and I would go to the local junkyard to get parts we needed. The junkyard hated pulling parts of the T-Birds, he sold all the birds to my boss and we became the T-Bird junkyard. Those were the days. Always loved a red 62 roadster.
 
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back then they used to try and create a better "sportscar" so I don't doubt there were suspension mods. Those suspension mods you mentioned are known as "under ride, or over ride" bars, depending on how they mounted to the diff. I wonder if the car was drag raced? that would explain the nice bodywork, and the bars you speak of, although a lot of those cars ended up with straight axles..
Found this intriguing photo on the internet however...
the plot thickens,,I love automotive archeology

nYZaDFZl.jpg
 
Blacksheep , you will see my level of suspension modification understanding here. I never heard of under ride or over ride bars. The brackets for the bars are still in place. The bars are not there anymore. But, from what I saw, it appears the rear axle bracket, which is welded to the axle housing, would have had the bar pinned in about the center line of the rear axle. The front of the bar is literally right beside the spring shackle bracket set just inboard of it and is actually a Ford spring shackle bracket itself. I have some old old pictures of the brackets if I can find them from when the car was parked in the barn for a number of years. I will see if I can find them and post them.

I just think it was someones street rod or something and lost to history. Somebody sure went to a lot of work regardless !!!
 
IMG_8042.JPGIMG_5680.JPG

Ok, picture 8042 is on the drivers side looking from the back forward. You can see the bracket welded to the axle and the forward bracket welded to the body inboard of the std spring shackle bracket. The other is on the passenger side looking from the front going back. The pictures are not good but that was the situation sitting in the barn for a long time. The thing no one seems to know why is the round eye bracket welded into place as well. The eye brackets are on both sides . That is all I know at this point and doubt I ever learn much more …….

IMG_8042.JPGIMG_5680.JPG
 
I found the new pictures of the front fender side vents taken recently. The front wheel well interior fender panels are removed so you can see the vents from the back side. On the drivers side, pictures 0323 and 0325, you see the interior view of the vent and then 0325 is a close up of the cut going into the engine compartment. On the passengers side, the side with the hood vent cut in, you see the fender vent and you can see the sheet metal cut out that connects the engine compartment to the side vents. Remember, when the interior wheel well covers are in place, ( metal formed panels that fit tightly and bolted in place) the air can only go out the side fender vents...if it can and I assume it can ??

IMG_0321.JPGIMG_0323.JPGIMG_0325.JPG
 
Good morning , the shock brackets are on both sides. You mentioned that in the 50's and early 60's, they were a big deal. Why was that? What were they trying to accomplish?

thanks
 
Also, in the previous post with the picture of the blue T-bird, you wondered if it had been drag raced. Isn't it kind of heavy to drag race? And the body work is significant for what I see as a car to be drag raced? But then, I have little or no experience or knowledge of drag racing. Had my Dad thought I was abusing the car, I would have been driving the old farm pick up from then on !! The engine in it is the Lincoln 430, a low reving engine meant for torque and not HP at upper ends of the rpm ranges. It also weighs in at about 900 lbs !! There are traces of gold paint on it here and there. It had been repainted several shades of red, I think, in its life before I got it.
 
the engine numbers match the frame so it was a factory 430. But a car like that almost always had power steering and brakes and yet this one did not. The VIN plate says it had an automatic transmission but none of the firewall knock out plugs for the single pedal automatic were ever knocked out. The bolts that hold the clutch and brake pedal brackets are still painted over with original factory black paint. There were those T-birds that "supposedly" could be special ordered by dealers for certain customers with the 430 and standard transmission for racing purposes. But Ford has always denied that. That was a time when Ford was still adhering to the supposed racing ban by the auto manufacturers. But also after the 59 T-bird from Omaha "unofficially" won the Daytona 500 and people wanted to be able to buy a T-bird for racing. There is still a lot of conjecture about that race and a book was written about it even. So who knows...….only history .
 
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Yep, it was pretty heavy for drag racing, but it depends on the class and the hp/cubic inch rules of the time. They raced Galaxies so, why not T birds?. There were all sorts of scams being done by Detroit back then Google swiss cheese Pontiac and lightweight Galaxie and Ford Thunderbolt, you'll see what I mean.
It might just be a "custom" car that someone did for fun.
 
Thank you for your interest and all of your replies. I think it will forever be lost to history. Not the first I am sure. I will finish re- restoring it when I retire soon. And drive it again. thank you !!!
 

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