Fairlane hardtops in the ’63 brochure; Sports Coupe in the foreground.
In 1970 I inherited my mom’s car to travel back and forth to school in Ohio. I had joined a fraternity with a large collection of car enthusiasts and the parking lot was a study in contrasts. We had the muscle car fans with a 67 Fairlane GT and one with a 69 Mercury Cyclone. We had the foreign car fans, an MG midget, a Lancia Fulvia and a VW. The classic car contingent included a 56 Chevy and a 51 Chevy pickup.
The level of enthusiasm varied greatly, some wrenched on their cars for fun, some out of necessity and others just called daddy for money when work needed to be done. During this time I rebuilt the top end of the engine of the Fairlane, which by that time I affectionately named “Heather”. But the rebuilt was a poor decision; replacing the leaking valves raised the compression enough to blow out the rings.
While getting parts to rebuild the bottom end with my fraternity brother George, we crested a hill just in time to smash into the side of a 63 Chevy wagon that had run a stop sign. We were in his 66 Mustang and had been traveling at the speed limit—60 mph. The Mustang folded up like a gum wrapper, and I face-planted into the windshield. My knees were jammed into the glove compartment door that had popped open.
In complete shock, I managed to stagger out of the wreck to check on the driver of the other car. On seeing me he recoiled, terrified, but apparently uninjured. George came over and persuaded me to look in the sideview mirror of the wagon. My face was covered in my own blood, and I fainted. I remember laying on the operating table as the doctor sewed up the lacerations to my scalp, chin and then cleaned up my knees which he said he couldn’t do much for. I ended up taking the bus back to Syracuse while the car sat in the fraternity parking lot unfinished.
…
In the end, I found a Boss 302 engine from a wrecked 69 Mustang and had the owner swap it in the Fairlane for me while I recovered. The man lived in a mobile home in a lonely hollow not far from school. He did a great job and explained in detail all that he needed to do to make the swap work; the engine mated to the mounts but the Ford-o-matic wouldn’t mate to the bell housing and wouldn’t handle the power even if it did.
Instead, he shoehorned in a 3-speed Cruise-o-matic transmission from another donor car and mounted a console shifter on the floor. In 1965, Ford switched from generators to alternators. Rather than rewiring the car to accept the alternator from the 302, the generator from the 260 was reinstalled. The radiator was flushed and tested, and when it all came together, it ran better than new.
The one thing I remember most from this time was going to pick up the Fairlane one cold February day. When I knocked on the door the man answered and behind him, I saw his wife and barefoot daughter looking very forlorn. When I held out the money to pay, the man’s face lit up and as he took it he said excitedly “We can go racing this weekend!” The haunted look on the woman’s face made it clear she and her daughter were not priorities for this man.
For the next two years, I discovered something about automotive engineering…
That spring I blew out the u joints during a high-speed run on I-75. A few months later the differential started making noises and I swapped in a 3.90 gear set that another fraternity brother had swapped out of his 67 Fairlane for a 4.11 unit when he decided to go drag racing. Next was the rear springs.
Finally, the front-end subframe, weakened from years of salt corrosion, succumbed to my reckless high-speed driving over unpaved dirt roads in the Adirondacks. Every part of the car was made just strong enough for every other part it worked with…
There was no extra strength in any component. My parents were glad to see the last of “Heather”, but for me, I missed that car for years until I realized that it wasn’t the car I missed but the adventures of youth and my first taste of automotive freedom.
Related CC reading:
Car Show Classic: 1963 Ford Fairlane Sport Coupe K-Code
CC Capsule: 1963 Ford Fairlane 500 – Out For A Night On The Town
You describe the fears in the back of my mind which have kept me from ever doing significant mods on a cheap old car.
Being in an accident in cars of that time was no joke. As someone who spent many years and racked up many miles in cars with lap belts being the only significant concession to safety, I was fortunate to have avoided an ugly crash.
Yikes. Quite the story. In more ways than one.
Yes, the description reminds me of the end of my 1st car., a 64 Cutlass 2 dr hardtop. I was broadsided by a 69 Impala sport coupe on Dec. 18, 1970. hit right at the back of the driver’s door. I had my seatbelt on. but still ended up with my torso on the pavement and my feet still in the car. the door was bent outward, apparently my ody had that much impact. and I felt it. as I was a mass of bruises and contusions from my knees to my shoulders. A friend, who had been in the passenger seat, was propelled across the interior and lost his front teeth on the steering wheel. A lot of blood in that scene as well.
I amazes me what shadetree mechanics could, and would, do when cars were more modular. Like JPC, I lacked the nerve, myself.
However bad your accident, I’m happy that you’re around 50-ish years later to share the tale!
I’m intrigued that one of your fraternity brothers had a Lancia Fulvia–Berlina, HF, or Zagato? I assume he was financially well off.
No his father was
The Adventures Of Youth ~ I’m still trying to recapture them .
good story about a nice car .
-Nate
While todays cars with 3 point belts, airbags, pretensioners on the belts, engineered crumple zones and more are far safer, simple lapbelts saved a whole bunch of lives, probably including mine.
64 VW bug, 6 volt headlights which were insanely dim. Back road in Arkansas and I thought I was in a turn before i was, due to visibility, jerked the wheel, the back end came out and I went down an embankment, rolling 4? times, at least thats what the tow truck driver estimated. Doors popped open and bent into a Vee shape. I had a split lip and mildly bruised shoulder. I count that as uninjured. Without lap belts I doubt I would have survived.
Lap belts were the game changer, everything else is just icing on the cake.
First car was a 63 1/2 Sports Coupe. I loved that car. Sporty, quick, standard things that didn’t exist yet. Drove that car everywhere. Finally sold it to a young man that stuffed a Cleveland 351 in it and drag raced it.