Don’t let the title fool you: the Ford 427 V8 with a single four-barrel carb may have been rated at 410 hp by the factory, but by the time Holman and Moody had done their magic, it was cranking out closer to 500 hp at 6500 rpm. Fred Lorenzen’s whole car got the H-M treatment, which netted him the biggest pile of earnings of the 1963 season.
Car Life decided to test it, and of course had Lorenzen do the driving. Yes, it was fast. And there’s a slew of clever details and mods that it took to keep one of these “stock” beasts going for 500 miles at 150+ mph, like a power steering pump attached to the differential housing to circulate its oil through a cooler.
Fred Lorenzen and his H-M Ford were red hot in 1963, and Car Life decided to find out just why. They took the Galaxie to Riverside Raceway and Lorenzen show it the spurs. How fast was it? 0-140 mph in 22 seconds. Top speed? An easy 155 mph with the 3.50 rear end gears for Riverside, but it would go faster with lower 3.25 gearing for the speedways like Daytona. And it even acquitted itself pretty well at the drag strip, despite the gearing being all wrong: 14.2 sec. @105 mph. Lorenzen also did some exhibition drag racing at the time, so it’s not like he didn’t know how to get the big Ford down the strip as fast as it could.
The Galaxie started life with the 410 hp version of the 427 (dual carbs were banned at NASCAR), the B-W T-10 4-speed transmission, and every heavy duty part that Ford had on tap for extreme use including some extra tough front spindles. Then the car was totally stripped and disassembled at the H-M shops. A roll cage was added to the body, which also contributes to the car’s structural rigidity as well as safety. All the frame and body weld joints were rewelded with a continuous bead, rather than the factory spot welds.
The stiff rear springs are mounted with lowering blocks, and there are stabilizer bars front and rear.
Springs rates are variable from side to side, depending on the track, as are tire pressures. At Daytona, tire pressures for the Goodyear “gumball” 8.20-15 tires are 60 psi right front, 55 right rear, 45 left rear, and 40 left front. At Riverside, pressures were 50 on the fronts and 40 on the rear. The wheels are 8.5″ wide, and have a double plate center section to prevent failure at the hubs. The tires are designed to last the length of a full race.
The engine is of course blueprinted and clearances increased for reduced friction. The rear axle is a full-floating unit, and has an oil cooling system that is pumped by a (stock!) power steering pump, circulating the oil through a radiator in the trunk that has an electric fan.
Every possible nut is secured with safety wire. Doors are bolted shut, and anything flammable is removed. The H-M treatment added some $6000 ($60k adjusted) to the $3200 price of the truly stock car that rolled off Ford’s assembly line with all the right options. That’s a bit less than $100k in today’s dollars for what was the #1 money-winning car in the 1963 season.
Lorenzen took the straights with “wild, strong bursts of speed” and flung the big Ford through the curves in “unbelievable massive four-wheel drifts”. Cornering was deemed “brisk and clean”. Not quite like a stock ’63 Galaxie, it seems.
Related CC reading:
Vintage Car Life Road Test: 1962 Ford Galaxie 500 XL 406 – “Total Performance” Started Here
Leo Levine’s book Ford: The Dust and the Glory explains Think! W.H.M.?
Ralph Moody will be posthumously inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame next year. Overdue IMO.
I had one of these back then but with the 289 engine. drove it on the street during the week, and drag raced it on weekends. Did well drag racing in 1964. Loved that car.
You drag raced a 289 Galaxie?
In 1965 the 289 Galaxies cleaned up in the C/FX class (factory experimental), of course those had a set of Webers.
With any HIPO 289 the key to drag racing was a real deep set of gears in the rear end to allow it to wind out.
Thanks for posting this Paul! Even growing up in California, far from the sport’s center (only the Riverside road race was held out here, even that hundreds of miles from my home), I was aware of these cars, and Freddy Lorenzen’s exploits, from the sports section of the Monday paper or watching Wide World of Sports. Although NASCAR hadn’t yet become the cultural phenomenon would be 30-40 years later, it was still mainstream unlike sports car racing or even Formula 1, which were my true passions. The following year we lived in England for 6 months, and newspaper photos of Formula 1 champion Jim Clark racing a Galaxie like this were good for my homesickness. I want particularly a “Ford guy” at that age, but these Fastback Galaxies seemed much more distinctive and appealing than the Chevies and Plymouths of the time.
I have similar memories, especially of watching races on WWS. I too wasn’t exactly a Ford guy, but I did have respect for their more successful cars like these.
The striking thing is that despite all the modifications this still a “stock” car right down to the dashboard unlike the modern NASCAR racers that are tube framed silhouette cars. It also isn’t radically different from the Galaxies racing in Europe and most of that is suspension tuning.
They couldn’t race cars today that were as close to stock as this is. Well, they could, but would anyone watch a race between a Camry and a Sonata?
Fast cars these cars are still being raced at Goodwood revivals.
Wow, what a concept, racing stock cars. Kind of reminds me of the old Showroom Stock Series which looked like a whole lot of fun. Or the 24 hours of Lemons where they start with a beater and see if they can make it fast and last. Stock cars, wow.
Yes, while serious it’s obviously a jab at what should now be named the National Association of SPEC Car Racing, a highly profitably series that has nothing to do with it’s real name.
But while the Lemons series may be distinctly amateur, they’re racing those cars hard and as hard as they know how, it’s real racing, if not professional.
A moment thinking about the driver instead of the car: Fred Lorenzen, now 89, lives in the Chicago area, his family nearby, in assisted living. He is undisputably one of NASCAR’s greatest.
And if anything went awry at 140+mph, a nice, non-collapsible steering column pointing right at your ribs. A big beast fit only for the brave, for sure.
The engine work is interesting – that result is an approximate 25% increase, just by careful building, it seems. 0-100mph in 13.2 is quite something.
My 2015 stock Sonata w/2.4L, beats the snot out most Camries I come across on the street. Now, the newest (23,24)Camry, with all the “sport” dressing and such, look pretty cool, and they seem to move well. Have not tried a drag from light to light with the newest Camry.. But, I will, one of these days…
Buddy of mine picked up a 64 galaxy 390 4v w 3 speed manual. Beast in the street. Car looked like 100 mph sitting still. We still talk about the fun we had with that car. Like grabber orange matted a bit.
I was living in west Los Angeles awhile back and one day, which I took pictures, I’m not sure if it was the real Mc Coy, but on Ocean Park Bl. and Bundy, there was a galaxies, white, all painted up with Fred Lorenzen on the door if I remember, sponsors, and number parked for a couple weeks on the street, then disappeared. I wonder if it was the real deal and why it was parked on the street, and what happened to it.