If I had more money than brains, I would be heading to Florida in two weeks for this auction:
1957 Ford Fairlane 500 F-Code Sedan
The Only 4-Door F-Code Known to Exist
This unassuming 1957 Ford Fairlane 500 may look mundane, but its story begins with the cross-breeding that occurred between NASCAR and the illicit liquor trade – bootlegging, that is; moonshine.
The horsepower races of the mid-'50s saw NASCAR homologate multiple carburetion, fuel injection and supercharging, all of which moonshiners immediately adopted in the quest to stay out of revenuers’ clutches. One such character, who shall remain anonymous, bought and paid cash for this 1957 Ford Fairlane 500 but was hauled off to jail before he could take delivery. It languished on the dealer’s lot for a year before it found another buyer who, shocked by the car’s terrible gas mileage, had the dealer remove the supercharger.
As luck would have it, when veteran NASCAR team manager and Penske Racing South co-founder Don Miller first examined the car near Wilkesboro, North Carolina, he also found the discarded blower and all its related pieces – even the original drive belts – in a barrel inside a barn on the seller’s property. That was in 1999; in the following years Miller was able to track the car’s story through contacts inside Ford, who were able to give him the startling news that this unobtrusive sedan with the two-tone Grey paint was in reality the only four-door F-code Fairlane 500 known to exist, and that it had been purchased new for the specific mission of shipping “white lightning” to the original buyer’s clients.
“That was fully the intention, to be used for moonshining,” Miller recently told Hemmings Muscle Machines, “It was the car with the most horsepower, and at the same time, the car you’d least likely to identify as a tanker.”
The Ford’s four-door configuration was perfect for quickly loading and unloading the intended illicit cargo, and its two-tone Gunmetal and Woodsmoke Gray paint and brocaded interior would have virtually guaranteed stealthy runs, but it was the F-code engine that made it so unique. It took Miller 10 years to complete the car’s restoration, and the results are impressive.
The F-code Thunderbird's Paxton-McCullough supercharger is back pumping compressed air into the single Holley four-barrel atop the rebuilt 312 CI V-8 that was bored .030 over and now displaces 317 CI. The heavy-duty 3-speed transmission with overdrive and 3.70:1 9-inch rear end are also on duty. Finding all the rare exterior trim pieces and the correct brocade material for the interior were just two of the many important pieces of the puzzle, but Don Miller’s patience and persistence paid off in a marvelous restoration Miller was determined to properly execute once he knew this F-code's incredible story. That determination shows in every detail of this one-of-a-kind Ford known as the “Likker Tanker.”
This is a gorgeous vehicle with an amazing history. Planning on opening a distillery in the next five years - I could see this as the marketing 'vehicle' as it were...
Sadly, no. It sure would be a fun drive back...
Reminds me of the renascence of wooden boat building in the Seattle area during prohibition. Booze was legal in Canada and the bootleggers ran their product in by boat. The revenuers commissioned a faster boat. Next year, the bootleggers commissioned an even faster one and the race was on. A local Radio and Television powerhouse (KING-5) got their start by broadcasting certain tunes at certain times to tell the boats which harbor to use - where the pickup truck was.
