By Brian Lohnes

BangShift.com

We really, honestly, do not know where to begin. When our friend Jim, the guy behind Project Fat Lane, the 1964 Thunderbolt look-a-like race car we are tracking, let us know that he was going to be trimming his Ford collection down by a few cars, we were all about helping him get the word out. When we learned exactly what was going to be sold, our jaws hit the floor. This is one of the most amazing collections of Ford cars for sale we have ever run across, and the crazy part is, this is just a slice of his stuff. It includes a real Thunderbolt, a real 1963 1/2 lightweight Galaxie, a real R-Code Galaxie, and nine more simply amazing blue oval cars ranging from hard core drag machinery to vintage retro-rod, to world class hot rods. If you’re a gawker or a buyer, you need to check this out.

There’s not a junker in the mix, and it is important to note that absolutely everything you’ll see, and you’ll see alot as we gave each car its own gallery, is original sheetmetal. Jim has never, nor will he ever buy a car that is rotted. With the exception of the ’32 Ford roadster, which sports a Brookville steel body, these are all original steel cars with a couple sporting their original factory paint. Continue reading at BangShift.com

By Brian Lohnes

BangShift.com

We got tipped off to this awesome video by Bangshift forum member and blog contributor Speedzzter. It is footage of a 1964 Galaxie 500 being wrung out on a frozen lake in Sweden. The car is a four speed and there are some shots of the driver doing some fancy footwork to guide the car around the frozen course.

There is an old Chevy in the video which puts up a futile chase, but the big Ford owns it by a lot. We’re going to attend some ice races this year, sadly our Javelin won’t be coming with us unless the Brinks truck breaks down in front of our house with the doors unlocked.

The big old Ford is painted up like an old stock car and it sounds healthy when the driver gets into the loud pedal and starts hurling shards of ice all over the place. This is one talented Swedish wheelman!

By Brian Lohnes

BangShift.com

Well, this one should put people in two distinct camps. You’ll either love it or absolutely hate it. “It” is a 1966 Ford Galaxie sporting an 850hp big-block Chevy motor, huge axles, massive tractor tires, and an appetite for mud pits.

It is a capable 4×4 with respect to mud bogging, but without any real axle articulation, a center of gravity about four feet higher than the Eiffel tower, and a throttle that appears to be more on-off switch than control pedal, it is a specialized machine.

We’ll go on record as loving it. Go ahead and fling mud at us!

It takes a minute or two to get to the Galaxie, but this mother is worth a look.

By Jim Brennan

UDMan

Welcome to the CarDomain Obscure Muscle Car Parking Lot, a regular feature which aims to expand the notion of what a muscle car is, and do I really have to come up with a new witticism every time I run this introduction? Moving on. It was the Autumn of 1965, and at that time Pontiac’s hot-selling GTO heavily influenced the performance car market. Intermediate-sized cars with big-block power were the hot ticket. Ford was about to introduce the 390 powered Fairlane GT and GTA, which was thoroughly re-designed, to satisfy that slice of the market. However, Ford was also about to introduce a new full-sized bruiser for the 1966 model year. Let’s take a look at the Ford’s full-size muscle, the Galaxie 500 7 Litre.

Continue reading "CarDomain Obscure Muscle Car Parking Lot: The Ford Galaxie 500 7 Litre" »

Don’s ’64 Galaxie Fireball Roberts tribute car has always been an awesome fixture on CarDomain, and that’s why we’re stoked to announce that Don is the July winner for our Mobil-ize Your Ride contest! Mobil 1 synthetic didn’t even exist back in Fireball’s day, but that hasn’t stopped Don from building a truly impressive and thoroughly Mobil-ized page for the big Galaxie—way to roll with the times, man! Congrats to Don, who wins a cool thousand bucks and is now a finalist for the grand-prize trip to the Daytona 500 in February. You can enter, too—go to our Mobil-ize Your Ride group page to sign up and get the full contest details.

Last August I showed you a barn fresh Turbonique Cougar. Now here’s a fully restored ’64 Galaxie equipped with the famous Turbonique Rocket Drag Axle.

Built by tobacco heir Zachary Reynolds of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco fame, the “Tobacco King” 1964 Ford Galaxie was as wild an example of a Rocket Drag Axle-equipped car as one could ask for, and certainly reflected Reynolds’ daredevil personality. Playboy, pilot, Ham Radio enthusiast and all-around enfant terrible, Reynolds specifically wanted a car that would terrorize everyone with its appearance alone, just before slamming their senses with a prodigious detonation of Rocket Axle power. The “Tobacco King” certainly fulfilled that mission.

Documented in the 1967 Turbonique product catalog, the Raven Black Galaxie’s original 390 V8 engine was replaced with a 425 horsepower 427 Ford big block fitted with a rare Latham axial flow supercharger fed by four Carter one-barrel sidedraft carburetors. That alone would have been enough for most street racers, but not for the young Reynolds, who took the whole project the extra distance by having the differential replaced with an 850 horsepower Turbonique turbine Rocket Drag Axle. The rest of the car had to be modified to handle the colossal acceleration and speeds of which it was then capable; the frame was reinforced and suspension beefed up to handle the enormous torque delivered through the rear axle housing, and ground clearance increased to accommodate the huge turbine housing that shot its rocket exhaust out from underneath the rear bumper.

It’s to be auctioned off in Indianapolis in May. Lots more pics after the jump, and you can get the full scoop at Mecum Auctions.

Independently publishing a magazine, as opposed to being part of a big publishing group like Source Interlink (formerly Primedia, formerly EMAP, formerly Petersen) is an uphill struggle. So it’s my pleasure to point all you Blue Oval guys and girls to Legendary Fords Magazine (or LFM). It might not be at every news stand or easy to find, but it’s well worth seeking out. More…

The focus (pun intended) is on vintage Fords, naturally, and I’ve got to tell you that the March/April issue is an absolutely great read. What it gives up in the way of sophistication in the way it is laid out (it has a decided retro look about it, but is 100% color, printed on high-quality coated stock), it more than makes up in subject matter. Even if you are a GM fan, or prefer Mopars or even AMCs like me, the thoughtfulness in the material will make it an engrossing and involving read.

As I’ve been blogging here for just a couple of weeks, you already know that I have a yen for things slightly off-beat and out of the box and LFM feeds my need. The current issue focuses in on 428 Cobra Jet-powered cars, but instead of the expected usual subjects, Editor Colin Date has truly sought out some wonderfully wacky and rare cars. The best example is the 1969 Cobra Jet-powered Mustang Grande. While this is a Q-Code 428, 4-barrel carb with no Ram Air motor, it’s the ultimate sleeper with a black vinyl roof over Lime Gold paint with wire wheel covers and white walls! This is a car that will run 1,320 feet in under 14-seconds, which is pretty damn fast then or now.

Another feature looks at scavenging junk yards for hi-po parts in the most unusual places. Looking for a 5-liter HO motor for your Mustang? Start looking under the hood of junked 1988 to 1993 Lincoln LSC coupes (which also have great sport seats to donate). Looking for a console? Contributor Jeff Ford (great name for a contributor to a Ford magazine) points you in directions you might have overlooked, such as 1992 and 1993 Taurus and Sables rotting in your closest Pick-A-Part.

And for those who truly love the off beat, there’s a story on Ford of Brazil. Seems that Ford sent them the tooling for the 1966 Galaxie 500 and from 1967 to 1983, Ford of Brazil produced 77,850 of these classic American land yachts based on the same body shell, changing bumpers, grill and trim (the last Brazilian-built 1983 Ford had exactly the same instrument panel as the 1965 Ford Galaxie 500/LTD). How’s that for maximizing the value of the tooling?

Subscriptions aren’t subsidized or cheap at $28.95, but I bet you’ll agree with me LFM is well worth it, especially if you’re a Ford, Lincoln or Mercury enthusiast. Visit their web site at LegendaryFordMagazine.com for more details. 

Duston got this ’65 Galaxie 500 in 2005, promptly rebuilt the original 390 and tranny, and then turned his attention to body and paint. I love those Keystone mags–I’m still thinking of putting them on my car. Click through to Duston’s ride page to see the photos he took before putting it away for the winter.

My dad’s in Turkey and he just sent me this shot of what looks to be a ’65 Galaxie vert parked out on the streets of Istanbul. It’s always cool to see old Detroit iron halfway around the world. Nice whitewalls!

Martha’s ride page contains not just a great write-up and pics of her awesome Ford Galaxie, but also a rich narrative of family gearhead hijinks going back to the earliest days of hot-rodding. She’s got some fantastic archival photos of her late Grandpa Sam’s first hot rot build back in 1947, and some present-day shots of Grandma Silvia with the vintage Corvette they owned as a couple. She also documents everything in between concerning the Galaxie, purchased brand new off the lot by Grandpa in 1964. It’s since been through several owners, all of them brothers and uncles who worked on the car together. It got 427 swap in 1976, and was blowing away Chevys at the dragstrip by ’77. In the 80′s, it survived a cracked block and subsequent conversion back to its original 390, and a brush with destruction in the 90′s in the form of a speeding truck. Today, the Galaxie is on its third paint job. Martha has had the 390 rebuilt, she swapped out the interior, and she does a lot of wrenching on it to keep it maintained as a solid daily driver. There are few people who know the history of their vintage ride this intimately, and we’re totally stoked to see CarDomain members using the site to keep these kinds of stories alive.