Full Throttle

This image has spawned something new here at Full Throttle.

As some of my readers are of somewhat younger in age than myself (as is Methuselah) I thought it would be fun, assuming getting a brain ache is “fun,” to toss up an occasional image of a race car, racing personality or event from the past as a way to connect the youngsters to the rich history of auto racing.

To be honest the first installment would have stumped me if it weren’t for the article that accompanied the image. I didn’t have a clue the car ever existed.

Be that as it may, here are a couple hints as to the Fairlane’s origin: It was produced as a prototype by one of the forerunners of todays mega-teams such as Hendrick and Roush-Fenway.

At the time the team had under its employ NASCAR mechanical legends Robert Yates, Herb Nab, Jake Elder, Dan Ford, and Waddell Wilson.

Although it never ran a NASCAR sanctioned event it did compete in the Continental, a sports car race at Daytona that pre-dated today’s 24 Hours of Daytona scoring a second place racing against Corvettes and Porsches.

You can read the short answer and story of the car by hitting the “more link,” and the entire article can be read on the Stock Car Magazine website.

One of the biggest challenges that faced Holman & Moody-and stock car racing in general-was the advent of the unibody cars in the mid-’60s. Unibody cars didn’t use a traditional body-on-frame construction. Instead, the body was used as part of the frame and, instead of simply being an outer shell, provided rigidity. Unibody construction meant that an over-the-road car could be lighter and less expensive to produce, but it was a poor replacement for the older body-on-frame style when it came to racing.

“Ford started making unibody cars around 1964 with the Fairlane and Falcon,” recalls Holman. “At the time we were racing the Galaxy, which had a big, full frame and the body could be lifted off the chassis, but we could see that the smaller unibody cars were coming. I don’t remember if it was from Ford’s push or NASCAR’s push, but we developed a couple of prototype versions of a ‘64 Fairlane race car. One version had the unibody in pretty much standard configuration. That car wasn’t strong enough and broke apart pretty quickly in testing. You couldn’t make it strong enough to survive.

“The second version was a Fairlane that we built with a modified front snout. We reinforced the unibody lower frame sections and modified the lower A-arm with a spring bucket to accept the springs. [In stock form, the Fairlane's front springs bottomed out in the top A-arm.] This change allowed us to use screw jacks so you could adjust the car.

“NASCAR wanted to see how the car ran, so we took it down to Daytona and entered it in the Continental race because they didn’t want it in the 500. That was the sports car race they ran before the Daytona 500. That’s kind of like the 24 Hours of Daytona today. We put a 427 Ford engine in it, which was NASCAR legal at the time, and modified the rear suspension with a four-link to make it a little better for road racing. Everyone thought that big, boxy car would fall all over itself racing against Corvettes and Porsches, but it finished Second in that race.

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