OK, be honest. You're just like us at each and every car show we go to. We see that one lonely car with the for sale sign on it. It tempts you, it calls to you. But if you only had the time or the money, it could be sitting in your garage right now. You walk by it 50 times. You pester the owner asking every pithy little question that you can think of just to get a flavor of the car. You hope that one of the questions leads you to that one detail that you can say, "Ha! I knew it! It's a pile!"That way you can walk away feeling content knowing that you didn't buy it. You can go on with the rest of your life without that headache of knowing you married a massive project well beyond your technical skill.
This isn't one of those stories. Ted Nourse of Otsego, Minnesota, wasn't that guy. He was originally looking for a Mustang at the time, but couldn't steal himself from the allure of the '67 Fairlane 500XL you see gracing these glossy pages. He first saw the car at a car show put on by our sister publication, Car Craft, in St. Paul, Minnesota. The owner had driven the car from Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. That's almost 500 miles each way.
The typical story goes: Guy goes to car show for some petro-sexual ogling, guy sees car, guys convinces himself it's a bad investment, and moves on with his life. Simple, right? Ted couldn't do that with this very clean car with original miles, engine, and interior. Well, that Sunday, the show was over and the owner headed back home. Ted called that Friday, and by Saturday it was in his possession and he was on his way back home. "My wife kept giving me thumbs up the entire ride up to Canada," recalls Ted.
This part made us lock up all four brakes; wait, she actually gave you the go ahead? You didn't have to sneak it home with level five DEFCON-clearance in the dead of night wearing an all-black ninja suit and a balaclava?
"I do have to thank my wife for her understanding on what it takes to build a car like this!"We'll say, Ted! Sounds like car and the wife are both keepers! "Even at the border crossing, the police were very interested in the car.
"We drove the car for nine years with the original 289, C4 and four-wheel drums. It was a fun car to drive, but it wasn't very exciting. We found out that the car was originally built in Kansas City, Missouri, and then exported to Parkside Sales in Winnipeg. It spent its entire life in Canada until we brought it home.
By then I was getting the bug to do some mods but I couldn't do them all myself. I shopped around and decided to go with Rich Wait and his company, The Hot Rod Factory. The staff there loves building Pro Touring machines and they have super high quality."
Thus, the shop embarked on a rapid turnaround of the vehicle. It went under the knife in August 2010 and emerged sparkling new in November of the same year. What will surprise most people is that the car didn't need a respray. It was painted more than 15 years ago with the original Sauterne Gold color and sports all original trim, glass, and emblems.
After The Hot Rod factory turned out the Fairlane, now coined "Scarelane" by Ted, it dons a host of go-fast goodies with input from Rich and Ted. They slinked into a Heidt's Superride II IFS Power Rack kit with coilovers, and matched it with a Heidt's four-link rear kit with complementing coilovers for the back end. The engine graces us as a 347ci Ford crate engine spitting out a healthy 453 hp and 415 lb-ft of torque. Ted hopes to replace the automatic transmission with a Tremec five-speed very soon.
Naturally, a set of classic Centerline wheels cap off an already timeless exterior look. Behind the bling is a pair of 13-inch Wilwood rotors and six-piston calipers up front. Out back, the car has the 12-inch rotor version with the four-piston model calipers.
"We now have a car that is fast, stops great and handles better than ever. Plus, it's a bit different than most cars out there and it turns heads where ever we go. It's not a 100-point show car by any means, but to us, it's perfect. It's a car that has a great combination of modern technology without losing its old school appeal."
You got that right, Ted! Perhaps we shouldn't be giving all those "For Sale" signed cars the post drunken one-nighter brush offs. Great work and we hope to see you making the rounds, showing off all the hard work. Just don't try to sell it at the shows or even tempt us—we now know you are almost too far out of our league!
Ted Nourse's '67 Ford Fairlane 500XL
- 347ci crate engine built by Patriot Performance
- Stock Ford Windsor block
- Eagle I-beam rods
- Forged flat-top pistons
- 10.0:1 Compression ratio
- Cast steel Eagle crankshaft
- Howard's Roller Cam, 0.576/0.568 lift, 282/286 advertised duration
- Patriot Performance aluminum heads
- Edelbrock 7521 aluminum intake
- Holley 650-cfm double pumper
- MSD billet distributor
- MSD 6AL ignition, MSD coil, MSD wires
- C4 automatic
- TCI 2,800-3,500 rpm stall 10-inch Street Fighter torque converter
- Stock shifter
- Heidt's 9-inch rearend, limited slip differential
- Precision Gear 3.50 gears
- 31-spline axles
- Hooker Super Comp ceramic-coated headers, 1-5/8-inch primaries, 3-inch collectors, 2-1/2-inch aluminum exhaust
- Flowmaster 40 Series aluminum mufflers, dual exhaust
- Front: Heidt's Mustang II IFS, power rack-and-pinion, coilover shocks, shock tower delete
- Rear: Heidt's four-link, coilover shocks
- Front: Wilwood disc, 13-inch rotors, six-piston calipers
- Rear: Wilwood disc, 12-inch rotors, four-piston calipers
- Front: Centerline polished billet, Competition Series Stage II, 18x6, 4.5-inch backspacing
- Rear: Centerline polished billet, Competition Series Stage II, 18x7, 4.5-inch backspacing
- Front: BFGoodrich KDW, P235/40ZR18
- Rear: BFGoodrich KDW, P275/35ZR18
- All original upholstery, stock bucket seats, stock AM radio with single front dash speaker
- Crites Performance 427 R-code hood, painted 15 years ago with Sikkens Sauterne Gold paint, all original trim, glass, and emblems