Ford Galaxies had a size problem in 1966. And though the svelte little Fairlane/Comet lines existed, the intrusive nature of the unit-body shock towers those cars featured pretty much precluded the installation of any Ford big-block with all of its attendant racing hardware. Ralph Moody suggested that if France would just let Ford teams cut off the unit-body front clip of a Ford intermediate and then graft on the tried-and-true front half of a '65-'66 Galaxie frame, Ford could once again be competitive. the proposed modifications would take the resulting cars so far away from "stock" that the rulebook became a joke. Nonetheless, France was just desperate enough to secure the Ford teams' return that he OK'd the proposed mods. And so, Holman/Moody worked on what came to be called the half-chassis race car (half Galaxie full frame and half Fairlane unit body).
In the meantime, Bill France-in an attempt to get fans back to the track-was allowing all sorts of strange things to happen to the sheetmetal of the cars that turned up each weekend to race . By the second race at Atlanta in 1966, things had gotten out of hand. Smokey Yunick showed up with a '66 Chevelle that looked suspiciously tiny. Making matters worse for the sanctioning body was the very strange looking yellow '66 Galaxie that Junior Johnson parked across the garage area from Smokey's tiny Chevrolet. The hood on Junior's Galaxie plunged precipitously from windshield to bumper, and the windshield had been "laid back" at least 4 inches. The top was apparently chopped, and the rear trunk swept upwards towards the sky to form a rudimentary airfoil.
Darel Dieringer proved the viability of the 427-powered intermediate Ford chassis at Darlington when he won the Southern 500 in a red, white, and black Bud Moore Mercury Comet (complete with a twin-scoop fiberglass hood). By season's end, all of the top Ford teams were back in the fold and campaigning half-chassis Fairlanes.
1967By 1967, Galaxie race cars were out and half-chassis Fairlanes were in at Holman/Moody's Charlotte racing factory. As the new season approached, the Holman/Moody crew began work on a fleet of the little stockers. The front of each car was fitted with a narrowed '65-'66 Galaxie snout that had been heavily modified for race duty. The front clip was attached to the rest of a Fairlane's stock unit body via two mild steel tube sections that had been snaked inside the rocker panels of each car. A comprehensive roll cage with an underhood hoop helped make the composite pieces a coherent whole. Galaxie developed suspension and steering gear made the cars rollers. Rim size increased to 9 inches and fuel cells became mandatory. Bill France threw Ford racers a bone in the form of the 427 Tunnel Port head castings and the extra four-barrel carburetor that he allowed Blue Oval teams to run in 1967.
Parnelli Jones won the season-opening Motor Trend 500 in a Holman/Moody Stroppe-built '67 Fairlane, and fellow Indy car racer Mario Andretti gave the early part of the season a further USAC flavor by winning the Daytona 500 in another Holman/Moody-prepped Fairlane. Even so, 1967 was another Chrysler Hemi-dominated season when Richard Petty used his 426 to respectfully pummel the competition.
1968Nineteen sixty-eight witnessed the introduction of an all-new Ford intermediate body style that was very aerodynamic. While the front fenders weren't all that aerodynamic, the roofline surely was. Beginning at the "A" pillars, the roofline arced in one continuous curve all the way back to the trunk. At speed on the high banks, this design worked as well as it looked.