I sent a question about the motor and curious what the response will be.

Butchering up everything I can get my hands on in Dayton Ohio

I also wrote him asking if he could post some pictures of the frame and suspension. Just curious what is actually under it. Wonder if it is a Kit car or what?

"The Master Cylinder"

Enjoying life at the beach in SOCAL

In one of the engine pics, you can see the upper A-arms, and they are real 55 Bird parts, so it has a stock frame anyway. I believe like he said, it was built there, but it was also butchered sometime in its life. Here is one of the articles he sent me, it is a little hard to read as it was a poor scan, but you can read it. Note where it says when it comes to these cars to use some common sense, ie. if you have one with a Pontiac engine in it, don't assume it came in it...

James Potter
`57 Fords International



`57 Custom Tudor

`57 Fords International National Director

Pass Christian, MS (near Gulfport/Biloxi)

As you all know the 55-57 Thunderbirds were only built in the Dearborn assy. plant. Yes T-Birds were exported to mexico and other counties, but none were built at any plant except Dearborn. 40% of all T-birds were shipped to Calif. Maybe they should have used a western plant!

  JUST A MIDNIGHT CRUISE DOWN THUNDER ROAD!!! TOM DRUMMOND MIDWEST DIRECTOR 57 FORD INTERNATIONAL

The article posted is from the Early Bird in 1993. This is the Classic Thunderbird Club International's bi-monthly publication and that kind of information is/was very interesting to members of CTCI. It is usually accurate. The article says clearly that a small number of Classic Birds were sent to Mexico in pieces and assembled there, indicating that they may have "MEX" as their assembly code instead of Dearborn. So the car might indeed have been assembled in Mexico but it would have had a Y block Thunderbird motor.You will note that the inside door panels are missing some pieces and this kind of problem was mentioned in the CTCI article.



So if the seller acknowledges that the car has been debased with a scrub engine and is not trying to pass it off as factory, then at least he is rationally part of this world although he has no class. But he is seriously deranged if he thinks FoMoCo ever did anything like that for sale.



P.S. I see my avatar shows the interior of my '55 Bird pretty well. So for the sake of accuracy, the color/material is '56 T Bird Buckskin stitched up in the proper pattern for a '55 by one of the T bird vendors on special order.

Doug T

The Highlands, Louisville, Ky.

James, don't you think you were a little hard on the beaver? Seriously, I'd be interested in that info.





thanks, Mark

I'll forward his email to you. I scanned it for viruses and its safe, but you should probably do the same before opening, there are 5 .pdf files in a zip. They are scanned and like I said the quality is poor but readable. I wll send them when I get home.

James Potter
`57 Fords International



`57 Custom Tudor

`57 Fords International National Director

Pass Christian, MS (near Gulfport/Biloxi)

I got a reply saying its the original motor,I am tempted in responding telling him he is very nieve or smoking crack.

Butchering up everything I can get my hands on in Dayton Ohio

Just sent him his VIN decoded as per the early TBird book, his P code says 292 to me.....No doubt, he will report me to ebay for harassing him, though I am not going through ebay's messaging system.

James Potter
`57 Fords International



`57 Custom Tudor

`57 Fords International National Director

Pass Christian, MS (near Gulfport/Biloxi)

It seems this poor guy is convinced that this is the real deal. Only thing would be if he found a buyer that thought the same. Anyone spending that much money for any car should know what they are buying. Chuck

Y's guys rule!
Looking for McCullouch VS57 brackets and parts. Also looking for 28 Chrysler series 72 parts. And early Hemi parts.

MoonShadow, 292 w/McCulloch, 28 Chrysler Roadster, 354 Hemi)
Manchester, New Hampshire