Fairly unique
This ‘59 model ‘tank’ Fairlane is one fairly unique Ford, and not just because it’s owned a cherished by a self-confessed Holden man, retired Supercars racer Steve Reed
When former V8 Supercar ace Steve Reed went looking for a weekend muscle cruiser, he ended up with more than he bargained for – in more ways than one. Reed invited AMC to take a close look at his pride and joy, a very unique ’59 model ‘tank’ Ford Fairlane 500.
Steve Reed is a Holden man. Reed almost always drove Holdens in a lengthy touring car racing career that saw he and fellow Lansvale Smash Repairs proprietor Trevor Ashby make 16 starts in the Great Race. Reed and Ashby (who featured in our Muscle Men section in AMC issue #90) still hold the record for the longest continuous driver pairing in the history of the Bathurst classic. All of those starts were in Holdens – and yet the panel beating pair actually started racing together in Fords, an Escort RS2000 and a Capri in the early ‘80s.
Reed and Ashby retired from racing in the early 2000s. These days Reed, apart from tending to his own business interests (including a chicken farm in South Australia!), can still be seen at the occasional Supercars race meeting, where he helps out his old mates at Brad Jones Racing, looking after their corporate guests.
It was at one of those Supercars events with BJR that Reed came across the 1959 model Fairlane 500 you see here. At the time he had been thinking about getting himself some kind of weekend muscle cruiser, something a bit old school and a little bit different – although maybe not something this different, and not something with Ford badges attached.
“I heard about the Fairlane one day when they were talking about cars,” Reed explains. “One of the Brad Jones Racing mechanics told me I should speak to Ebony, the PR lady for the team, about her grandfather’s Fairlane. But I’m not a Ford man, so I didn’t take it any further.
Then when we were at Winton Raceway, Ebony’s father, Cliff, said to me, ‘you should come and have a look at this thing because we’ve got to sell it.’
“It was part of Cliff’s parents’ estate. I went and had a look and the first time I wasn’t sold on it; it was a lovely old thing but I wasn’t 100 precent sure. Later I went back with a mate of mine, and he had a look at the car and said to me: ‘if you don’t buy this, you need to have a serious look at yourself. It’s an original car and it’s got a unique history behind it – you should buy it.’ Then when I drove it, I just thought, ‘this is nice, this is me, I like the car.’”
It is certainly a unique car, and not just because it is a low-mileage, unrestored Fairlane that has remained with the one family for almost all of its 60 years.
This is one of the very first Australian Fairlanes made – it’s possible it might even be the first.
The first Fairlanes on Australian roads were also the first Fords assembled at the Broadmeadows plant when it opened in 1959 – before production of the first Falcon models kicked into gear the following year. But this particular Australian-made Fairlane never went down the Broadmeadows line. This car was hand assembled at Ford, possibly as some kind of Australian pre-production prototype for the Canadian-sourced Fairlanes. Intriguingly, it was road registered before any of the actual production Fairlanes were even built. The records show that the first production Fairlane rolled off the line on August 21, 1959. But Steve Reed’s car was first registered on August 6, 15 days earlier.
These are known facts. What’s not clear are the exact circumstances of the car’s build, and whether or not it is the first Aussie Fairlane. “I was told that Ford brought a few Fairlanes out here in crates before they went into production,” Reed says. “A guy that had found out about the car rang me and told me there was nine or 10 that came out here in crates. He knew that because of the numbers on the rego
plates – ‘you’ve got 501,’ he said, ‘but I’ve seen 500 and 510.’ But that’s 11 – it doesn’t add up. Mine wasn’t one of them, but it also wasn’t one of the production line cars. No one seems to know where any of the other 10 are today.”
While the production line Fairlanes duly made their way into Ford dealership new car showrooms across the country, GZT-501 remained at Broadmeadows for the first two years of its life, where it served as the personal transport for one of Ford’s executives.
As the car would be used to ferry around one of the Blue Oval’s chiefs, it ended up being equipped with some rather special features. For one, the engine is the 352 cubic-inch (5.8-litre)
As the car would be used to ferry around one of the Blue Oval’s chiefs, it ended up being equipped with some rather special features. For one, the engine is the 352 cubic-inch (5.8-litre) FE ‘Interceptor’ V8 straight from the Ford Thunderbird model, rather than the smaller 332 (5.4-litre) version of the FE engine fitted to the Australian production Fairlanes
FE ‘Interceptor’ V8 straight from the Ford Thunderbird model, rather than the smaller 332 (5.4-litre) version of the FE engine fitted to the Australian production Fairlanes (the FE V8 was a new design in 1959 and was the replacement for the old Y-Block Ford V8. It was more or less the forerunner of the Ford 428 Big Block V8). Like the production model Fairlanes, Reed’s car drives through the ubiquitous Fordomatic twospeed automatic transmission.
The original owner’s manual is still with the car, and it includes a section explaining – in specific detail – the procedure for driving a car with an automatic transmission. Back in the late 1950s automatics were still something of a rarity in Australia – it’s likely that for many new Fairlane owners it was their first experience of driving a car that didn’t have a manual gearbox!
“Because this was a Ford company director’s car,” Reed says, “the story I’ve heard is that they tried out a bunch of different stuff on it. It’s got an electric fan rear window demister, for example – that’s something you don’t see, on any cars.” It’s also got an auxiliary 12-gallon fuel tank. A big heavy car with (by standards of the day) a huge V8 engine no doubt would have delivered a striking fuel consumption figure. Presumably the Fairlane’s thirst prompted the director to have it fitted with an additional tank to prolong his time at the wheel between visits to petrol stations.
“It’s two totally separate fuel systems, with an electric pump for the auxiliary tank, and the manual one of the main tank.
In addition to feeding the 352 V8 Thunderbird engine, the main fuel tank also powers… a car fridge!
Evidently the Ford chief wanted something in which he could keep his drinks cold on those extra-long trips made possible by the additional fuel tank. Petrol powered fridges like the Stampco unit mounted into the Fairlane’s boot weren’t all that effective back in the day, and because 60
8/19/19 7:53 PM