Amt 65 fairlane 500 “ Thunderbolt “ what if

[Ragtop Man]

Going out on a limb to say that anything Falcon- or Fairlane-based in '64-5 with an SOHC would have had either a straight axle or the single-leaf, quarter-elliptic spring,  if only to make room for the headers which were critical to getting all the power out of the engine. 

('64 Thunderbolts had 1 5/8" primaries as delivered, which would be marginal on a 289 and are the achilles heel of the Revell kit!

[Ragtop Man]

Going out on a limb to say that anything Falcon- or Fairlane-based in '64-5 with an SOHC would have had either a straight axle or the single-leaf, quarter-elliptic spring,  if only to make room for the headers which were critical to getting all the power out of the engine. 

('64 Thunderbolts had 1 5/8" primaries as delivered, which would be marginal on a 289 and are the achilles heel of the Revell kit!)

Second pick is likely the final iteration with injectors, moon tank, etc. Guessing by the time it got this far, it was pretty beat up and would make sense to crush out. 

[GoodbuildNY]

34 minutes ago, Ragtop Man said:

Going out on a limb to say that anything Falcon- or Fairlane-based in '64-5 with an SOHC would have had either a straight axle or the single-leaf, quarter-elliptic spring,  if only to make room for the headers which were critical to getting all the power out of the engine. 

('64 Thunderbolts had 1 5/8" primaries as delivered, which would be marginal on a 289 and are the achilles heel of the Revell kit!)

Second pick is likely the final iteration with injectors, moon tank, etc. Guessing by the time it got this far, it was pretty beat up and would make sense to crush out. 

Agreed the headers in the tbolt kit look woefully undersized. These pics are a big help. I’m still trying to find decent ( or any at this point) front suspension pics on the internet. I’ve got a pretty good old magazine library that I still need to search through but if anyone knows of a specific mag let me know. I noticed the last pic the car is running in B/FX , is it possible the car was run with a small block at one point? 

[Ragtop Man]

@GoodbuildNY Doubt the Droke car ran with a small block, but there is a recently restored D/SA that did - with the 289 HP and Cruiseo.  B/FX may refer to the weight break, the Fairlane even with all the lightening (fiberglass from the quarters forward) was still pretty heavy for the class. Someplace I have an Elapsed Times story on the C/FX cars that ran small blocks but delivered surprising performances... a few 289 "Cobra Kit" Galaxies were notables. Had to be driven like they were stolen, but were nipping at the heels of the B/FX entries with much larger engines.

[GoodbuildNY]

21 hours ago, Ragtop Man said:

@GoodbuildNY Doubt the Droke car ran with a small block, but there is a recently restored D/SA that did - with the 289 HP and Cruiseo.  B/FX may refer to the weight break, the Fairlane even with all the lightening (fiberglass from the quarters forward) was still pretty heavy for the class. Someplace I have an Elapsed Times story on the C/FX cars that ran small blocks but delivered surprising performances... a few 289 "Cobra Kit" Galaxies were notables. Had to be driven like they were stolen, but were nipping at the heels of the B/FX entries with much larger engines.

I’m still trying to dig up pics of the suspension for the fairlane but if I can’t find any than I’ll likely stick with the 64 thunderbolt setup. Those small block galaxies sound like an interesting build. I absolutely love 60’s and 70’s drag racing. The innovation, variety, ingenuity and speed at which everything was happening is so interesting. Makes for great model building subject matter. 

[GoodbuildNY]

22 hours ago, Ragtop Man said:

@GoodbuildNY Doubt the Droke car ran with a small block, but there is a recently restored D/SA that did - with the 289 HP and Cruiseo.  B/FX may refer to the weight break, the Fairlane even with all the lightening (fiberglass from the quarters forward) was still pretty heavy for the class. Someplace I have an Elapsed Times story on the C/FX cars that ran small blocks but delivered surprising performances... a few 289 "Cobra Kit" Galaxies were notables. Had to be driven like they were stolen, but were nipping at the heels of the B/FX entries with much larger engines.

Is this the car you were talking about?

[Ragtop Man]

Yep - that's the one. 

Super easy one to build assuming decals and a donor could be located. Damn, it looks good on those Cragars! 

FWIW, out of box promos that look a little scruffy are a very good way to source a '65 - and they bash 100% with the '65 Mod Stocker. Pro tip: Surf Woody has the best ever (maybe only!) Cruiseomatic in scale. My LHS in DTW had stacks of them.

I would imagine a Thunderbolt would be a drop fit underneath, too, or a Moby Cyclone. 

If you are good with an olde skool platform style chassis, the common '69 Torino has the exhaust and sales copy wiped away... and includes a credible shock tower style engine compartment, too. 

[GoodbuildNY]

On 5/8/2025 at 10:20 AM, Ragtop Man said:

Yep - that's the one. 

Super easy one to build assuming decals and a donor could be located. Damn, it looks good on those Cragars! 

FWIW, out of box promos that look a little scruffy are a very good way to source a '65 - and they bash 100% with the '65 Mod Stocker. Pro tip: Surf Woody has the best ever (maybe only!) Cruiseomatic in scale. My LHS in DTW had stacks of them.

I would imagine a Thunderbolt would be a drop fit underneath, too, or a Moby Cyclone. 

If you are good with an olde skool platform style chassis, the common '69 Torino has the exhaust and sales copy wiped away... and includes a credible shock tower style engine compartment, too. 

I’ve got one more of this kit which I was planning on building as a stock K-code car but after seeing the blue D/SA car I’m heavily leaning that direction. Although it isn’t a direct fit, with a little sanding and grinding the t-bolt chassis goes in fairly easy. It also plays well with the amt interior bucket. I’ve got a surf woody somewhere in the stash so I’ll need to find that.