Million mile 352 Interceptor
 

Last day of vacation in San Diego today. Had lunch at some old restaurant on the bay. Spotted a 1957 Fairlane 500 2-door hardtop in the parking lot as we arrived. All original black car. Original paint, real straight body, all chrome was there although scuffed and dented here and there. Great resto project.
As we left the restaurant a little old man walked out at the same time and walked up to the Fairlane. Couldn't pass this up so I asked if he was the original owner. He said he was, bought it September 1957. He was a CHP officer (22 years eventually).
He went on to show me all the unique chrome pieces. It had 1957 Mercury hubcaps because California didn't allow the spinner Ford caps. So I asked if it had a 312 or what? No, it was a 352 Interceptor model! Had a neat little V8 Interceptor medallion on the glove box.
He had 1,000,000 on the original engine in 1999 when he had the engine replaced. Ford sent a few engineers out to take a look at it.
I did ask if he had kids or grandkids with dibbs on it. He said no (right then my heart skipped a beat), but half the CHP force had their eye on it. I kew I wouldn't get anywhere with that, shook his hand and thanked him for his service and for taking such good care of that old Ford.
(Glad he didn't trade it in on the cash for clunkers...)
1 million plus miles...amazing!

Re: Million mile 352 Interceptor
 

Jeff, I know you're in San Diego, but something's fishy about this story. The 312 was top of the line in 57.
The 332 and 352 FE came out in 58

Re: Million mile 352 Interceptor
 

Was the old man's initals C.S. and was Bill close by?

Re: Million mile 352 Interceptor
 

Mark, Jeff is to young to know that 57 Fords did not come with FE's. The car was probably a 58 Ford.

Re: Million mile 352 Interceptor
 

How many headlights.

Re: Million mile 352 Interceptor
 

Hmmm....maybe he did say 1958 but purchased it in September 1957? The guy was about 80+ years old and walked with a stoop and barely was up to my chest.
As I walked away another guy cornered him. Old guy probably gets it all day!
I didn't walk around the grill, just gave it a passive glance. I'm thinking 4 headlights horizontal?
Give me some credit for at least knowing the 312 was the big engine in '57! :o

Re: Million mile 352 Interceptor
 

One of the things I did in my late teens/early 20's was find,buy, and sell cars. I worked in a rather busy gas station during junior college, and a steady stream of cars came our ways, in fact, my brother bought a one owner 69 Plymouth Roadrunner,383 4 speed for about a thousand or$1200 back in 1974 or so. During the first arab oil embargo, muscle cars were very cheap. One thing I bought, because I liked 56,57 and 58 Fords, was when a customer came in with a straight, decent running driver condition 58 Edsel convertible. I asked him what he was going to do with it, he answered" Nothing.Wanna buy it?' $400 later, the Edsel was mine with a few other cars. My buddies all said"We knew you were crazy, this just proved it." I had it a few years, then sold it to a collector who came in and bought gas for his 73 Mustang convertible. That was the last Mustang convert for a long time,that's why he bought it. It seems that the term FE to describe the 332-352-390 engine famiky stood for Ford-Edsel.The 58 edsels had a 361 inch version of that engine with 10.5 to 1 compression, a vacuum secondary 600 Holley, and quite a bit of torque. I'm sure a lot of those engines had their valve covers switched and wound up in Ford 2 door sedans. If you remember one that seemed to be a little faster than everybody else's 352, that might have been the reason. My flirtation with collector cars was short lived-drag racing was so much more fun.