My car has an interesting story behind it (as probably most cars do.) I orignally bought the car in December of 1966 when I was a college student at Ohio State University in Columbus. Although the car was nearly 3 years old at the time (Dec. 1963 build date), it was like new with only 19,000 miles on it. I drove the car back and forth to college for three years. In the summer of 1969, I bought my parents 1965 LTD and sold the covertible.

End of story? Not really. I always regretted selling that car. I would often tell my wife what a great car that 64 Ford convertible was and if I could ever find one like it I would buy one. She would always say that would be ok, only if it cost less than $100.00.

Well, in late 1975, I was driving down a country road about 30 miles from home and I saw a red Ford covertible sitting in the weeds behind a barn in a horse pasture. I drove in the yard and inquired about the car. The owner said it was his son's and that the engine was blown, the car was quite rusty and the neighborhood kids had been using it for target practice. I asked if I might look at the car and to my shock I found this red convertible to be the SAME CAR I owned the decade before. It still had my fraternity decal in the window, my college parking stickers and the telltale dent in the taillight rim where I had backed into a fraternity brother's car in the parking lot. But the car was in terrible shape. The windshield had been shot out and there were bullet holes in the fender and trunk. The quarter panels were rusted through, the engine was gone, and someone had cut a hole in the floor for a 3 speed, and there was 4 incehes of water in the rear floor wells. Never the less it was MY CAR and I had to have it back. After a quick conversation with the owner,we agreed on $50.00 (probably $35.00 more than it was worth at the time but still $50.00 under my wife's requirement) and I bought the car. I later towed it to my parents barn where it sat under cover for about 15 more years.

During that 15 years I had great hopes of restoring the car but I didn't have the time, talent, or the money. I did buy a parts car for an engine and transmission but the car was a much bigger project than I had time for with a young family to raise.

Finally, in 1990, I contacted George Becker at Becker Automotive in Wauseon, Ohio. He took one look at the car and told me I would have much more in it than I would ever get out of it. He said he could find a similar car much cheaper than he could restore this one. Yet, it was still MY CAR and I had rescued it from a horse pasture. It just wouldn't be right to junk it and buy a replacement. So we did a frame off restoration. Four years and megabucks later I have a car that looks and drives just like it did in 1966 when I first bought it.

My car has a 289 engine just like it originally did with cruise-o-matic transmission. It is a great runner and our family enjoys cruising in the summer months. And when my wife reminds me how much I spent on restoration, I simply remind her that the $50.00 I spent for the car was only half of what she said I could spend!

I look forward to getting back into the Galaxie Club and receiving the newsletters again. Keep up the good work. View pictures of Richards car here...

I am a 35 year old restaurant manager who is fortunate enough to live close enough to the New Hampshire International Speedway to hear the throaty whine of Nascar and Busch North engines clearly. I am happily divorced, work too much and get paid too little.

My first car was a 1969 Galaxie Convertible. It was in rough shape because of the damage done from the huge quantities of road salt used to keep our roads clear in the winter. I was driving down the road with it one day and decided to put the roof down. Unfortunately nobody had told me that this was an unwise thing to do at 55 miles per hour! Needless to say, the shambles that remained of the roof were never raised again. The sight of me driving through snowstorms with the top down in a big red ragtop are still mentioned after almost twenty years. This car went where many four wheel drives went, became airborn in cornfields, and arrived to pick up dates at many a worried parents home.

When the '69' gave up, I picked up a 1967 4 door hardtop that was perhaps the ugliest shade of green ever put on a car. It was from Florida so was rust free. Eventually the front end and the brakes went on it. I had no mechanical experience then, so I got rid of it.

Over the years I've picked up quite a bit of auto repair skills. While reading the paper a couple of years ago, I noticed an ad for a 1967 Galaxie 2 Door Fastback. I went to look at it and found a Wimbleton White 390 2v with a C6 tranny and it had only 81,000 miles on the speedo. The car was rust free and from Colorado. The woman selling it had owned it since 1975, and had driven it from Colorado to New Hampshire with her children in 1993. I have lovingly restored the interior to firethorn red, detailed the engine bay with pounds of chrome, replaced every wire and hose, and added enough performance parts to make this car a 400 horsepower nightmare. I am working on the body now and am going to keep it painted Wimbleton White, but I'm adding 2 blue stripes to it (as in 67 GT 350), a hood scoop, and a rear wing from a '71' Olds 442. The rear end is lifted and I'm turning fat tires on 4 Cragar SS rims.

In closing I'd like to comment on the state of affairs concerning "clunker laws." If a person is unhappy with pending legislation, they must let their feeling be known to the appropriate legislators, this is what America is all about. The motton on the license plate of my '67' sums up how we here in New Hampshire feel about governmental interference..."LIVE FREE or DIE"

When I was three years old, my father took me to Richmond Virginia to look at a 1964 Ford Thunderbird that he was thinking about buying. Next to it sat a GALAXIE 500 convertible that was a real fixer upper. My dad said, "Look Geoff, this one is yours, and the Thunderbird is mine." He was just joking but I didn't know that. The man wanted too much money for the T'Bird so we left. I didn't like that and started to cry. I told my father he had left my car.

The next weekend we went back and my dad bought the car for $900.00. Now the fun began. For four years we worked on it and sometimes I got to help. My dad says that the original 289 was rebuilt with all new 'go fast' parts. Ported, bored, decked, 351 valves, reworked combustion chambers, a four barrel, dual exhausts, electronic ignition, mild cam, and a rebuilt tranny. (I'm not sure what some of this stuff is, my dad just told me to put it in the article.) Oh, dad says there have been some minor body mods too, dress up goodies, etc..

Now we go to car shows and cruises and they are lots of fun. Sometimes we get trophies. My mom says that all hot rods need names. I call my '64 GALAXIE 'La Bamba' because mom thinks it's a bomb. Hope to see you all soon. I'm the kid with the 'older kid' driving him around. I hope he takes good care of my car until I'm 18.

Growing up in New Jersey in the Early 60's was hard for Ford loving car nuts. Almost like being from another planet. "Hot Rod" & "Car Craft"kept us informed about what was happening in the "Real World of California."

Sure there were loads of 55 and up Chevys, but older cars and Fords were rare.

Fortunately in the summer of 1965 family matters made a trip to California possible. I couldn't wait! After 3 straight days of driving we were just crossing into California when at a rest area, I spotted my first "California" car. A black 427 1963½ Galaxie 500/XL fastback, and a 1928 Model A pickup, both with nice tires and wheels. The Galaxie sounded soooo good!!

That memory has stayed with me all these years & now I have a black on black 1963 ½ R code of my own!

In 1963 Ford started a new era in high-performance transportation.

The popular Galaxie was redesigned with new sheet metal and a rather interesting engine. The venerable and legendary 427. That's right, Four Hundred Twenty Seven cubic inches of raw power!! The new FE big block was rated at 425 horsepower and had 480 foot pounds of torque! And two huge four barrel carbs.

Drag racing fraternities and NASCAR boys were drawn to it like a bear to honey and so was a less talked about group of individuals.

This group didn't really look for their names in record books and they didn't place decals on their fenders either. These boys were just in the transportation business. Point A to point B AS FAST AS POSSIBLE. And no, they weren't part of the pony express, and no they did not work for the Post Office. They get the slowest vehicles they can find. Thus "snail" mail..

One of the features that these boys liked about the Galaxie was the huge trunk. Lots of cubic feet allowed for lots of room for their "product". Large loads of jugs and bottles filled with this product from Tennessee's illegal stills hidden deep in the woods. A legend was born.

This particular 1963 Ford Galaxie two door sedan (post) was built in February 1963 on the 20th day of that month in the Ford Atlanta factory. It then went from the showroom to a life of crime. Big crime in the eyes of the Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms Treasury boys.

The dreaded Revenuers. Be it rum or whisky that the Big Galaxie hauled down the roads in the deep of night, the Feds were not happy. Of course you can only imagine why...

Moonshine production was illegal because the government wasn't getting to tax it! It was embarrassing to the Feds that they couldn't catch this denizen of the night, big maroon Ford Sedan that howled down the winding Tennessee backroads.

They were having problems catching up to it when all eight barrels of induction were stomped open. Sad huh?

And since the "rum runners" didn't announce their plans in the local trader, and since they would pull those 180's at the first thought of a roadblock, the ol' revenuers never stood a chance of catching it.

Left 'em eatin' dust...

Until January 1964. Stroke of badluck, the rum runners got boxed in on a narrow, steep mountain road. A Fed in the front, a Fed in the rear. (I guess you could call it a real pain in the rear!) Poor rum runners were fed up...so to say.

Nowhere to go but over the edge.

Oh well, the good ol' boy decided it would be better to go to the pen then wreck a nice 63 R code. Noooo....I think other things were on his mind. After all he hadn't seen Hooper. It wasn't out yet!

So, he went for a stay at the Fed Hilton for a few years and the Galaxie went to a government warehouse for 16 years. It probably spent more time in storage than the runner did in the Fed Hilton.

Then in early 1980 the US Government decided to auction off decades worth of seized property. Not many of the crowd had much appreciation for a 427 Galaxie with 16,000 original miles. Or if they did , they didn't have much cash. It sold for a mere $1000.00, about what the air cleaner is worth today.

It ended up in the hands of one of our members, Alan Burnham. A close up reveals the engine has never been out of the car. The factory exhaust is original down to the locking tabs as are the radiator hoses and clamps.

Untouched...the find of a lifetime. Research verifies it as one of only 47 two door sedans build with the R code 427. Rare, rare indeed.

And with its life of crime over it still howls like a banshee when 8 barrels cut in. Congratulations, Alan, keep that 63 shining forever!