March Feature Car-Part 1

Every month we try to Feature one of the cars from the Registry. This month it is a Wimbledon White Talladega owned by Mike Williamson, VIN 9A46Q207087.

We recently received an email from Mike Williamson with information on an earlier story we had published on our http://www.LegendaryCollectorCars.com site. That story was actually from another reader (Mark Chubberly) who was telling us about the fond memories he has of his Sunday School teacher (Skip MacFarland) back when he was a kid that used to show up at Church with his maroon drag racing Ford Talladega. The Sunday School teacher and his hot Ford left quite an impression on an impressionable youth.

Part one of this story focuses on the maroon drag raging Talladega. As the story goes Skip, the drag racer, was being very successful at the local Atco and Englishtown tracks in NJ. The official at the Atco track believing the modified Talladega front end was contributing to the car’s multiple successes eventually disqualified the Talladega from racing in the Stock Class due to the model name “Talladega” not appearing on the list of approved stock cars.

Skip was told by the official he had to install a standard “Torino” front clip or race his modified “Torino” in the modified production class. This meant racing against cars like lightweight Ford Galaxies and Pontiac Catalinas and whatever else was modified by the factory. As a result, the Talladega front clip was removed and replaced with a standard Torino clip.

Now, the second part of this story deals with a white Talladega purchased on March 19, 1969 from Mc Cafferty Ford by the brother of Mike Williamson. Fast forward two or three years, Mike tells us that his brother’s white Talladega was “front ended” by a drunk when the man backed into it at a traffic signal. Their father was at the wheel with their mother riding shotgun. Although Mike’s brother still owned the car at that time their parents’ car was in the shop for maintenance and had borrowed the Talladega. Nice touch; usually such stories involve the kid borrowing the parents’ car and wrecking it!

This second Talladega was sent off to a body shop located in Kennedy Haldeman Ford in Hamilton NJ (seven miles from Keats). Talladega front ends were not easy to come by and the car was about to be totaled. It was the manager of the body shop who recalled the drag car Talladega front clip in storage at Keats Ford. The maroon Talladega front end parts were purchased and bolted onto what would become Mike’s car and repainted to match the wrecked Talladega.

Here we have a Talladega that was converted to a Torino and a totaled Talladega given a second life by the sheet metal removed from the drag racer. Confused yet?

Now, for the rest of the story, To Be Continued.