Supercharged fords

[John]

Would very much like to purchase a pre F supercharged ford of any type or with a serial numbered (F) in the serial number plate and frame, bothe locations of the frame.

Serious buyer with cash.
John
217-734-9400

[Lou]

The only "pre-F" suppercharged  Fords were the group built on April 15 & 16, 1957. The only thing known for sure about the suppercharged production that day was that 16 suppercharged Thunderbirds were built . Any factory suppercharged Ford that would have been built at Dearborn and would have "F" as the third character in the serial number.

[wildhog]

john, i have a phone number of a guy in the chicago area, with a f -series skyliner. i don't know any thing about but will try to find out. tom

[John]

john, i have a phone number of a guy in the chicago area, with a f -series skyliner. i don't know any thing about but will try to find out. tom

Thank you Tom, I sent you an email through your address.
John

[John]

Lou,
Thanks for the reply.
We have been told that some early ford models came out supercharged without the F in the serial number?

One such car lives in Arizona and a ranchero in Michigan without the F in the serial number, this is to our best knowledge?

Does anyone know what this serail number is about;
D7MV-107121.
Yes, it does have a peculiar dash on the original serial number plate
Production sequence off of the original aluminum plate; 17K9008P
57 ford 2 door hardtop.

Seems ford [roduction lines were producing 500-800 cars a day at this time, perhaps built in the first 10 days of 57 production??
Thanks guys,
John

[Lou]

The suppercharger option was not offered until April of 1957. On April 15 and 16 a group of suppercharged cars were built with a "D" engine code, 16 of theses cars were Thunderbirds, some Ford cars were built how many is not known (the T-Bird club might have the invoices on the Ford Cars also but will not share the information unless i can prove i have one of the cars) I do know that 2 of them were Rancheros, and one was a 63A hardtop, but that all I've been able to find.
Starting on  April 17, 1957 all suppercharged cars had a "F" engine code. At total of 1207 suppercharger set ups were shipped to Ford ( I don't know if this includes kits for over the counter sales) so if you deduct the t-birds, you have a little over 800 Ford cars built with suppercharges.

[John]

Lou,
We did a F bird for the Barret-Jackson a couple of years ago.

Correct me if I am wrong, but it seems they made about 216 F birds.

I would say that your thoughts about parts/counter kits is correct.,
must have been a lot of the kits sent to Ford parts rooms.

I do not know how many regular F ford cars were built, possibly 500 or so ?
They sure do not pop up that often though.

To my best knowledge, Louis Eminger, a ford employee, went dumpster diving many years ago to get the invoices ford was throwing out,
seems that the clubs have these records now and hold them as sacred, just as the Shelby Club holds their serial numbers confidential that Carroll Shelby kept.

Good for us ford guys, as GM built many that were rare, unfortunatly the numbers now far out way actual GM number production. Sad in a way for a true collector.

John

I found out a few other tid bits about F cars today.
Seems the geru of F birds lives in Arizona, he has traced and tracked most F cars for 30 years.

Seems that in order for ford to enter the engine in the Daytona races in Feb, they needed at least 200 production cars on line to be built.

Was told that the numbers, depending upon which expert you are talking to, is either 209 or 211 total T-Birds built.
Perhaps the Battle Bird was one such extra number?

One might surmise that ford was experimenting on track in testing for the race.
Perhaps the earliest supercharged cars were being built as early as October/November for testing on the track.

I will continue to research as it might be interesting to hear about how many pre F cars were made, let alone how many F 57's were built.
John

[Lou]

The last build date I have on a "F" Bird is December 9, 1957. (I have data plate info on 2 cars built that day) In my collection of data plate information I do not see any large group of "F" birds being built at any time, they seem to be spread out. I have the same production figures 216 "F" birds plus 16 suppercharged "D" Birds. As for the suppercharged fullsize cars I tend to think maybe about 800. (The City of Minneapolis had 50 suppercharged 57 Ford police cars in their fleet.)