Korumburra swap meet

I've seen a few of the ' compact ' Fairlanes around, they are not much bigger than a Falcon. 

Len Lukey, he used to have a factory/business on Nepean hwy , Highett. Not far from where Southland is today.

.  www.lukey.com.au/pages/history?srsltid=A...gj9klz9G4D5FsupaoW83

1953 advert

 

 

 

Some Ford questions.. What years were some of these built??? The first Ford picture of the fancy ute shows the Canadian Meteor grill and trim, But the first and third picture in the next group of Fords show the 1956 American grille and trim. In the Slim Dusty film they show him driving a Ford with the Canadian grille and claim it was a 1958???

I can see that the black and white 2 door hardtop is LHD. Was it imported as a show car??
Here is a picture of a car similiar to the one in the Slim Dusty movie that was claimed to be a 1958 and looked like our Canadian 1956's. Our American 58's were entirely different body.
 

Hi Brocky,  i am afraid not my area of knowledge at all, but i think the car in The Slim Dusty Movie is what we would call a 1958 Australian production Star Model Customline.

Hopefully someone who does know will correct/add to that.

Brett.

Hi Brocky, the Aussie '58 "Star" model Customline used the 55 Canadian Meteor grill. During the 50s Ford Australia weren't prepared to do the tooling up necessary to produce a "new" car each year so chose to use components of the Canadian models of a couple of years previous. How they managed to source enough of the superseded parts to make volume production possible is a mystery.

Edit: At the time, Ford were also undergoing development for the upcoming 1960 release of the Aussie Falcon.

Replied by  Brocky45  on topic  Korumburra swap meet
I can see that the black and white 2 door hardtop is LHD. Was it imported as a show car??

Hi Brocky  , in  recent years, a good number of collector or 'show' cars have been imported into Australia from the USA. It's been going on since the 1980s and earlier. Just locally, I have spotted a LHD 1959 Ford Ranchero ute a few times. It's now very easy to register LHD cars ,but before they relaxed the law,  it was a big problem having to convert cars to RHD, a friend of mine spent a small fortune having his Cadillac converted to RHD. 

Further to other replies Brocky.
Ford Australia introduced the first 272 Y Block sedans and utes in 1955. Early motors were imported until the local plant got going. Some were detuned by adding 2 more head shims to run on our ‘standard’ petrol, possibly taxis.
Sedans had straight chrome strip along sides.
Mesh grill and round park lights interchangeable with those on the 1958 Star Model.
The 1956 versions had a dip in the chrome side strips, different grill with wider park lights.
The 1957 models, sometimes denoted BJX, had chrome side strips up on top of front guards and similar park lights.
Star Models were 1958 into 1959 when replaced by the Tank Model Fairlanes. As per your photo, two and three tone paint and stylish chrome strips. Considered the one to collect.
Victorian Police used them more so in the country districts. Utes popular with Agricultural contractors and farmers.

Thank You for all the replies. I had realized that many of your automobile manufactures had used some imported body parts in your Aussie production plants. The Canadian parts make sense to agree with your "Commonwealth" tariffs. The American 1956 is one of my favorite Ford designs. Wish I had the black and white one!!

Paul

Would an Australian production Ford sedan of that era do 120mph? Seems seriously optimistic to me?

Here is a pretty good overview of the Y Blocks of the period. Most of the different size engines are described with either quarter mile or one mile drag speed and also flat out speed. (were these lightened and tuned race cars?) They had to be breathed on a little in the standard Thunderbirds to just crack 100mph, the production cars ran high 80-90 top speed so it seems.

www.fordracing.com/articles/enthusiasts/...024/12/ford-y-blocks


Lang

The best-known problem suffered by the Ausie Customlines, was, after a few miles, the gear linkage became worn and sloppy. The reason being they had a changeover linkage going below the box to convert from LHD to RHD. The bushes and links became worn and you had to know your vehicle to be able to change smoothly.