By
Daniel Strohl
—
Updated
in Hemmings Motor News, Magazine
Malt-shop looks combine with track-day power in this street machine
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Just as you can’t go home again, you can’t ever drive the same car twice. Sure, you could find the exact car you once owned and restore it to the exact condition it was in when you owned it, but time has a certain insistence on moving right along. You’ve become older, wiser, more experienced, and what you expect from a car certainly has changed over the years.
Jim Seafuse recognized this a few years ago, shortly after buying a 1957 Ford Custom 300 two-door sedan. “The second car that I owned was a ’57 Ford Custom 300 two-door sedan in two-tone green,” Jim said. “So I found this one in Maryland and took it home to restore just like my original.”
Well, not exactly like it. He entertained the idea of installing a dual-quad 427 and four-speed in it rather than the 272 Y-block and three-speed that was in his first ’57 Ford. But Jim, who races Mustangs in the Grand-Am Continental Tire series, realized that a bigger engine alone wouldn’t result in a satisfactory car.
“I got to thinking that when it’s all done it will look great and go like stink, but how will it ride? Probably just like my original ’57–great in a straight line and poor in the corners and bumps.”
The 1957 Ford came to Jim as a basket case, disassembled for a restoration that never happened and then left untouched for a few decades. Also in his garage he still had the remnants of a 2003 Mustang Cobra that he raced in the Koni Challenge series, including the entire drivetrain, the front suspension and the independent rear suspension. He placed them side-by-side and took some quick and dirty measurements.
“I’m not going to say it all bolts into place, but it was amazing how close everything was,” Jim said.
So he took the 1957 Ford frame to restorer Randy DeLisio, who took his own measurements, then placed it on a jig and cut the front part of the frame off at the firewall. In its place, he fabricated an entirely new front frame section out of rectangular tubing that included mounting points for the Cobra front suspension, the Cobra rack and pinion steering, and for the supercharged 4.6-liter V-8. He then massaged the rear of the frame to accept the Cobra IRS cradle assembly, and fabricated a crossmember for the six-speed manual transmission.
The drivetrain and suspension remained mostly unaltered from stock. Jim sent the engine over to Bob Lauer of L&B Engines in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, for prepping back in its racing days, but it still retains the stock pulley on the supercharger. The rear axle is fitted with 3.55 gears, and the springs in the suspension were replaced with coil-over shocks using the stock Bilstein shock absorbers. Jim even called up his contacts in Ford Racing to have them build a custom standalone wiring harness for the Cobra engine.
The body of the 1957 Ford remained in decent shape over the years, though Randy did have to replace the floors. To fit it over the modified chassis, he only had to craft a couple of bumps in the trunk pan. Randy created a custom gauge insert for the dash, but the rest of the interior was restored to stock specifications.
Finding wheels that worked with the modified chassis and the retro body proved to be a bit of a challenge. Jim settled on 2004 Ford Crown Victoria police wheels, modified to accept NOS 1957 Ford hubcaps. The 17-inch wheels fit perfectly over the rear disc brakes, but to get the wheels to fit up front, Jim had to turn down the rotors on the front disc brakes from 13 to 12 inches.
The two-tone green paint Jim left to his wife to select from the PPG catalog. He then polished and installed all of the original Custom 300 trim and fitted tinted glass.
Since finishing the Ford, Jim said he’s put about 1,000 miles on it every year. “The car is just unbelievable,” he said. “It rides and drives just like a new car.” So maybe Jim can’t go home again, but he can get wherever he’s going a lot quicker now.
