You should find this very interesting! Conny is a brand new member to the Forum, and it surprised me when he said that he was the owner of a '58 Tbird Convertible with a 430MEL engine! So I assumed that someone had put a 430MEL engine in it after it left the production line. Now I know that there are no records of a '58 Tbird ever coming off the Wixom production line with a 430MEL engine in it. They were planning on having one, because there is a '58 advertising brochure they put out that listed the 430MEL as an optional engine for the '58 Tbird. However, that never came about for what ever reasons. So this got me involved in a conversation with him and with John Rotella of the Tbird Registry.
It turns out that John knows about this '58 prototype '58 Tbird 430 Convertible! He has it registered in his Registry, but had lost contact with it until Conny reported that he now owned it. There were TWO '58 Tbirds reported to have had 430MEL engines installed in them. John told Conny about the article in William Wonder's Thunderbird Restoration Guide 1958-1966. On Page 27 it states that back in 1958 Motor Trend magazine test drove a prototype '58 Hardtop with the 430MEL engine in it. The article states that no examples like this were thought to be sold to the general public. No mention was made as to what happened to that car. The 430MEL engine option did not appear on the Tbird production line until the 1959 model year. However, they were being put into the Lincolns which also were produced on the Wixom line.
The next statement in that article is the grabber! "However, one convertible, VIN #H8YJ129793, (My addition - Build date of 08H- 8 August - Data Plate 76A - E - XG - 08H - 4 - axle 1) is reported to have been equipped with the 430. This engineering prototype had the engine installed in the car AFTER (emphasis mine) leaving the assembly line." The VIN # on Conny's car has that VIN # on the Data Plate and the car is Corinthian White with the Red & White interior! To me, that plate looks to be the OEM plate. Here is what I know about that car. Conny found it in California, where, if I understand this, it sat for about 30 years. He bought it in February this year and had it shipped to Sweden. He had the engine restored in the States, and then shipped to him, along with new bumpers and other new parts for the restoration process. The engine is in the container with these new parts.
John Rotella has this Tbird in his Tbird Registry, as # 1393.
http://www.tbirdregistry.com/viewdat...tryNumber=1393
It was entered into the registry over 10 years ago.
Dave Dare~simplyconnected, tells me that, apparently the Engineering Division needed a '58 Tbird to use to make the necessary changes to so that the engine bay would accept the 430MEL engine. So they took a completed '58 (with the 352 engine of course and the H8 coded Data Plate) from the production line, took it to their Engineering facility and made the necessary changes to it required for the 430MEL engine install that they were planning for the 1958, 1959, 1960 Squarebirds. After making the changes, they did not change the Data Plate, but left it with the original one. What we do not know is if, while they had it, they swapped the PBU-L 352 tranny for the PBB-M 430MEL tranny and the 3.10:1 352 axle for the 2.91:1 430MEL axle. These are things that Conny is going to check when he gets a chance to get it up on a lift and look for the tranny and axle tags. Also start checking codes on the block, headers, intakes, etc.. Right now, it has no engine in the car. I do not know if the tranny is in it still. Dave suggests that they just might have left the production line tranny and axle as they were when the car came off the line. What happened to this car after Engineering had completed their work on it we do not know. Dave says it was probably driven and tested for awhile, making sure everything was working correctly before they went into full production on this combination for the '59 Tbird. After that, it might have been sold to a dealer or a private individual. We do know that somewhere along the way, it ended up in California and has sat there amongst several Bulletbirds for at least the last 30 years.
I have asked Conny if he can provide us with any other information regarding past owners, the company he bought it from, etc.. It does appear, according to Bill Van Ess, and John Rotella, that Conny does own that prototype Tbird. There does not seem to have been any hanky panky with that Data Plate. I will post some pix of it. Conny, hopefully, will be posting up in the Squarebirds Forum, as he needs help in restoring it. Here are the pix and I will probably have to do more than one post. In the very first picture, look down the left side of the Tbird and you will see the noses of 3 Bulletbirds sticking out! It was much easier to see in the big picture he sent me, but you can still see them here.
It turns out that John knows about this '58 prototype '58 Tbird 430 Convertible! He has it registered in his Registry, but had lost contact with it until Conny reported that he now owned it. There were TWO '58 Tbirds reported to have had 430MEL engines installed in them. John told Conny about the article in William Wonder's Thunderbird Restoration Guide 1958-1966. On Page 27 it states that back in 1958 Motor Trend magazine test drove a prototype '58 Hardtop with the 430MEL engine in it. The article states that no examples like this were thought to be sold to the general public. No mention was made as to what happened to that car. The 430MEL engine option did not appear on the Tbird production line until the 1959 model year. However, they were being put into the Lincolns which also were produced on the Wixom line.
The next statement in that article is the grabber! "However, one convertible, VIN #H8YJ129793, (My addition - Build date of 08H- 8 August - Data Plate 76A - E - XG - 08H - 4 - axle 1) is reported to have been equipped with the 430. This engineering prototype had the engine installed in the car AFTER (emphasis mine) leaving the assembly line." The VIN # on Conny's car has that VIN # on the Data Plate and the car is Corinthian White with the Red & White interior! To me, that plate looks to be the OEM plate. Here is what I know about that car. Conny found it in California, where, if I understand this, it sat for about 30 years. He bought it in February this year and had it shipped to Sweden. He had the engine restored in the States, and then shipped to him, along with new bumpers and other new parts for the restoration process. The engine is in the container with these new parts.
John Rotella has this Tbird in his Tbird Registry, as # 1393.
http://www.tbirdregistry.com/viewdat...tryNumber=1393
It was entered into the registry over 10 years ago.
Dave Dare~simplyconnected, tells me that, apparently the Engineering Division needed a '58 Tbird to use to make the necessary changes to so that the engine bay would accept the 430MEL engine. So they took a completed '58 (with the 352 engine of course and the H8 coded Data Plate) from the production line, took it to their Engineering facility and made the necessary changes to it required for the 430MEL engine install that they were planning for the 1958, 1959, 1960 Squarebirds. After making the changes, they did not change the Data Plate, but left it with the original one. What we do not know is if, while they had it, they swapped the PBU-L 352 tranny for the PBB-M 430MEL tranny and the 3.10:1 352 axle for the 2.91:1 430MEL axle. These are things that Conny is going to check when he gets a chance to get it up on a lift and look for the tranny and axle tags. Also start checking codes on the block, headers, intakes, etc.. Right now, it has no engine in the car. I do not know if the tranny is in it still. Dave suggests that they just might have left the production line tranny and axle as they were when the car came off the line. What happened to this car after Engineering had completed their work on it we do not know. Dave says it was probably driven and tested for awhile, making sure everything was working correctly before they went into full production on this combination for the '59 Tbird. After that, it might have been sold to a dealer or a private individual. We do know that somewhere along the way, it ended up in California and has sat there amongst several Bulletbirds for at least the last 30 years.
I have asked Conny if he can provide us with any other information regarding past owners, the company he bought it from, etc.. It does appear, according to Bill Van Ess, and John Rotella, that Conny does own that prototype Tbird. There does not seem to have been any hanky panky with that Data Plate. I will post some pix of it. Conny, hopefully, will be posting up in the Squarebirds Forum, as he needs help in restoring it. Here are the pix and I will probably have to do more than one post. In the very first picture, look down the left side of the Tbird and you will see the noses of 3 Bulletbirds sticking out! It was much easier to see in the big picture he sent me, but you can still see them here.
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