Shortly after Phil Draper ~ bikerguyflip joined us, I received an interesting email from him giving me some history of the Ford Company. You might enjoy what he has to say.
"Thank you for accepting me. I find your site very interesting for a number of reasons, first, I knew Ben J. Smith in the fifties. I wanted to build fiberglass 55-56 t-Bird reduced in size on a Crosley frame, I keep bugging him for drawings, finally he brought me this roll of paper, I tried to look at it in the car on the way home from church, no way. When we got home I tried again, this time in the living room. again no way. Then I went upstairs, thirty-five feet of clear floor. I don't remember how wide the paper roll was, maybe three feet but longer then thirty-five feet... it was dark blue on white paper and I was so disappointed, nothing looked right. It was not a 55-56 T-Bird, so I gave up... he had given me a half scale drawing of the future '57 Thunderbird long before it's debut. He also drove the XE1500 to church which in reality was the soon be be released Continental ll, only this one had a retractable hard top. At my age I have so many stories. Back then any car owned by Ford had a bulls-eye on the corner of the windshield a red center with number in the center, red meant restricted drivers only, green meant anyone that could have a company car. Some times there may have two or three reds in the church parking lot as there were engineers from all the auto manufactures going to our church... In the sixties I owned two '59 birds, one had factory air...I just help a young man restore a '57... I have so many more stories or if you have questions about these, all you have to do is ask, be careful what you ask for. You can always share anything I write you as I think it may interest your group. I will look forward to hearing from you. Yours in history, Phil (bikerguyflip) Draper."
Here is a picture of what the Continental Mark II looks like... It would be great if he had a picture of the retractable top version! I have asked him...
CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=116034
"Thank you for accepting me. I find your site very interesting for a number of reasons, first, I knew Ben J. Smith in the fifties. I wanted to build fiberglass 55-56 t-Bird reduced in size on a Crosley frame, I keep bugging him for drawings, finally he brought me this roll of paper, I tried to look at it in the car on the way home from church, no way. When we got home I tried again, this time in the living room. again no way. Then I went upstairs, thirty-five feet of clear floor. I don't remember how wide the paper roll was, maybe three feet but longer then thirty-five feet... it was dark blue on white paper and I was so disappointed, nothing looked right. It was not a 55-56 T-Bird, so I gave up... he had given me a half scale drawing of the future '57 Thunderbird long before it's debut. He also drove the XE1500 to church which in reality was the soon be be released Continental ll, only this one had a retractable hard top. At my age I have so many stories. Back then any car owned by Ford had a bulls-eye on the corner of the windshield a red center with number in the center, red meant restricted drivers only, green meant anyone that could have a company car. Some times there may have two or three reds in the church parking lot as there were engineers from all the auto manufactures going to our church... In the sixties I owned two '59 birds, one had factory air...I just help a young man restore a '57... I have so many more stories or if you have questions about these, all you have to do is ask, be careful what you ask for. You can always share anything I write you as I think it may interest your group. I will look forward to hearing from you. Yours in history, Phil (bikerguyflip) Draper."
Here is a picture of what the Continental Mark II looks like... It would be great if he had a picture of the retractable top version! I have asked him...
CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=116034
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