1964 Ford Fairlane At The Nürburgring

But this is not your run of the mill Fairlane. This is a purpose built race car built by Holman-Moody (who acted as Ford’s racing team from the late ’50’s to the early 70’s when Ford pulled out of racing) with a 427 side-oiler with all the goodies (495HP) and a road-race Jerico four-speed transmission.

The first original car was driven by Fireball Roberts in the Continental sports car race in Dayton Florida, coming in second to A.J. Foyt in a Copper Monaco.

This is a FIA sanctioned vintage racing “Continuation” car which, I believe, is a car identical in specification to cars in the series run before production was halted.

The track, which opened in the late 1920’s, has been available to the general public for “Touristenfahrten” – any street legal vehicle (car, motorcycle, RVs etc). From what I understand it costs about €22 per lap (with discounts for multi-lap tickets) and, except for certain stretches, there is no speed limit. The lawyers would have a field day with this concept here in the US! Has anyone been there and if so what did you think about it and what cars did you notice?

This is a video of the 2nd car to be produced by Holman-Moody running at Germany’s Nürburgring.