Greg O’s Garage: The Holman Moody Challenger lll in 1963 Popular Customs Magazine
From Gram Spina's Hot Rod/magazine collection is the Ford Falcon Challenger III in Popular Customs magazine in the Summer of 1963 issue.
A huge 60's Hot Rod magazine collector, Gram stumbled upon an interesting issue of Popular Customs strictly devoted to the early customization trends of 1950's/60's Fords. Included in the issue is a mention of Holman Moody's Challenger III, as well as a look at the first Ford Custom Car Caravan.
Thanks for the heads up Gram!
Greg O.
Index
The index showing this issue was chock full of information on customizing and personalizing your Ford, from older models to the newer unveiled models like the Fairlane, T-Bird, Galaxie, and of course, the Falcon.
Ford Ads
Being an issue devoted to Ford, it wouldn't be complete without at least one Ford advertisement.
Here the new Falcon can be seen and for the first time since it being introduced in 1960, now motivated by a V8, as well as a more swept back side profile, then known as a 'scatback', or now, 'fastback'.
Ford Custom Car Caravan
Up until the early 60's, car customization, was not something Detroit manufacturers openly discussed. As the article suggests, Ford realized that many customizers and stylists were mostly the customers at their parts counters, so they were the first to embrace the custom culture going so far as to assemble the travelling Ford Custom Car Caravan. Touring the nation at auto shows cleverly marketing themselves by using the Custom Car Caravan as a way to get the customizers to use Ford products as the basis for their creations.
Ford cars from all different worlds were part of the Caravan over the years. Customizers like Barris, Cushenberry, and Winfield all had serious contributions to the Caravan, as well as Carrol Shelby and his new Ford powered Shelby Cobra seen here.
Seen elsewhere in the issue, a custom Ford was shown complete with a working mobile phone and television in the front seat. Space age then, commonplace now, even on small economy cars of today.
Mustang III and Challenger III in the Caravan
Not published in this issue, but the Mustang III and Challenger II both made appearances in the Custom Car Caravan
Challenger III painted a darker color later on in its life as seen from this later Caravan photo.
The only known Caravan photo of Mustang III and Challenger III together.
Dress Up Your Engine
Chrome engine dress up kits starting to show up in old and new Ford V8s...
On the top, a supercharged flat head V8 of yesteryear, and the new for '6 Falcon Sprint V8.
Upper right showing a Falcon's custom side-draft carbureted, supercharged inline 6-cylinder engine.
Customizing the Falcon
The Falcon came in many varieties including the Ranchero, all ripe and ready for customization.
But none more radically customized than Holman Moody's Challenger III at the bottom.
Eagle-eyed fans of Challenger III will immediately notice a few odd differences to the way the car looked here versus its current, restored condition.
-The car appears to still be its lighter (blue?) color, no numbers
-Firestone white wall tires with moon discs (Moon discs were for show only)
-Original Falcon gas cap, not chrome currently on the car
-Red fuel cell filler cap appears to be missing on top of the driver’s rear quarter panel
-missing fuel cell vent pipe on trunk lid
Knowing the timeline of Challenger III, my best guess for this previously unseen photo is that it's from before the car started its short racing career. After being displayed in this shape, the car was probably sent back to Holman Moody where the fuel cells were installed for racing.
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