HELP! Need someone to ID these "prototype" quarter window plates!

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1stLove

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May 16, 2020
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Canada
My Car
71 J-code/SCJ 4-speed sportroof
72 Q-code/CJ C6 convertible
Our 71 SCJ (presumed factory drag car, first few days of production) has a lot of prototype and oddball parts. My father and I just had a lengthy conversation about this - years ago, we improperly assumed that this car had wind-down rear windows installed due to the odd plate, which does not match the shape of a stock sportsroof plate, and which has staining on the passenger's side that seemed to match the profile of window channels that were removed. This plate had marks from being hand-formed with a hammer and other oddities. We know now that they were fixed into place. As you can see, the plates have since been hit with a plasma cutter in order to make clearance for huge tires, which was done around 1980, but never finished. As far as we can tell, this plate is what it left the factory with, but it looks nothing like either plate that was in a '71 Mustang. We're stumped on any application and we need a new pair in order to return it to the way it left the factory, or it will be a complicated job to restore the plates that have been plasma cut. Can anyone identify what these plates came from?





Factory sportsroof plate for reference:



image upload

 
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Looks like a regular part to me do not see anything odd. You should be able to get from Don, Ohio mustang or Motor City Mustang. If they do not have get in touch with Scotty Strickland. 

Ford seldom let prototypes out their attorneys were all over that. That is why they kept all the records that Marti now has for his reports. The attorneys wanted a way to show how the car left the factory and if anything was changed on the car easier to win law suits.

 
I should have clarified - "prototype" may not be the best term here. Ford recycled a lot of parts from 1970 model cars to make things work on this car, and some parts mimic usual 429 parts, although the part numbers don't exist. The plates are unquestionably different from the usual if we compare pictures 2 and 3 - the top has a different profile, and it also has the support rib that's not on the usual 71-73 part. Notice it also only has 2 holes punched out instead of 4. It's likely these plates came from a 1970 production car, but I can't find anything that looks similar, so I'm hoping someone else has seen them.



 
Ok I see what you mean. You were saying it was an early build, how early? They do model change during the July 4 shut down and if a prototype or and early build car for testing or photo shoots will have a date well before July. The prototypes usually do not get VIN# The first car given a VIN# will have a VIN#100001. That car might not be the first one down the line they can be mixed up.

The first fastbacks in 71 that had fold down rear seat had a different structure on each side. Ford made a change to make it stronger. That part might have been a part of a running change. If there are issues they do not wait until model change to make the change.

 
It was ordered by Ford Marketing as a "Special Purpose Vehicle" on July 10, 1970, but the car is in the 106xxx range for some reason. It was actually built 2 weeks ahead of schedule, where most of the cars in the sub-100100 VINs were built a month behind schedule. This one was built August 14, 1970, ahead of a few of the show cars, and sent to Dearborn Steel & Tubing on the following Monday, August 17th. It may be the first Sportsroof, so that might have something to do with it. Why would the Mach 1s have different parts, though?

Edit: I just remembered that some of the car's parts are dated June, 1970. There is a possibility that this one was built earlier than August 14, 1970, or that it took a lot longer to build.

 
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I just mod the quarter windows to roll down so i have a pair of these fixed quarter window brackets or panels and all the hardware that came with my car available.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

 
It was ordered by Ford Marketing as a "Special Purpose Vehicle" on July 10, 1970, but the car is in the 106xxx range for some reason. It was actually built 2 weeks ahead of schedule, where most of the cars in the sub-100100 VINs were built a month behind schedule. This one was built August 14, 1970, ahead of a few of the show cars, and sent to Dearborn Steel & Tubing on the following Monday, August 17th. It may be the first Sportsroof, so that might have something to do with it. Why would the Mach 1s have different parts, though?

Edit: I just remembered that some of the car's parts are dated June, 1970. There is a possibility that this one was built earlier than August 14, 1970, or that it took a lot longer to build.
Cars get pushed back in the build waiting on the optional equipment ordered. I have one that waited months. This Grande got it's VIN # on 10/23/72 but was not build until 12/04/72  No idea what took so long to get. Marti attached. 

One of our departed members built the Ford factory backed drag cars. His son is still on here and I will respect his privacy. He built Bob Gliddens drag cars. We have another member that found a 71 drag car in California that had never been finished. Ford got out in 71. The member that built the engines still had the engine for that car like 5 years ago. He gave it to him was paid for. A factory backed drag car that never made a pass.

3F04H141423_dlxrpt.pdf

 

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If you are that person whose father built the factory racing program, please reach out! We need your input!

Did this person work for Holman-Moody? Our car's chassis was separated from its engine & transmission at the Ford Tech Center and we have the second owner telling us that the drivetrain went to Holman-Moody to be warmed up. It also had the hood removed and the car sat waiting for the engine to come back so it could go to Dearborn Steel & Tubing for prep (the hood was never to be seen again). The Ford racing program was scrapped a few weeks after the engine was sent away, so the car had no purpose and was sold out the back door to an employee of the Ford Tech Center in 1971. Ford surrendered the engine & transmission to Holman-Moody as a result of the work that was done to it - the program was over, so they didn't pay the bill. The car's owner drag raced the car with a stockish small-block, and then later a 351W built by one of the bigger names, Roush maybe? It was sold to another person in the Detroit area a few years later and chopped up to become a pro-stock car. The work was done by a "reputable" shop but was absolutely horrid and never finished, despite thousands of dollars being paid. We bought the car in Michigan in 2003 from a really big name in modern hot-rodding, he didn't have the heart to cut it up any further and sold it instead. The odometer shows around 20,000 miles, which sounds about right. We bought it knowing nothing of its history, just thinking it was a run-of-the-mill 429 car that had no powertrain and looked like hell. I wasn't a fan of it, but my father had a good feeling about it. We ordered a Marti report and saw that Ford Marketing was the car's original buyer. We thought maybe it was a test mule, but had no further info at the time.

Then around 2011, I found our car's original powertrain in Texas. It had been sitting in a crate since 1971 - the man who owned it said he obtained it from a widow whose husband bought it from Holman-Moody in 1971. He bought the engine & trans for his '32 Ford and reportedly paid $10,000 for them at the time (she remembers signing the check), but they never took it out of the crate. We opened it up and it is indeed blueprinted, it looks like it had dyno time at the very most. Everything is original and date coded, including plug wires, a strange combination of drive belts, you name it. It has sodium-filled 427 valves, some odd pistons and looks absolutely ready for stock-class racing. It was complete from fan blade to tail shaft, carb to oil pan, and had chunks of the wiring harness that were not present on our car. So we dug deeper and started tracing the ownership back. We talked to the second owner who had the story of the car and was willing to chat for a while. We haven't located the Tech Center employee, and we don't know if he's still alive. We called Holman-Moody and one of them (Lee Holman, maybe?) vaguely remembered receiving a 429 SCJ for prep, but they didn't have any documentation.

The car itself is Grabber Blue with white interior, about as bare-bones as it gets. Sportsroof with 429 SCJ/drag pack and 3.91:1 gears, 4-speed with F60-15s, front disc brakes, color-keyed mirrors, hubcaps & trim rings and the instrumentation group. Nothing else. We had special research done by Kevin Marti showing the destination as Dearborn Steel & Tubing, but we have nobody who can document the story of what happened after - it's all hearsay that matches up, but nothing in writing. I'm absolutely convinced it was going to be a factory drag car, what else could it be?

Back to the plates, they are not 1970 Torino plates. I started thinking 1969/1970 Falcon, or Ford LTD, or Lincoln, but there are no images of this stuff that I can find. We don't have classic junkyards like you lucky folks in California & Arizona, so we can't just go fishing. My father is searching for them now, I have a feeling that we're going to have to restore the originals.



 
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