These days, unless your name is John Force, or you’re fortunate enough to work for him, the Ford brand name is not seen to any great extent in organized drag racing. Of course, there are the specialized racing sanctions that have grown up around the ubiquitous Mustang, and the IHRA Pro Stock ranks have been pretty well dominated by Mustangs, Probes and Mercury Cougars over the course of the last few seasons. But actual factory participation in straight-line racing is very rare indeed.

It wasn’t always that way, however. In the early 1960’s, before the so-called "factory hot rods" as today’s Pro Stock machines are called, the drag world was embroiled in a spiraling performance war between honest-to-goodness specialized drag cars direct from the "big three" auto makers. The folks from Dearborn were firmly entrenched in the front lines of the mêlée, their hottest hardware of the day doing battle with the legendary Max Wedge Mopars and Super Duty Pontiacs, among others.

Between 1961 and 1963, despite a strong effort, Ford’s drag racing program struggled to keep up with the competition. All that would change, however, with the introduction in the1963 model year (1963-½, according to Ford) of the Sports Roof body for the two-door Galaxie, along with the legendary 427 engine. With a single Holley carburetor, the new 427 was rated at 410 bhp at 5,600 rpm. Outfitted with two four-barrel Holley carbs, it put out 425 bhp at 6,000 rpm. Both versions came with 11.5:1 compression, an aluminum manifold, and performance packages that included heavy-duty suspensions, axles, and brakes, together with heavy-duty drive shafts and universal joints.

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In spite of their beefed up performance, however, the Galaxies were still heavy, weighing upwards of 4,000 lbs. They did well enough in circle track competition, but still lagged behind at the drag strip and on the streets. To counter this, Ford built 50 special lightweight Sports Roof Galaxies for competition. They had stripped interiors and ultra-lightweight bucket seats, as well as aluminum transmission casings and bell-housings. Fiberglass was used for the bumpers, front fenders, and the "bubble" hood, which was necessary to clear a special aluminum high-rise manifold. A number of the cars even had fiberglass doors. With the 425-horsepower 427 under the hood, these lightweights were able to turn the quarter mile in 12.07 seconds at 118 mph. However, they were still outgunned at every turn by hot Chevys, Pontiacs, Dodges, and Plymouths.

In the end, the ’63 1/2 Ford Galaxie, while a very potent factory-produced car by today’s standards, was no match for the aforementioned screamers from Chrysler and GM. It must be remembered that in the early 1960's, success on the drag strips put the cars and their manufacturers in the limelight, which in turn bolstered sales to the performance market.  Adopting the strategy "Win on Sunday, Sell on Monday", Ford engineers had already been hard at work for months on the project that would bring the ultimate factory Ford muscle car to life. In 1963, an alliance between Ford's Special Vehicle Department and East Providence, Rhode Island’s Tasca Ford produced a "mule" vehicle that was used to determine if an advantage could be gained by using the unitized Fairlane body in place of the full-framed Galaxie. The resulting test vehicle, a '63 Fairlane 500 hardtop, was equipped with a 427/425-horsepower engine and a four-speed transmission.

The car went largely unnoticed at the races it attended, but it was determined that this combination would give Ford the weight break it needed to run with its Chrysler and General Motors counterparts. The new "super car" was dubbed the Thunderbolt, and Dearborn Steel Tubing Company (DST) was picked to do all of the conversion work on the new vehicles. The "core" cars were built at Ford’s Dearborn plant as Fairlane 500 two-door sedans, minus sound deadener, sealer, insulation, radios, heaters, and rear window cranking mechanisms and then shipped to DST.

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The engineers designed a new cylinder head for the Thunderbolt, the Hi-Riser, along with a special two four-barrel intake manifold that raised the port angle to give the fuel mixture almost a straight shot to the cylinder. This head/intake combination with an improved camshaft and high 13.5:1 compression put the power back in.  But inserting the big motor into the light Fairlane required extensive and costly body and suspension modifications.  As they had with the Galaxie lightweight, designers molded a lightweight front-end package from fiberglass, which included front fenders and a hood with a special bubble to clear the high-rise intake.

The special design also included aluminum front bumpers, Plexiglas side windows, ram air induction via six-inch ducts from the high beam headlight openings and a heavy-duty trunk-mounted diesel truck battery.  Additionally, the drag cars included lightweight front bucket seats and a rubber floor mat instead of carpet. There was no warranty with the Thunderbolt, and each car had to be picked up in Dearborn. Eventually, 100 Thunderbolts were produced, and Ford lost money on each one. Some of the first cars were actually sold for $1.00, but ultimately Ford sold them for $3900 (four-speed) and $4000 (automatic) respectively.

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In the hands of such famous drivers as Dick Brannan, Phil Bonner, Butch Leal and Gas Ronda, these Thunderbolts were deadly in both Super Stock and A/FX (Factory Experimental) competition - many recording elapsed times in the 11.50 second range or better. Confirming that the engineers at Ford had done their work well, Rhonda made 1964 the "Year of the T-bolt" as he took the NHRA World Championship by a margin of more than double the points of his nearest competitor. There were soon many other racing teams campaigning the potent little mid-size Fords as well, and two of these are key players in this story.

As they say – we told you all that to tell you this.

Pennsylvania’s Rich "Wizard" LaMont is the man behind the wonderful rolling celebration of drag racing history known today as 422 Motorsports - a unique Nostalgia Super Stock – F/X drag racing team. Appearing regularly in National Street Car Association competition, as well as at numerous other Ford-related functions and Nostalgia Super Stock races, the team’s hauler carries a number of pristine examples of Dearborn’s finest true "factory hot rods" to thousands of appreciative fans and enthusiasts annually.

LaMont, along with Larry Bloomer and Dick Gehris, ran a 1963-1/2 Galaxie lightweight, and later a Thunderbolt, under the Norristown Ford banner in the early ‘sixties. In addition to the Norristown group, there were several other Pennsylvania Ford dealerships running competitive teams at the time, among them Koelle-Greenwood Ford, Al Swenson Ford and Luther Ford. The nucleus of today’s 422 Motorsports team is made up of several members of these original factory-sponsored teams, and how the paths of these pioneering competitors crossed again many years later is an interesting tale. LaMont explained how it all came about:

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"Well, it was just one of those things that stated innocently enough and eventually took on a life of its own," he said with a laugh. "When we started our 422 Motorsports Performance shop outside Philadelphia a few years back, I had Thunderbolt number 73 – the original Norristown Ford car - sitting under a tarp waiting to be restored. I was planning to fix it up and do a little nostalgia racing with it – nothing serious.

"Looking back, the story of how we came to have the old Norristown car in the first place is pretty interesting," said LaMont. Back in 1965 one of the mechanics from Norristown Ford, who owned the car, decided to take it racing at a short little ‘strip here in Pennsylvania called Hatfield Dragway. It was actually the straight of an oval track, so you can imagine how short the shutdown area was. Anyway, this guy crashed, taking out the timing slip booth in the process, and the car was pretty twisted up. Later, they took the motor and transmission out of the car and sold the body to a guy who planned to restore it.

"He never got around to it, however, and the car sat outside for nearly 10 years until I finally went and bought it, at a premium price, of course. It sat around my shop for quite a while after that, until in the early ‘90s I decided to put it back together just to go out and have a little fun. Once I finally got it back to the track, the car turned a best of 10.01 seconds in the quarter mile at a speed of 134 MPH, and I was happy. I didn’t think there would be too much more to the project, but how wrong I was.

"Everything pretty much changed the day "Fast" Fred Henderson walked into the shop, totally out of the blue," LaMont continued. "He used to run a Thunderbolt called "Shazam" for Koelle-Greenwood Ford back when I worked for the Norristown team, but I hadn’t seen him in 25 years. He told me that he wanted to get into nostalgia racing, too, and was looking to build a clone of the T-Bolt. We talked it over, and since I already had the Thunderbolt, I persuaded him to build a replica of "Dyno" Don Nicholson’s ‘64 Comet Cyclone A/FX machine instead. Fred agreed, and contacted "Dyno" Don to get his permission to use his name on the car, which he gladly gave."

Once completed, Fred pushed the FE-powered Cyclone to a best of 9.25 at 145 MPH. The car left the line with its wheels up, and "Fast" banged the gears just like he did when he campaigned the "Shazam" car back in ‘64. To say that Henderson was a real character would be a huge understatement according to Thunderbolt historian (and owner) Craig Sutton. Stories of his exploits have reached near legendary status in some circles, and Sutton gladly shared one of his favorites:

"After Fred and his brother traveled to DST to pick up "Shazam," they were flat- towing the car home behind a ‘63 Ford station wagon. At some point, Fred's brother looked back and said ‘The race car isn't back there anymore!’ The car had come off the tow bar and gone down an embankment! The only damage to the T-Bolt was a bent aluminum front bumper. They straightened it out, but close observation would always reveal a ripple in the left front side of the bumper. Also, they had mounted an old pair of tires and rims for the tow to save the slicks that came on the car. Fred didn't know it at the time, but the tires were two different sizes and by the time they got home they had totaled the Detroit Locker rear."

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As for the rest of the 422 cars and crew, LaMont explained, "After we had my T-bolt and Fred’s Comet up and running, my accountant, Frank Pelligreni, decided that he wanted a give nostalgia racing a try himself. We took him out to the track and let him drive our cars, and he was hooked. Eventually he bought a ‘63-½ Galaxie 427 lightweight, and we were up to three cars and counting.

"A little later I decided it would be neat to have a cammer – the famous 427 Single Overhead Cam engine – under the hood of one of our cars," LaMont continued. "This was the most powerful engine ever built in Detroit, producing 657 horsepower. It was almost impossible to drive on the street, and Ford stopped making them after very few were put into production cars. We originally built a ’64 Falcon with a cammer under the hood, but two years later we took the engine out, sold the car to Steve Vargo and built our current blue ’65 Falcon.

"Once we completed the cammer project, Bob Legge was brought in to drive the T-bolt while I took over behind the wheel of the new Falcon. It’s the most technically advanced car on the team, with the 427 Ford SOHC engine, a sophisticated suspension package and the latest in modern accessory technology. Under National Street Car Association rules, that car is one of the quickest and fastest Nostalgia Super Stock cars on the planet –having run a best of 8.88 at 154.13 mph – with a four speed.

"Eventually it got to the point where we had this great bunch of cars, so we decided to form the 422 Motorsports team and take our show on the road. The next problem we faced was getting them all to the track. Eventually we found a tractor-trailer rig for sale by a company that used it to haul prototype cars around for the "Big Three,’ and we were in business. We spend quite a few weekends on the road during the racing season these days, and fans really love our collection of vintage Fords."

Today the "Norristown Ford" Thunderbolt is competently shoed by Ed Youmans, who took over behind the wheel of the group’s flagship car when Legge decided to semi-retire from the sport. The first-year driver wheeled his historic hot rod to a seventh place finish in NSCA competition in 2004, which Lamont considers to be "pretty good" in a class which has 50 registered competitors. To be in the top ten in points among all the wily veterans in the class is an accomplishment in and of itself.

Perhaps Youman’s crowning achievement in 2004 season was his match-race victory over the Thunderbolt of California’s Phil Featherston at South Mountain, as Lamont explained. "Up until that time Phil had claimed to have the fastest un-tubbed Thunderbolt in the country, but since my car doesn’t have tubs either, and we beat him, I guess he can’t say that any more. Needless to say, he wants us to come out to California for a return match, so we’ll have to see what we can arrange after the NSCA season is over."

As for other members of this interesting crew, the team’s chief fabricator is Lloyd "Dink" Bishop. Dink is a veteran racer who has never run anything but Ford equipment since he first started going to the track in the 1950's. During the 1960's Dink worked as a crewmember for "Dyno" Don Nicholson, and still shares a close personal relationship with him. Dink and LaMont struck up a friendship in the 1960's and it continues today as they share an intense passion for Nostalgia Super Stock racing.

Another key member of the team up until his passing was Dick Gehris of Norristown, Pennsylvania. Dick was a line mechanic at the original Norristown Ford Dealership back in 1963 when he teamed up with LaMont and the late Larry Bloomer to race a factory 1963-1/2 Galaxie. Later, he was part of the team that campaigned the Thunderbolt that carried the Norristown Ford name. Gehris was instrumental in helping LaMont restore the old T-Bolt, and had a major hand in the construction of his first 1964 SOHC powered Falcon as well. He was a great asset to the team, and every time one of their beautiful cars flies down the quarter mile these days, the spirit of Dick Gehris rides with it.

Yet another vital member of the team is Dave Powers. Among his other duties with the team, Dave is responsible for the upkeep and over-the-road activities of the team transporter.  Powers has twenty-five years experience as a professional driver and is entrusted with the precious cargo contained within the team’s impressive big rig.

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But that’s not all – Fred Henderson sold the Nicholson Comet to Dave a couple of years ago, and he has driven it on occasion when the 422 group goes racing. The car has seen very little track time since Powers purchased it, but the good news is that a major facelift has just about been completed, and it’s expected that the famous little hot rod will run quite a bit better than it did the first time around, something Dave is looking forward to.

Bill Asamura is another integral part if the 422 crew. In addition to his exceptional culinary skills, which he often displays at the track, Bill and Fred Henderson are now actively working on a second Don Nicholson car for the 422 Motorsports stable. All we know right now is that it’s known as the "Duck," and it should be an awesome car if the group’s past history holds true.

Today, thanks to the inspiration and leadership of LaMont and the 422 team, several other fantastic Fords have now become associated with the group. From time to time the core group is joined by Steve Vargo's 1964 427 Falcon, Jake Vargo's 1963 Galaxie, Skip Davis’ 1964 Thunderbolt and John Vermeersch's 1963 SOHC 427 Galaxie. In addition, the 422 team have been instrumental in bringing John DiMino, Jr’s beautiful red T-bolt to the track recently. John and his sister Stephanie both compete in NSCA Nostalgia Super Stock under their family’s Black Horse Racing banner. But wait – there’s still more. Recently, Charlie Morris found and restored the original Norristown Ford ’63-1/2 Galaxie lightweight, which ran a 12-flat elapsed time it’s first time out.

Together, this avid bunch of racer-historians have brought living examples of some of the best factory muscle ever built back into the consciousness of those that remember them from days long past. Perhaps even more importantly, they have opened up a whole new world for the generations of fans that followed, letting them get up close and personal with some of the people and great hot rods that helped make the sport of drag racing what it is today.