[FWDLK] Urban Legend cars!!
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[FWDLK] Urban Legend cars!!



 
What an interesting string of stories, claims and rebuffs!  Though I must say many unique cars have been built by the manufacturers over the years and they do get out to the public even though the auto manufacturer may never have intended it.

When I worked at Ford Design, our VP, Gene Bordinat would regularly have a custom car built to his specs for his daily driver in addition to the various company cars he had. We would build cars with unique sheetmetal, unique drivetrains, always unique colors (some not so good either!) and it was policy that the cars would not be sold if any safety-related equipment was altered even down to modifying or replacing a seat belt! Of course those kinds of things were always changed during a custom build.  One MK IV even had the passenger compartment moved aft about a foot and side exhaust pipes installed that exited through the front fenders!

Young Edsel Ford II (as a high schooler) would come to our studios and order his "new" car - usually a specially built Mustang with Shelby equipment etc.  Lee Iacocca always had his Lincolns customized as did some of the Ford family members.  (Henry II preferred to drive a light blue Pinto when he drove alone - he claimed it helped him keep a low profile...)

Now when these special cars were later sold (by whom I don't know) one can imagine the stories that would accompany the car!!  "Of course it was 'factory-built', I bought it from the VP"  and etc.  We all know that Exner had many special cars built and usually drove them as his daily driver as did Harley Earl and Bill Mitchell at GM.  Most likely there are many of these "factory-built" special cars out there giving rise to the many legends that we hear about.

I know if you were an insider in a car company you could get a lot of special work done and/or equipment installed in a car which was factory-built in every sense of the word, but not available to the general public. I had a T Bird built to my specs that included a unique color combination of interior material and exterior color along with some deleted options and other added engine and suspension options for which parts were still available - but no longer offered through dealers.  This was in the 60s. (BTW my unique color combo on that car was a candy apple red ext with a tan monochromatic interior).

So, I would think it likely that a "Hemi Commando" or Fury convertible or any other unique vehicle could have in fact, been built at some point in time at Chrysler and escaped the corporate "destroy and do not sell" policy. As to using a decal, old or new as a point of authenticity - forget it!  We used to make custom decals all the time to make a car look more "factory" and less like a "custom".

Brian
D500s in MI
 
 




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