1964 FORD FAIRLANE 500
THIS FAIRLANE ROLLED OFF THE LINE about five days before the Mustang made its debut. Perhaps gearing up for that new car caused some shortages for other models. How else do you explain that this Fairlane came with a 1963-type interior and a too-long driveshaft?
It’s not as though the intervening years are a great mystery. Current owner Don Antilla, of Southbury, Connecticut, acquired the car only in early 2020. He’s known of it since 1966, though he didn’t finally get to see it until very recently. He’d been bugging its second owner to sell for more than 54 years, but that fellow, Mario Muollo, was more interested in street racing the solid-lifter Fairlane than restoring it or selling it. He finally stopped driving it around 1993 (the last date attested to by old New York registration stickers), but kept it in dry storage as a potential project.
Mario tweaked the car to better fill its role for him. A Cobra Racing Kit was fitted, including a
