55 Cheyy

rabidbowtie

True, the Graffiti car is the same one from 2-lane. The propaganda on the engine has caused all sorts of confusion. The setting for the movie was 1962 so it was fictionally claimed to have a 409. Even the ERTL scale model has a W-engine. In reality, it had a fully built L-88. Mark iv's weren't available until 1965. Some speculate this is the reason why you never saw the engine in the movie.

txroadrunner

anyone interested in 55 2 dr wagon used in the movie la mombo(spelling may be wrong),
look in autotrader. It is located in plano tx, not far from me. I looked at it and is in pretty far condition.

tombayer

I have seen both of these movies again since my previous posts. I take back what I said about the engine never being seen in either movie. In 2LBT it is shown several times and James Taylor tells a bystander that its a 454.
Watched again the race between the 32 Ford and the 55 Chevy. I still say it was a very mismatched race, the Duece Coupe may have had a weight advantage, but the Chevy had to have close to double the horsepower. I would guess that the Chevy would run easy 12's in the quarter. Does anybody have a guess what a radically built flathead 32 duece coupe would run?

PS my previous user name was mmcsw

isellhondas

How Harrison Ford described the color of the 32 coupe?

tombayer

between piss yellow and puke green."

carnut4

I don't really know how built that flathead was, but I'm guessing maybe it would make the high 14s in the quarter? I think the best built Ford flathead V8 anywhere [without blower or Ardun heads]would be pushing 250-300 horsepower at the most. Any other guesses?

chevy521ss

I can remember once back in 1976 i had a 1968 chevy chevelle ss. I was teaching my girl friend (now my wife) how to drive a standard.This car had a 396 with a four speed muncie.The car was pretty fast. After about two weeks of jumping and jurking she finally started to get the hang of shifting. So one night she wanted me to show her how slam some gears like when you race.(she said)
So here we go about five miles away from the freeway so no one or cops would see or hear us.
Remember this car had a 411 rear end. Just put in a week before this little ride. After a couple of passes to make sure the tires were nice and hot. I told her to let me drive and i would show her how the (big boys done it) After getting in the drivers seat i warmed up the tires and lined up to make a good impression. Guess what when i took off the big block was just getting wound up when i hit second gear. I then heard a squack from the tires and a horrible bang from under the car. But when i put into third gear we wasn't moving, Keep in mind this was about 10pm at night and it was around 40degrees outside.After pulling over to the side and finding out that i had broken the ring gear in the rear end. We walked five miles to a phone without any jackets. Can't believe she went out with me onother time. What guys will do to impress there girl friend. I guess that is part of being young. I still get on my son for hot roding now.
Mark.

chen2

I am building a American Graffiti '55 lone and have done a lot of research. Many of the magazine articles have incorrect information, and all the models (Ertl, Match box, Revel) of the car have errors. halt Barley is the expert on the Two Lane Blacktop and GA cars and most of what I've learned comes from halt. Richard Rut is building an exact TB clone for Walt.

Richard Ruth built three '55s for TLB. Two had 454s and one with an L88 427. The 427 was the drive car in the movie. Although James Taylor says it's a 454 but it's not. Richard Ruth is in that scene in the movie. He's the guy who asks Taylor if he built the headers. Kind of cool, since Ruth custom built them himself. One of the 454s was the camera car and the other had a full roll cage in anticpation of a roll over scene that they never filmed. Ruth is supposed to have taken one of the cars to a drag strip and turned the quarter in under 11 seconds.

The 427 and the 454 with the cage were painted black for AG. They replaced the Weiand tunnel ram and dual quad with a single 4 barrel, changed the doors, and put a white canvas cover over the rear area under the 4 point roll cage. The 427 is the drive car driven by Harrison Ford/Bob Falfa.

There are three cars in the Paradise Road race at the end of the movie. The 427 is the car in the race, the 454 is the rollover car, and a third '55 (a clunker from a wrecking yard) is the car seen burning and upside down.

While either the 427 or 454 cars would have beaten the Milner Coupe with its 283. The only big block available in 1962 was the 409. Using what was available in 1962 would have made an interesting race.

The car used in the Annie Liebowitz AG cast picture that appeared in Vanity Fair is a clone that was originally bult by Phil Morin and purchased by Rick Figari (the owner of the milner coupe). Figari had Richard Ruth work on the Morin car to make it more correct. If you've seen the picture, you may have noticed that the rear trunk emblem has the color insert, while the actual car in the movie has only the chrome bezel.

The Graffiti 427 drive car is in Maryland. Unfortunately, its owner has done a lot of modifications.