Text by C. Asaravala. Photographs courtesy of the owner.

Introduction
Part of the appeal of owning a classic Ford muscle car is learning about the cars history. Sometimes you discover this by finding artifacts the previous owner left behind - one of our editors found a wadded up military discharge slip belonging to the original owner. I personally remember finding an unopened pack of long discontinued cigarettes tucked suspiciously up under the dash. Unfortunately most of us never learn more from these few clues. However imagine if we could have been part of the history of the car from the day it was purchased. Tom Day, the owner of the 1960 Falcon featured here, is one fellow who has been just so lucky.

The '60 Falcon was purchased new in Lorain, Ohio. By the time Tom took ownership in '96, the car had a mere 39,000 miles.

Tom told us of the wonderful history of what began as his Grandmother Nelies new car. The 1960 Falcon Tudor Sedan was purchased new by her husband from a dealership in Florida. Soon after it was driven up to the family farm in Pennsylvania. By 1984, when Nelie passed, the car turned a "barely broken in" 29,000 miles.

Tom's brother inherited the car and took it to his home in New Jersey. Tom's then high-school aged nieces learned to drive behind the wheel of their great grandmothers classic Ford.

In 1996 the car was finally passed on to Tom, having only put on an additional 10,000 miles since the time his brother owned it. Tom tells us of the day he drove the car from his brothers home in New Jersey back to his house in Ohio, "I drove to New Jersey with the family and the kids took turns riding with me back to Ohio in Nelie in August 1996 as my wife followed us. The vents and windows were wide open, the temperature was in the 90's and we didn't care!"

Once in his possession Tom had plans to restore the car. However while the car was stripped down Tom's mind wandered and the idea to make the car something "special" was spawned. Tom summoned the services of Budke Racing in Visalia, Kentucky. After delivering the car to Budke's shop Stanley Budke went to work on making "Nelie", as the car was now being tributized, into something unique and special.

Budke back-halved the car, setting up a ladder bar and coil over rear suspension. The wheel wells were tubbed to fit massive 33.5" Hoosier donuts. It goes without saying the original 7.5" rear end was dumped and in it's place went a shortened 9" with 4.56" gears and 31 spline axles. Budke added other touches such as a custom fabricated fuel cell and roll cage as well.

For the powerplant Tom rounded up a '77 Granada donor car and robbed it of it's 302 motor and C4 transmission. The engine was spruced up with a cam and intake. The C4 was rebuilt with a shift kit and topped off with a B&M Z gate shifter.

Once the major chassis fabrication and wiring work was completed the car was delivered to the paint and body shop. In December of 1999 the car came home for good with a fresh coat of Ford F-250 Dark Torreador Red. The interior was eventually fully customized, bringing a close to a project that Tom says, "required two jobs and a second mortgage, but was worth every penny!"

The car has since won numerous trophies at local shows, and Tom says he is still amazed at the attention the car draws. We're certain that this chapter in Nelies history is turning out to be a memorable one for Tom.