Bill Ruffer, Huntsville, AL
1964 Comet
In May of 1964, I was passing by a Lincoln-Mercury dealership, and noticed this beautiful black ’64 Comet sitting in the showroom. It was the Cyclone version, which had a 4-barrel 289 and a 4-speed. I had to stop and look at it – what could it hurt? To make a long story short – I left with it.
In 1966, I took it to the track to see what it would do. It was not impressive, but I had fun. I went back the following weekend and ran a little better. By this time I was getting hooked. We fitted a Hurst shifter, Hooker headers, and some cheap cheater slicks.
I had a friend whose brother was starting up a new business. It was called Racing Head Service. They offered to help if I would put their name on the car. The car in its stock form, would run mid 16s, but in a couple of seasons, with engine blueprinting, chassis work and a lot of tuning we had it running 13.70s to 13.80s on a regular basis. (This was on 7” cheater slicks and no track prep).
In 1971 I had to make it a daily driver. In ’75 I ran across some 351C pieces– a complete, but disassembled engine out of a ’72 Mach 1. I had everything redone and balanced, got a Competition Cam 268H, Edelbrock aluminum intake and put it together. It is still running hard to this day”.
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