1957 Ford Custom 501ci Big-Block Gasser Gold

- in Cars

One day after the suspension was all set up Gordon came to Purcell’s shop and as they both stood looking at the car for a while suddenly Purcell turned to Gordon and said “You know what I’m thinking?” To which Gordon replied, “I know exactly what you’re thinking we’re cutting out those rear wells.”

They were both definitely on the same page but thanks to Purcell’s artistry they did more than just radius the wheel wells. After initial cutting Purcell built a wheel lip pattern that would flow into the original quarter reveal so the adjustment has an almost stock look to it.

As the build progressed Gordon began to rethink paint color. “Color can make or break a car, just like wheels,” says Gordon. “So I struggled with it.” In the beginning he wanted to go with 1962 Chevy Anniversary Gold but the more he looked at it the more he felt it didn’t have “life” to it. Then he thought maybe he’d go with a kind of dirty white color and there was a late 1930s Chevy tint that fit the bill but he kept coming back to gold.

So he took a couple of bumperettes in a bucket to the local automotive paint supplier and started experimenting with color. “I think I went through 12 aerosol cans,” says Gordon. He used the bumperettes because the round surfaces give you a better idea of how the color will look when light hits the various curves of the car. When he found a color he liked he took it to paint and body man Barry Bolton in Cannington, ON who played with the color a bit more. The final color is a custom blend they called Gasser Gold and it has the amazing characteristic of being both subdued and eye-catching at the same time.

He decided it was too tame for the overall theme and has since stroked it 1969 Thunderbird Thunderjet 429 to 501-ci, swapped out the stock Dove heads and factory aluminum 4-barrel intake for Edelbrock aluminum heads and a tunnel ram with dual carbs. In keeping with the vintage gasser theme he doesn’t want any manufacturer logos on the modern parts so he will go as far as grinding the Edelbrock signature off those new aluminum heads, something he also did to the C6 transmission’s Lokar shifter lever. “I could have found a vintage shifter but Lokar’s done the homework with the kickdowns and everything so it was just easier to buy the parts, but I didn’t want to advertise that,” explains Gordon.

1957 Ford Gasser features a 501ci big-block V-8

To add plenty of attitude the chassis connects to the ground through vintage 15-inch Fenton Gyro wheels wearing Hurst rubber combined with 10×15 rear steelies capped with Hurst slicks to lay down the power.

“When I had it at the International Centre a lot of older guys would look at the car with big smiles and I’d go up and talk to them and they would say how I’d really got it right,” he added.

We agree.