The only Ford I ever had was a two tone 58 Edsel Citation convertible I bought from the original owner for $400.00.It needed a top,I didn't have it long enough to get around to that,The front seat had been redone, and it had new carpets. I put a $200.00 paint shop type paint job on it, there was a real nice copper metallic and white paint scheme those cars had, and it looked pretty good. I pulled both heads and refaced the valves and seats,this had a 410 inch Lincoln -Mercury Edsel motor.That one had an angled deck with the bottom of the heads were flat and the chamber was on top of the piston. Nothing we haven't seen. I also replaced the lifters,pushrods, and rocker arms. Those engines had a BAD sludge problem due to the lack of PCV, but that was a pretty strong running big engine. The Achilles' heel of those cars was the electric push button shift in the center of the steering wheel.The shift motor and wiring harness and the two directional relays were gone, but there was a box of all that stuff in the trunk, and when I asked a local transmission shop about resurrecting it, he admitted that they wouldn't work on the electric push buttons, they'd do the trans if I needed one,but he had a box of push button Edsel shift motors, replays, a couple of wiring harnesses and the like. He gave it to me, glad that someone could use it, glad to see it gone more than anything. I worked part time in a gas station and was in the vocational automotive program,at Pasadena City College,so that was kind of a project car with me. I got all the push button stuff in and working, the original had a bad relay, a five minute replacement job, and it was kind of a neat car. It has power windows, a power seat, a power top ,the spinner hubcaps not too different than '63 Impala SS covers, and only 930 of that model were made. Maybe 150-175 survive. I saw one go across Barrett-Jackson 3 or 4 years ago, and the bidding slowed at the $50,000 area, then two buyers got into a bidding battle and pushed the auction price over $100,000. It also was probably the nicest car in existence of that make and model. I sold mine to a guy who was a gas station customer who became rather enamored with it, he kept it until about 10 years ago, then a collector in Pennsylvania got it and is doing a total restoration on it. He still has it,good to see a neat old car go to two good homes and get properly cared for. Hope for as much when we sell one of our 409's.
