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Despite success with the 427ci hi riser, Dixon wanted to go faster and in ’66 he got serious when he laid down $3,500 to buy a 427 SOHC motor through the Bob Ford dealership in Dearborn, MI. “Before the engine was ever run I tore it apart to machine the heads for more compression and installed a Crane Cams cam and made my own headers — a real advantage when you work in a tool and mold shop like I did,” says Dixon. “Not many guys had one of these engines so I searched out Connie Kalitta and George DeLorean, who were in the Detroit area, for any speed tips they could let me know.” By 1967 Dixon also ditched the carburetors in favour of Hilborn Fuel Injection and held the B/Gas track record at St. Thomas, Grand Bend and Milan Dragway from 1966 through 1968. In 1967 Dixon ran a best ET of 10.44 at 130 mph when the 1967 National Record was 10.38 at 131 mph. “I tried everything to set that record,” says Dixon. “I remember almost burning out the clutch trying to take off in second because I wanted the speed record but I just couldn’t get it.”

He still had a need for speed though and so he bought a 1969 Corvette with, of course, a 427ci rat motor. “The Mounties had confiscated it from a fellow because he got everything built up in the US and tried to smuggle it back into Canada. They put it in storage and the block cracked. I bought it cheap and rebuilt the motor.” In about 1972 he got into antique and classic cars which further pushed drag racing and the ’57 Ford into the memory vault. Bob may never have considered owning the car again if his brother Al didn’t get back into drag racing in about 2005. Al Dixon and his son Shawn both started racing and a few years into it discovered the whereabouts of Bob’s ’57 Ford. It was just 25 miles away and owned, since about 1974, by Butch Laporte and his father. The pair had started to build it into a pro street car, replacing the quarters and losing, among things, the Logghe straight axle but it never got beyond project status. “That was a shame because I heard when they bought it the car was basically the car I had sold in 1971,” says Dixon. “That Logghe axle is probably under some little farm trailer or implement but nobody can find it.”

Once the ’57 Ford was back in Dixon’s garage the idea wasn’t to restore it exactly as it was but more to pay tribute to that 1960s drag car while also taking advantage of modern chassis technology and speed parts in general. To that end the car first went to Andre Mailloux of Mailloux Chassis. He build the chassis, using the stock frame but creating a custom front clip with a tube front axle and parallel leaf springs while out back a custom 3-link chassis setup with coil overs and double adjustable shocks was fabricated along with a full roll cage. The body, paint, interior, very trick custom tilt front end, engine installation and headers among many other items were done by Shawn Dixon and Dennis Standon at Oldcastle Speed and Custom in Old Castle, ON. Dixon wanted to cut weight on the ’57 Ford so had carbon fibre doors manufactured while swapping the stock hood and deck lid for fibreglass units. Under the tilt hood resides a 427 SOHC. Dixon didn’t have any parts left from the past and if Cammer motors were expensive in the 1960s you can imagine what it cost to build one today. This new version sports 527ci and more than 900hp and 700+ft/lbs of torque with a reproduction Hilborn mechanical fuel injection system resembling the one Dixon purchased in 1967

The car was built for drag racing and Dixon, a member of the Ontario Nostalgia Drag Racers, plans to hit the track in 2014 with the same enthusiasm he had in the ’60s. This time around something tells me the 21st century version of Dixon’s Ford won’t have any problem getting low 10-second ETs and eclipsing 131 mph.

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