The Mighty Michigan Maier Morgan Falcon In the early 1970's, Tommy Maier raced one of those special cars that just couldn't be beat. He had success racing since about 1966, but became a feared driver when Tom hooked up with Herschel Morgan and a 1961 purple #70 Ford Falcon sponsored by Delta Ford in Bay City, Michigan.

Car was owned by Herschel Morgan and built by Herschel and Glen Morgan with 17 year old Jack Morgan helping crew the car. Herschel is still around and lives in the Tawas, Michigan area. The engine was a big block Ford 396 strictly racing engine that was basically a short stroked 427 that was used in Nascar on the short tracks until 1968. According to Tom, the engine was built in Sterling Heights, Michigan and he didn't know where the engine came from before that. I asked if it was from Holman-Moody and he didn't know but wouldn't rule it out. I always had a hard time convincing my Chevrolet friends that the 396 was all Ford, not a Chevy.

After winning about 12 features in a row and going through their 5th protest teardown at Dixie Motor Speedway the powers that be caved into the competition and banned the engine as "too small" and they needed to build a 410 instead. I think they figured this was going to slow this Falcon down even though the team ran the 396 for a year and a half to that point. The engine was even recommended to Herschel by the track promoters in 1969 to run in the '64 Fairlane. Herschel's engine builder created a 410 c.i. and Tom went out and broke track records with this new engine. It lasted only about 4 features before it blew up. They were allowed to go back to the 396, but it was found out the engine had 6 cracked pistons. Morgan welded the cracks up and the engine ran the rest of the season and kept winning.

The Falcon used stock Buick brakes and Tom said by the end of the night the pedal was vibrating so bad it was hard to control the braking. The tires were a very hard compound and the left front was so hard they ran that tire 3 years on cars. I remember Tom loosing control several times during qualifying and spinning out at Dixie, but he told me now that he was doing it on purpose to get enough heat in the tires to post a good qualifying lap. Morgan just wouldn't change to a softer tire and told Tom qualifying wasn't that important. Once the tires got hot, the Falcon FLEW!

Tom and a crew member hated the color on the car (purple) and they threatened to get a gallon of Barn Red paint and brush it on to change it. The car stayed purple so I guess they lost that battle.LOL.

One thing I always remembered was this car sat much higher than other cars at the time. The wheels stuck out farther than the other cars, too. I didn't realize it at the time that the Falcon was a unibody car so a frame had to be slid under it. But it still was higher than Joy's early Falcon. In the picture, it looks like a heavy frame was used and basically the unibody was sitting right on top of it. Tom says at the time a car could run the wheels way out from the body.

I'll bet there was some butting of heads between Tom and Herschel, but it's hard to argue too much if the car is winning every week.

I'm still trying to find out how many features and championships this little Falcon won, but if it finished, it usually won. There is very little information about this car and only a few pictures which is why it's rare to see one. Fortunately Tom's memory is still sharp. Below are a couple of pictures, just click on the attachments.

Pete