This is the original Heart Like a Wheel custom Mercury from the 1983 Shirley Muldowney movie. Two were built for the movie, one for the exterior shots of it racing and driving around and one for the cameras to be mounted to for interior shots. My car is the one used for the exterior shots. Originally built in a couple of weeks for use in the movie, it was redone completely in 1993 by a private party to build it into a proper quality custom and was documented with progress pics the whole way. This car had been in a private collection and had not been shown for years.
Its an older build that has held up well over the last almost 30 years, but is not perfect...that's partly what makes it so fun. It was painted with House of Kolors Candy Apple Red and then at some point during it\'s life was tastefully pinstriped including flames, dash, trunk. The paint shows well but there are some chips / scratches / bubbles from traveling around to shows over the last 30 years.
It has a balanced and blueprinted 406 stroker chevy small block and turbo 350, 10 bolt rear end and lots of custom fabricated aluminum / billet parts in the engine bay.
Body mods include - 4.5" chop, 1950 rear window, nosed and peaked hood, decked trunk, shaved doors with poppers under the frenched sidepipes, bubble skirts, shaved rain gutters, chopped wing windows, tinted windows, chopped windshield wipers, rounded hood and door edges, filled body seams, shaved trim, frenched power antenna, 1955 Desoto grille, hood side scoops, 1957 Ford frenched headlights, dummy Kustom Kraft Appletons, smoothed stock bumpers, and the most noticeable item left from the original movie car the 1960 Oldsmobile 98 vertically mounted taillights...etc...
Chassis is basically stock, except this car has a basic early Air Ride Technologies air bag system that is slow but works, it has Mustang disc brakes up front and drums in the rear and stops amazingly.
Coker 14" wide wide tires, with candy matched rims and customized 1953 Desoto hubcaps.
Interior is full customized white tuck-n-roll with red piping which includes the lowback buckets, full pleated console and pleated headliner with wrap around back seat our of an old T-Bird I believe. Tilt telescopic column from a Cadillac, vintage Air AC, Lecarra white leather steering wheel, Lokar shifter, teardrop dash knobs, red carpet, trunk is fully upholstered to match and hide the battery / air bag tank and compressor / and gas filler tube. All of the doors and trunk are electric solenoid operated.
This was cover car on the March 1985 Street Rodding Illustrated magazine, and I have an NHRA reissue of the Heart Like a Wheel movie on DVD.
The car is what it is...it\'s a bad ass looking custom with movie history that runs and drives great, and is priced to sell...
https://youtu.be/6FmfvnVnqMM
https://youtu.be/11HRFV0XIW8
