Dot did a great job, as she always does, explaining the advent of the fairlane stripes on the 55 T-Bird. The first National I took it to was in Williamsburg Virginia. It so happened that Mr Frank Hershey who was chief designer for the Thunderbird, was also there. I had a great chance to talk to him about the fairlane stripes. He told me that a vice president of Ford was the one pushing for the stripes, mostly because he had a brother-in-law who was going to produce them for Ford. He, Mr. Hershey, overruled the vice-president because he didn't think they looked right on the T-Bird. Needless to say, he is about the only person who has ever seen our car, who didn't like it and he told me so! There was also a brochure put out on the fairlane car exactly like the regular brochure, only every picture showed it with failane stripes. The factory recalled all of those brochures, however one person sneaked one out in his lunch pail. Ford Johnson who is the patriarch of our Thunderbird club, knew about this brochure and told me who this fellow was and that I should contact him. So I wrote to him and asked him if he would send me a colored copy of the brochure, which he did. I think it helped that I sent him a box of Washington Red Delicious apples along with the request. Mr Hershey told me that the three cars pictured in the magazine advertisements were only prototypes and were destroyed. I was not aware of an original ever made except for the one Dot speaks of, which was owned by a vice president. Maybe it was the same V.P. who had pushed for the fairlane stipes, I don't know. The car always attracts a lot of comments at Thunderbird shows. However, I always say "if 99 out of the 100 Thunderbirds here at the show had fairlane stripes and only one had hashmarks, it would be the popular one."
