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Article submitted
by Scot Thayer
Jerry Larsen has been a Lakeville,
MN area resident his whole life. He was born & raised on a farm there,
and he & wife Donna currently reside in the area. He & Donna raised two
boys and now have four grandchildren, “Our number one hobby”, Jerry says
proudly. Jerry’s blood runs Ford Blue, having retired this past March
after 45 dedicated years at the St. Paul Ford Assembly Plant.
Jerry & Donna are no strangers to the automotive hobby, their car club
memberships aside from the Falcon Club include MSRA and Southern
Cruisers. Previous hobby vehicles they’ve owned include a ’53 Chevy Bel-Air,
’55 Ford Tudor, a ’72 Olds Cutlass, as well as a low mile ’82 Honda Gold
wing that they continue to own. Jerry & Donna’s Falcon is a
beautiful red ’64 Futura Convertible. They found the car in 1997 via an
ad in the Sunday paper (the author remembers calling on the same ad but
Jerry had beat him to it). It was located in a building in Woodbury,
“a solid Arizona car that needed pretty much everything” said Jerry.
They made a deal on this 75,000 mile diamond in the rough, brought it
home, and started in on it. They replaced the tired 260 engine and 2
speed automatic with a rebuilt 302 and C4 automatic, followed by a new
top to seal it up in time for Back to the 50’s. Following that, they
sent the car to Apple Valley Collision for stripping to bare metal and
new paint. Jerry & Donna procured an interior kit from Auto Krafters
and installed it themselves. Jerry was very pleased at every step of
the restoration in seeing how solid the car’s foundation was for its
age. The 302 engine didn’t work out, so Jerry replaced it with a new
302 crate roller motor from Ford, topped it off with a Ford aluminum
intake, Holley 4 barrel, and dual exhaust with glass packs. Out back
the car has 2.89 gears, perfect for cruising and gas mileage. More
recently, Jerry has rebuilt the front suspension and upgraded the front
spring perches with roller bearings to greatly improve the steering,
handling, and ride over the stock rubber bushings. ’68 Mustang steel
Rally Wheels complete the classic look of this fine car. Jerry &
Donna have logged 40,000 miles on this car since owning it. They enjoy
driving it to many car shows, including the 2006 Falcon Nationals at
Indy, the Good Guys car show in Des Moines and the Watertown, SD town
car show, both last summer, in addition to the 2007 FCA Nationals in
Bloomington. Nice car, Jerry & Donna! |
