studillac

Photo of one of the three known Frick Vignale Cadillacs by Axelrod.

Recently Al Axelrod reported on the Morgan Adams Concours in Denver and spotted a car that piqued our interest, since we had no prior knowledge of such an Italian American hybrid. We asked him to pursue it and he did. His report caused further investigation the results of which we reveal in an addendum from Staff, immediately following Al’s report.

Story and color images by Al Axelrod

In the early fifties, a hot rodder entrepreneur by the name of Bill Frick established Bill Frick Motors and found a ready market for an estimated 200 Fordillacs. As it sounds, a Fordillac was a 1949 Ford with the newly introduced 331ci Cadillac V8, shoehorned into the Ford. Along with Phil Walters (aka Ted Tappet), a very highly regarded race car driver in midgets and sportscars, they managed a successful engine conversion garage in New York Things were looking up for the team when Briggs Cunningham, who often employed both Frick and Walters, decided to open a car building facility in Florida and took the pair with him.