Every Street Is Walls Street

When Ford and Shelby racing historians consider the East Coast, Rhode Island’s Tasca Ford quickly comes to mind as the principle center of many significant competition activities.

- Steve Magnante

But let’s not forget Harr Ford. Located in nearby Worcester, Massachusetts, Harr was also a hub of East Coast Ford race activity, with solid connections inside Ford Engineering and Shelby American alike. So well connected was Harr Ford that in 1966 the service manager, Gus Zuidema, placed an order for the only 427-powered Cobra Dragon snake ever built (the other five were 289 powered), immortalizing the Harr Ford dealership in the pantheon of Ford race history.

Two years before that, the two-brother team of Bob and Walt “Snooky” Walls were making waves on the New England drag racing scene with a 1964 Fairlane Hi-Po 289. The Walls brothers co-owned Summit Mobil, also based in Worcester, a successful automotive repair shop and refueling station, the first of several the brothers would eventually operate in the area.

Taking turns rowing the Hi-Po Fairlane’s T10 four-speed on weekends, Bob and Walt became regular fixtures at the numerous drag strips and converted airport runways that dotted the New England landscape.

To keep their 289 running ahead of the pack, the brothers established a relationship with Harr Ford for the latest goodies from Ford’s new Cobra racing program. One day in the spring of 1965, Harr high performance sales manager Bill Fisher invited the brothers to a beer-fueled dinner meeting to discuss the possibility of replacing the K-code Fair lane with Ford’s newest expression of 289 development, the Shelby Mustang G.T. 350.