RIDE-CT – Classic Cars Celebrating Classic Cars in Connecticut
LITCHFIELD, CT – It was a trip of a lifetime and memories still bring smiles to the faces of the three participants more than 40 years later. Their journey lasted six weeks, covered 8,400 miles and took them to Niagara Falls, Chicago, St. Louis, San Francisco and Pebble Beach, and eight national parks.
The trip was done in a modified 1966 Ford Fairlane Squire that had a pickup cap grafted to its top to make a camper. A hole was cut in the roof of the station wagon to enable access to the sleeping area from the passenger compartment.
Doyle Finan purchased the Fairlane used around 1980 and eventually transformed it into what got lovingly dubbed “Hotel Ford.” It provided lodging for himself and his son and daughter.
“Off we went in the summer of ’83,” he recalled recently. “I was the only driver ’cause the kids were 14 and 11; my daughter Kelly and my son Brian. Off we went. We had to put new tires on it in California and, other than that, we made it through.”
Finan was seated at a picnic table in the backyard of his Litchfield home when he recalled the adventure. Parked a few feet away was the Fairlane which had just been extracted from the detached one-car garage where it has rested for the past 15 years.
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Check out the 1966 Ford Fairlane Squire camper in this RIDE-CT video on YouTube…
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The idea for jerry-rigging the Fairlane had a practical origin. “I had a camper trailer and I did not want to tow a trailer through the Rocky Mountains, so I had this car on my hands and I just decided to build it,” Finan said.
“I was afraid the police would pull me over and say you can’t do that but never had that problem. But pleasantly, it was more than once, we’d pull into a rest stop on the highway and people would come rushing over to our car to get a look inside.”
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Son Brian agreed that the Ford became an attraction wherever they went. “Every time we’d pulled in, somebody wanted to come over and comment on how cool our vehicle was,” he said when the siblings joined their father a short time later.
Daughter Kelly Fuller wasn’t enthusiastic about the set-up at the start. “Part of me thought it was cool but I was also a little like embarrassed ’cause when you’re 14, you feel like everybody’s looking at you, but once I was out on the road I got into it and it was really fun,” she said.
The trip created “many memories,” said Finan. “We stopped at a rest stop in Idaho, I think it was, to have a picnic and down a path was the outhouse, so we went down there. My son came running back. What happened? He says there’s a rattler in the outhouse. That was memorable.
“We went to San Francisco to Fisherman’s Wharf. Had a wonderful time down there with it. They even let is camp in San Francisco. They had a fenced in camping ground, all asphalt. Most of our campsites were idyllic, outdoor, nature, Yellowstone, Yosemite and all those great places.”
The family fended for itself food-wise. “I think we had two meals out maybe the whole time. We camped and made all of our food,” said Kelly.
Finan reported that after the cross-country excursion the Fairlane was later used on trips to Nova Scotia, Maine, Lake Placid, NY and more, but got parked because of a catastrophe involving its 289-cubic-inch V8 engine.
“I was getting ready to take it on a ride around town about 15 years ago – I had it parked right out here – and the engine caught on fire. Everything under the hood got fried,” he said.
“My goal now is to give it to somebody as a gift who will want to put (a) new engine in it and get it back on the road. Inside, the cabin didn’t get damaged at all. Just under the hood.”
Yes, that’s his plan – to give away the Fairlane – but there’s a catch. “I want to get it out of the yard but I want someone to restore it and have the fun that we had with our family,” he said.
His kids agree with the intent. “I would love to see used by another family rather than sitting in the garage, so I think that would be amazing,” said Kelly.
Finan may be contacted by email at doyle.finan@gmail.com.
(Photos by Bud Wilkinson.)
