Ted Griffin's 1955 Series II Woodill Wildfire

Building the Wildfire - 1955 to 1956

Ted Griffin's 1955 Series II Woodill Wildfire is one of only a few known original owner/builder Wildfires. After reading about the Wildfire in a car magazine, Ted, along with friends Don Darkow and Rich Heilman, drove an old Dodge from Ohio to California down old Route 66 to visit the Woodill shop, talk to Woody and check out the Wildfire design. After three years of saving, Ted started the project in motion during the summer of 1955.

Ted's Wildfire began life as G.I. Cab #11 in Akron, Ohio. The victim of a fatal blow to the driver's side, the one year old Ford Mainline 4-door made a perfect donor car for the Wildfire. On May 5, 1955, a deposit of $10.00 was put down on the cab and the remaining $440.00 paid upon receiving the wrecked taxi. Once the donor had been stripped of the drivetrain, front suspension and other necessary pieces, Ted sold the remaining parts for $600, making a profit of $150.00 on the donor!

The first step was to cut the front suspension assembly from the Ford frame and send it to Woodill for engineering modification and attachment to the "Shorty" Post frame. Woodill received the frame on June 5, 1955 and proceeded with the frame mods. This involved removing sections of the sub-frame to both narrow the track and shorten the front overhang. The frame and suspension work proved to be a lot more time-consuming than Woodill expected. The frame assembly was completed on July 22, 1955 and shipped back on July 27 making Ted's Wildfire the first with a ball-joint, independent front suspension.

Once the frame was back, Ted and friends Don Darkow, Richard Au and Ben Au got to work assembling the drivetrain. The taxi was equipped with a Ford 272 cu. in. "Y" engine with a two-barrel carburetor mated to a three-speed transmission. Per Woodill's instructions, the engine was mounted similar to the Ford Thunderbird. The rear-end from the Mainline was installed on the custom springs mounted at the Downey shop and the driveshaft was modified to fit between the two components. Other components including the radiator, gas tank, steering components and electrical harness were installed and the drivetrain/frame assembly was ready for the body to arrive.

The body delivery proved to be a major headache for both Ted and Woody. The first Wildfire body was sent on August 12, 1955. Unfortunately, it was sent during the tail-end of a trucking strike and never arrived. After a few letters back and forth, Woodill sent another body on September 27, 1955. Once received, the body was mounted to the chassis and the remaining components installed. Ted kept a running tally of the different donor vehicle makes on the dashboard of the yet unpainted car. The main construction was completed and the car was titled and registered as a 1954 Ford 4-door sedan in November of 1955. Being Ted's only means of transportation, it made for some very chilly drives for the 20 year-old college student during the northern Ohio winter of 1955. The car still didn't have a top or a heater by this time.

Ted spent most of the next year finishing the Wildfire. During this time, he saved some more money and acquired a Ford 312 cu. in. "Y" engine from a Ford Thunderbird. Replacing the older 272 inch engine, Ted tripled the number of carburetors, mounting them to an Edelbrock medium rise manifold. This gave the 1900 pound car a frame-twisting 300 horsepower. Under the hood, the engine was an impressive sight with its six-pack, fuel plumbing and signature Thunderbird aluminum valve covers. The Wildfire was painted GM Sierra Gold Metallic in June of 1956. In addition to the paint job and new engine, the final details such as wheel paint, new headlights and an alignment completed Ted's 1955 Woodill Wildfire.

Ted drove his Wildfire well into the 1970's but with the responsibilities of his work as an engineer at Goodyear Tire and ever growing family, he was forced to put the Wildfire in storage in the mid 70's. The Wildfire was covered up and stored in a dairy barn for the next few years. In 1980, Ted packed up the family and the Wildfire and moved to Houston, Texas. In the mid to late 80's, Ted set the Wildfire out in the driveway and put a "For Sale" sign on the front windshield. It was a half hearted attempt (the sign "For Sale" sign always faced the house...) to sell a car that had sat for over a decade untouched. He had received a few interested inquiries, but fortunately, none ever materialized. Then, in the late 1980's, Ted decided to rebuild the Wildfire.

Ted was able to spend a limited amount of time tinkering with the car, but his family was always put first and the pace of the rebuild was very slow. The Wildfire sat in Ted's garage, in a perpetual state of disrepair, until his four children were grown and out of the house. Upon his retirement in 2005, Ted set off to finish the reconstruction project and the pace of the project picked up considerably...

...to be continued...

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