My son and I were sitting at a car show in Doylestown PA 2 years ago. I drove my red/silver GT-E to the event and my son had his 1967 Mustang. A local guy comes up to me and asks if I knew that I had Jeff and William Foulk’s Cougar. I responded with who are they? He informed me that they raced an early Mercury Cougar funny car caller “the Finagler” and at one point they were known for having the worlds fastest small block. William owned the car and Jeff drove it.
This peeked my interest so I went home and did a little research and read up on the Foulk’s and the history of the Funny Car. I found Jeff Foulk on Facebook and I sent him a note. He replied that he doesn’t remember any GTE. A year goes by and my wife Anna and I are sitting behind the GT-E at the Ford Nationals at Carlisle and the same guy comes up to me and once again mentions that he is 100% confident that a red/silver GT-E was parked at Foulk’s shop in Doylestown PA so he thought that maybe is was one of the employees.
Again, I went back to Facebook and sent another note to Jeff. He responded that they did have a 427 Cougar but he never payed attention to the badges on anything. He and I continues to correspond and when I told him that the care came from Alexander Motors in Trenton NJ, he mentioned that Alexander Motors was a sponsor of his and during the off season, they would park the funny car inside the showroom to help bring in traffic. He mentioned that he remembers the sales manager at Alexander Motors working a deal with his father for the GT-E and wanted him to take it to the drag races with them to help promote the Mercury Cougar line.
Jeff connected me with his brother Bill who still lives locally because he mentioned Bill payed more attention to the 427 Cougar than he did. Bill and I played phone tag for a bit but we finally connected. When we spoke I asked him if there was anything special that he remembered about the car that would tie it to his dad and brother. It was very cool when he asked me if Dan Gurney meant anything to me? I asked him why and he explained that he remembered his dad putting a Dan Gurney Special decal on the car as well as a bigger carburetor and a Detroit Locker. Well all 3 of those details are still with my GT-E so I was confident that I found the original owners of my car.
Bill and I later met at the Lehigh Valley Shelby Club Regional Meet where he and I spoke and he inspected the car. According to Bill the Finagler is restored and is on Canada. Bill actually pulled the original racing engine out of the family barn where it has been stored for many years when he was informed that the current owner planned on restoring the Finagler.
I remember as a young child going to the Vargo Dragway in Quakertown PA with my family. Quakertown is about 20 minutes away from the Foulk’s hometown and shop of Doylestown. I remember thinking that the Funny Cars were the coolest things in the world. I could have been 5 years old at the time and I wonder if I saw the Finagler there?
