Junkyard Gem: 1954 Ford Crestline Victoria Coupe

While Lincolns began getting modern overhead-valve V8 engines for the 1952 model year, their Ford-badged brethren had to make do with the antiquated flathead V8 through 1953. Finally, the Ford Y-Block V8 appeared in the 1954 Fords, and today’s Junkyard Gem is one of the first cars to receive that engine. This car currently resides in a self-service yard in Denver, Colorado.

Fords went to one-piece curved windshields and this body style for the 1952 model year, and these cars were available as two- and four-door sedans, wagons, coupes, convertibles, sedan deliveries and utes (that last type only in Australia, sadly).

The U.S.-market trim levels included (from least to most prestigious) the Mainline, Customline and Crestline.

The only way to get a 1954 Ford as a hardtop coupe was to buy a Crestline, either a glass-roof Skyliner or a steel-roof Victoria. Ford had been using the Victoria name since way back in 1932, but didn’t get around to selling Crown Victorias until 1956.

The 1954 Crestline Victoria with V8 engine had an MSRP of $2,131, or about $24,889 in 2024 dollars.

Oldsmobile and Cadillac had been bolting OHV V8 engines into their cars since the 1949 model year, but Ford beat the low-priced competition by a year with the Y-Block. Chevrolet introduced its soon-to-be-legendary small-block V8 for 1955, with Plymouth getting the “semi-Hemi” pushrod V8 the same year.

If this is the original engine, it’s a 239-cubic-inch (3.9-liter) version rated at 130 horsepower, beating its 239-cube flathead predecessor by 20 horses. It’s a little jarring to see a Ford pushrod V8 engine with the distributor in the rear.

The Y-Block proved to be something of an evolutionary dead end, but it was reliable on the street and stayed in production in the United States through 1965 (though only for trucks after 1960).

This car has the base three-speed column-shift manual transmission. A three-speed Ford-O-Matic automatic transmission was available for an extra $184 ($2,149 after inflation).

One of the most interesting features of the 1954 Ford was the “Astra-Dial” speedometer face. This put the speedometer above the level of the dashboard and allowed sunlight to illuminate the dial during the day.