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I think if I owned this car, I'd do it a little differently than my usual balls to the wall approach. In my opinion, the best Ford V8 ever built was the small block which started life in about 1962 as a 221, was enlarged to a 260, then a 289 and finally ended production as a 302. I've owned a few of these in various cars and trucks and it is just a little sweetheart. Easy and fairly cheap to build, good gas mileage and ample horsepower if you don't plan to do much racing with the car. One of the best I owned was a '63 Mercury Meteor with the 260.

If I were going to bring the '53 back to life, I'd do it by using a late model 5.0 (302) with fuel injection. I'd buy the whole, running car and use everything out of it that I could, basically ending up with a late model chassis and running gear with '53 sheet metal grafted to it. One possible candidate would be a '86 to '92 Lincoln. I see them on ebay all the time for less than $1,500. You could end up with a good motor and trans as well as everything else needed to make the car a runner for less than it would cost to do a budget rebuild on the motor alone. The Lincoln might be a little wide on the track, but you get the idea I'm sure. There must be several other Ford models out there that would work, like the Mustang maybe??

It would also provide the late model brakes, steering and more than adequate 8.8" rearend. You could also use most of the interior if you got creative including seats and dash. It would provide you with a car that is an absolute pleasure to drive and you'd still have the eyeball of the '53 sheetmetal.

Just something for you to think about......