Not sure what drive train you’re planning on (how much HP you are looking at), but off the top of my head the narrowest factory rear ends are around 58” axle flange to axle flange.

In the 9” Ford your choices are:

First Generation Bronco

1957-59 Ford /Edsel Station wagons

77-81 Granada /Versailles/Monarch

The problem with all three is that relatively speaking there were not all that many made. At least around here you don’t see that many Broncos being parted, the 57-9 wagons are few and far between and hard to find replacement brake drums for, and not all (in fact very few) GVM had the 9” rears. On the plus side (for some anyway) is if you do come across the GVM 9” they came with disc brakes.

If you’re not pushing a lot of horsepower with sticky tires and can live with an 8” rear end, the Mavericks and Ranger pickup trucks also came with a 58” axle flange to axle flange rear end.

Other options:

If you’re not really locked into a Ford rear end and don’t mind a GM rear end with a 5 on 4 ¾ bolt pattern, the early 70’s Nova also had a 58”AF to AF leaf spring rear end (usually 10 bolt but I understand there were also 12 bolt versions). The 78-86 G Body were 58” 10 bolt rear ends (the majority were the weaker 7.5 ring gear versions but some also had the HD 8.5 ring gear 10 bolt). The G body rear ends were installed as a triangulated 4 link suspension, and if you are planning on that type of suspension it may not be a bad option as the brackets are already in place on the axle.

A lot of guys seem to be going with the 5 lug version of the Ford 8.8 rear end and apparently the mustang versions were around 58”. Plus on these is availability and factory disc brakes.

As far as Mopar rear ends, as far as I know the narrowest you are going to find are going to be the late 60’s B Body units. They are usually just a touch over 60” AF to AF. That’s only an inch per side wider than the 58 rear end (which can usually be made up with offset wheels) and they seem to be readily available in the 8 ¾ version.

If you want the ultimate bragging rights MOPAR rear end and can live with the 60” width you can always dig up a B Body Dana 60. Currie started converting truck (full floating ) Dana 60s to passenger car specs (eliminating the full floating axles and using 5 4 ½ axles) a few years ago. This ended up driving the price of original units way down. You can now usually find them complete drum to drum with gears and a Posi in the $900-1200 range.


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