Everything was working great but as you can imagine a 2 speed / V8 = very bad fuel economy...
My '59 Bel Air, 283 V8, 2sp Powerglide, gets 20mpg- unacceptable to me for a daily driver, but then I barely run a whole tank of gas through it some years.
Love the swap idea though!
I've long observed that most of the time this sort of hobby car just has low-speed cruising duty, either at shows, parades, or out on the Sunday drive, so why does everyone stick a hot rodded V8 in? Actually at Back To The 50's (a huuuge show) I've long thought I'd like to have a drop-down electric 5th wheel, as "cruising the loop" is a stop-n-go process that happens at less than walking speed, for quite a long time period. Wouldn't even need much of a battery pack.
My other devious plan is to put the entire unit-body chassis pan from a 3800 fwd Park Avenue under the body of my "parts" '59, for use as more of a daily driver. I figure the donor P. Ave was good for around 30 mpg hwy so the '59 shouldn't come in too far under that...
Another swap that's been rattling around in my gourd is to put the diesel Escort w/5sp fwd unit into a '69 Chev pickup I have sitting here...