Family jewel returns home: The White Pearl is back in the builder’s family

John North, of Rockville, Conn., had an eye for what made a good custom, but he didn’t have the garage or skills to make it happen, says his son, Mark. Much like Harley Earl, GM’s president of Design, John had the ability to envision a unique custom and see to it that it was beautifully executed by the right craftsmen. His customs were so well done that they captured the eyes of editors overseeing the top California-based rod and custom magazines of the day. Even though he was on the opposite side of the United States, John’s East Coast customs landed on the pages of West Coast magazines such as Hot Rod, Car Craft, Rodding & Restyling and several others.

“My dad did two cars: he did a ’36 Ford, and he did this [1957 Ford],” Mark says. “The ’36 Ford had a chop top and it had a LaSalle grille in the front. It was in Car Craft when it was a small magazine back in the day — there’s a couple of articles about it. It was a cool car, and he traded it in for this car.”

John was so excited about his future custom that he took pictures of it when it was a new 1957 model on the lot of his local Ford dealership in Rockville, Conn., and Mark still has the snapshots. Even unmodified, it was a car worthy of the film upon which its image was captured: a flashy Fairlane 500 two-door hardtop equipped with Ford’s hot E-code (dual-four-barrel) 312-cid V-8 mated to a three-speed manual transmission. Those few 1957 Fords originally built with the performance E-code drivetrain were usually destined for high times racing, but John’s Ford was slated to be lowered with all the day’s custom tricks, and some of his own.

In addition to the typical nosing, decking and tuck ‘n’ roll interior, John had wilder mods in mind. The rear bumper was clipped off and the Ford’s tail end received a rolled rear pan. The center of the front bumper was cut out, leaving the original ends as bumperettes. A handmade tube grille was installed, and sheet metal was partially extended along the rocker panels to obscure the front of the Lakes-style pipes. In place of the glovebox, a small RCA Victor television set was installed. Custom scallops were laid over a fresh paint job in 1956 Lincoln white to match the all-white tuck ‘n’ roll upholstery.

John was well-pleased with the finished custom that he named “The White Pearl,” and so were the West Coast magazine editors, who again dedicated ink and paper to featuring John’s latest trick. Locals were equally enamored, one of them even customizing for John a 1957 Ford scale model to match his full-size car.

Mark was just one year old when his father bought and customized the ’57 Ford, and five or six when he sold it, but he remembers it well.

“That car was our only car, so that was kind of a big deal at the time,” he says. “I do remember occasional rides in the car.”

As the North family grew, so did the need for a more pedestrian car, and Mark remembers his father selling “The White Pearl” to future Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Gene Pitney, who’s best known for the songs “Town Without Pity,” “(The Man Who Shot) Liberty Valance,” “Twenty Four Hours from Tulsa,” “I’m Gonna Be Strong” and “It Hurts to Be in Love,” as well as songs sung by Bobby Vee and Ricky Nelson.

The ’57 Ford may have been sold from the family, but it was not forgotten. Photographs, trophies, its license plates and even the model built of it by an admirer kept its memory alive in the North family.

While Pitney was known the world over, “The White Pearl” didn’t stray far from Connecticut for many years, even though it changed hands several times. John and Mark would even occasionally spot the custom, which was easy since very few changes were ever made to it. John was none too pleased with the changes that were made.

“My father actually saw the car up in Worcester at a car show,” Mark said. “He was not happy because some things had been changed, and he just didn’t like the way it was starting to look.

“People had put hubcaps on, which he never had hubcaps on it. And it had this crazy flame-throwing exhaust system. You hit a button and flames shot out the back. It was nothing major, but it was just, it just wasn’t the way it was. He was kind of done with it at that point.”

Although a few features had been added, the original custom white paint job, gold-painted scallops and custom tuck ‘n’ roll interior that John North commissioned remained intact and in excellent condition. Then the car disappeared from their radar.

Eventually,“The White Pearl” popped up in the Midwest as part of the famed Joe Bortz Car Collection. In the late 1990s, Bortz was assembling period-built custom cars, and “The White Pearl” made the perfect pairing with his Barris-customized Jim Seaton 1955 Chevy. Both customs were built when the cars were new, both wore custom white pearl paint jobs with scallops, both were nosed and decked with custom grilles and taillamps, and both featured white tuck ‘n’ roll interiors with TVs. Since the Seaton Chevy was built in California by the Barris Brothers, and “The White Pearl” was built in Connecticut for John North, Bortz billed them as “East versus West Customs.”

It was in Bortz’s Chicago-based collection that Mark finally saw his dad’s old custom again.

“Seven years ago, my friend and I went out to Chicago to the muscle car show, and I contacted Joe and said, ‘I’m gonna be out in the area. Would it be possible to see the car?’ And he said, ‘Yeah, absolutely.’

So we did. We saw the car, and it was first time I had seen it in since the late ’90s, probably.”

At that time, the thought of purchasing his father’s old custom at least crossed Mark’s mind, but he knew it would be out of his price range.

“Even if I sold everything I had, it just wasn’t meant to be at that point,” Mark said. “But I just asked, ‘If you end up selling, please let me know where it’s going,’ and left it at that.”

After Bortz bought “The White Pearl,” he reached out to John North to learn about its history. The men kept in contact with occasional phone calls and annual Christmas cards. After John passed away, Bortz and Mark were in contact.

“He (Bortz) reached out to me a few times, because he wanted more information on Gene Pitney, and when Gene Pitney bought the car,” Mark said. “I said I remember him (Gene Pitney) coming to the house and meeting with my father, kind of a handshake deal, to sell the car, and that was it.

“I hadn’t heard from [Bortz] in quite a while, and this is just the full circle weird part about how I ended up getting the car: late last year, a local car club, they do this model car show swap. So a friend of the family’s had built a model of this car for my dad, again, like 50 years ago, and I have had that model ever since. It’s a beautiful model, and I brought it with me to this show. All these people are freaking out about this model of the car. A couple days later, Joe calls me. He says, “You want to sell me the model?” And I really don’t.” 

Bortz thought the model should be with the car. Mark thought so, too, and started contemplating the prospect of reuniting the car with the model by purchasing “The White Pearl” himself.

“I said, ‘You have any interest in selling the car? And he said, ‘Well, I put it on eBay.’ And it just kind of muddled it over in my head for a few days. 

“So I say that model started the whole thing rolling,” Mark continued. “I hemmed it on for a few days, and didn’t tell my wife about it. Finally, she knew something was up. I told her the story, because she didn’t hear the first conversation about the model. So I told her Bortz was selling and she said, ‘OK, call him up.’”

By February 2026, Mark and Bortz had agreed on a price and the North custom was heading back east to where it was built by his dad nearly 70 years earlier. When the weather cleared up in March, John North’s 1957 Ford was finally parked in Mark North’s garage.

“Never in my wildest dreams would I imagine I would have the car back,” Mark said. It’s unreal, really. I mean, to just see the car here. I wouldn’t even care if it didn’t run anymore. It’s unbelievable, the condition that it’s in. The paint is so smooth. The pinstriping is faded in some places, which is fine. It’s all a part of it at this point. I mean, the car’s 69 years old. It’s my father’s car. It’s just a huge part of what it actually is now.”

Despite the years and the multitude of owners, “The White Pearl” remains remarkably original inside, outside and underneath. Mark says Ford enthusiasts have pored over the E-code engine and found it to be highly authentic. 

Mark made it an immediate goal to remove the changes that his father did not approve and make “The White Pearl” look just like it does in the family’s old photos.

“One of the first things I did was pop the hubcaps,” Mark said. “It’s just, ‘Nope, never had hubcaps.’ It had painted steel wheels and chrome lug nuts. That was it. Right or wrong, that’s the way my father had it.”

Mark has also removed the fender skirts and the flame-thrower exhaust and replaced the exhaust system. Along with the trophies that were stored in his parents garage were the original license plates to “The White Pearl,” and he’s already re-registered and installed them on the car. He also plans to add seatbelts, and may also have the pinstriping retouched. Now that the car is his instead of his father’s, Mark has added one little touch of his own. 

“I threw on some chrome (wheel) trim rings,” Mark said. “I think that made a big difference. And that’s just my little touch for it.”

Like his father, Mark has a network of people who are helping get the car back to how it was. One of the few changes from original under the hood was the valve covers, and Mark sought to put it back to its E-code status with aluminum Thunderbird valve covers.

“It’s supposed to have Thunderbird valve covers on it,” Mark said. “And I’ve seen pictures when my dad had it both ways. Right now on there are these chromed sheet metal valve covers. 

One of these guys that came and looked at the car said, ‘I’ve got a set.’ ... And he gave them (Thunderbird valve covers) to me for a super reasonable price.

“All these people, and I call them kids, are my daughter’s age — late 30s, early 40s — they are big into these cars. And all these people have stepped up.

I never asked people for help, and these people are just jumping in on it. ‘What can we do for you?’ ‘I know a guy.’

‘I got a guy.’ I appreciate it. It’s unbelievable, because I just want to keep it the way it is, or if things need to be done, I want to know that they’re done correctly.”

Of all those people supporting Mark, none has been more supportive than his wife. “She was on board with this thing all along, which I totally appreciate. She said, ‘If you want this, we can do it. She didn’t even flinch.”

The to-do list of projects to return “The White Pearl” to its 1957 appearance is shrinking, but there’s one big thing Mark has left: to tell his mother “The White Pearl” is back in the family.

“I had told her the story with the model, but it didn’t go past that,” Mark says. “I’m just gonna kind of show up and see what happens.”

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