Rearend selection

I am a newbie here and to Hot Rodding. I have always loved cars and now want a custom car of my own. I bought a 1959 Hillman Husky and plan on making a cool little Hot Rod with a 3.4 V6 and still afford to keep gas in it while riding around.
My question is this. What type rearend would be best to narrow and best suited for this combo? I will probably go with an 700R tranny and thinking about 3.55 gears.I always hear of the Ford 9 inch and wonder if an 8 inch might be better for me? I also thought perhaps I may run accross a rear-drive foreign car that shares a similar track width (49.5) that I wouldn't have to narrow such as an RX7 which is close to that. Any thoughts?  

it really depends on how much horsepressure you plan to apply to that rear.  back in the 80's i built a ford prefect, that was an ex-gasser, into a streetrod and the third member was a real problem for me too. the car came with a 57 olds rear with toranado wheels to put the tires at least partly under the fenders.  i wanted to run centerlines and did not want to go the tub route, so i used anderson industries 3 inch widened fenders and had the olds unit narrowed.  had to get some knowledgable help with the wheel width, offset, and tire size before figuring housing width. a friend who is a drag racer and machinist did the work for me and it worked out very well.  the only problem was rhe machinist recommended that horsepower be limited to the 300 range because of the way the axles were shortened.  this led me to a basically stock ford 2.8 v-6 with a 4-speed.  this combo served me well until i sold the car four years later.  so, i guess what i'm getting at is, most any 3rd member will work for your application as long as you match it to the amount of power you plan to make.  thanks for listening...and good luck...those "little" cars are tough!  

If you can find one of the old Postal Jeeps they are real narrow rears, I think they are Dana 44's with posi's. I think the ratios are pretty low but if you run an overdrive trans it would still probably work out good, remember the v-6 would probably enjoy running around 2700 - 2800 rpm range out on the highway.  
Hotrods have 3 pedals

THE 44 OUT OF THE OLD JEEP WOULD BE GOOD THERE ARE A LOT OF GEARS FOR THEM. I DONOT KNOW WHAT HOW WIDE THEY ARE BUT JEEPERS ARE SWAPING IN THE 8.8 OUT OF EXPLORER AND HAVE OT SPACE THEM OUT A INCH. THE MUSTANG CAME WITH THE 8.8. THE EXPLORER THERE ARE A LOT OF DEAD ONES AND 95 & LATER TILL YOU GET TO THE INDEPENDENT IS DISC BRAKES. THE JEEP HAVE BEEN ABLE TO HOOK UP TO STOCK BRAKES SYSTEM ON MODS.