I did that many years ago, '54 coupe with a 259, T86 and overdrive. 
I used a Dragfast shifter, or maybe a Western Auto no-name clone.
 Not a real bad shifter, anyway. I had to fabricate home-made
 brackets out of angle iron, and mounted the shifter high,
necessitating quite a bit of floor cutting. It CAN be done.

I also have a '64 Daytona hardtop here with a T85-OD, and it has
 a Hurst shifter in it.  Not sure how it mounts up, but it works.

If I were doing this from scratch, nowadays, I'd comb the 
U-pick wrecking yards for the floor shifter out of a Monza, Skyhawk,
or maybe Camaro/Firebird; the kind where the shifter actually mounts 
in a well bolted to the floor. It's a 4-speed shifter, but it ought
to be easy enough to disable/remove the un-needed reverse components, 
and set up the 1-2, 3-4 to work R-1, 2-3 instead. Mount that in the
floor hump, and fabricate offset linkage rods as needed.
 Having the shifter in the floor reduces rattle a great deal.

Gord Richmond