Ah, the Falcon. Has Detroit produced anything blander in the blessed decade of the ‘60s? Maybe AMC, but they were the underdog. Ford, on the other hand, should have been able to devise a compact with a little spice like the Corvair, or a little character like the Valiant. But no, they did this.
The only redeeming feature, externally, are the afterburner taillights – those are a ‘50s/’60s Ford staple and objectively awesome. But man, is the rest of that poor car dumpy and boring.
At least, it is in this four-door guise. The two-door is a bit better, the convertible is better still and I guess the wagons look decent as well. Not to mention the myriad derivatives that the Falcon begat: the Ranchero, the Comet, the Econoline, the Mustang, as well as the foreign Falcons, especially the long-lived Argentinian and Ozzie cousins. For an unexciting econobox, this Ford sure had a lot of alter egos.
It rather puts me in mind of certain very good actors who actually “disappear” in their roles. The Falcon is like Peter Sellers, who claimed he had his personality “surgically removed” and could therefore take on the role of a dim trade unionist, a creepy Nazi scientist, a bumbling French policeman, a faux James Bond, an incompetent Indian actor or an idiot-savant gardener seemingly with equal ease.
The thing about Sellers is that, in real life, he was apparently impossible to deal with. He was mercurial, narcissistic, mean and self-destructive – but the comedic talent he displayed was outstanding. His triple role in Dr Strangelove (perhaps my favourite of his films) as the American President, a British officer and the eponymous German mad scientist has to be seen to be believed. Yet the man himself was a mess.
The Falcon was not a mess, but it was a blank slate, a tidy placeholder of a car. I may be mixing my metaphors a bit, but Ford managed to use, re-use and this bland bird’s meat, skin and bones in the next couple of decades with tremendous skill.
So compliments to the chef. Turning this dull dodo into a multi-faceted Falcon à la king was the ultimate conjuring trick. Or, as Peter Sellers would have said back in 1968, “Birdie num-num.”
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Curbside Classic: 1962½ Ford Falcon Sports Futura – Ford Sees The Future; At Chevrolet, by PN
Curtis Perry Outtake: 1962 Falcon – Gothmobile, by PN
Curbside Capsule: 1962 Ford Falcon + Teardrop Camper – Drivin’ The Dream, by Ed Stembridge
1962 Ford Falcon Sports Futura Hipster Found Hiding In Alley 15 Years After Its CC Debut, by PN
COAL #4: The ’62 Falcon – The First Ford in Our Future, by Stephen Hansen
You’re not the first to think of a cooking metaphor, for years I’ve been saying the Falcon was the bechamel sauce Chef Lido Iacocca used in most of the dishes he cooked in the first half of his career, and the K-Car took on that role for the rest.
Sometimes plain cooking just hits the spot, and there’s no denying that the Falcon did exactly that in 1960, a welcome change after the increasingly overegged, overdone concoctions that came from the Big 3 kitchens in the late 50s.
As the *UGLY AMERICAN * (not the AMC car) whose preference for the GREAT AMERICAN LAND YACHT is well documented, IMO the FALCON was far more desirable than ANY import. Growing up in a family where Dad spent over 45 years at Inland Steel, anything not manufactured in the USA was considered a POS. And to this day that still is my opinion, with the exception of ROLLS-ROYCE, which is beyond my reach. To the point, the early Nash Rambler was a cute smaller version of the Magnificent Ambassador. The Studebaker Lark ( we had one as a second car) had a somewhat Stately presence. Valiant was a valiant effort with a preview of the disastrous 62 Dodge and Plymouth. Corvair? IMO, Another POS. A friend of my parents traded his 56 DeSoto for a 60 Corvair and drove nothing else but Corvairs until his passing. I never understood THAT, but do think other than black walls and bare wheels, FALCON (as shown here) was successful because of its traditional Ford design and interior. Giving buyers a taste of the big Fords at a somewhat smaller size and price. FALCON survived all the other compacts. Same applies to Comet, Meteor, Fairlane and later, Granada and Monarch. Americans still wanted a Luxury feel, styling and a bit of Panache. So now that I’ve labeled most of the compacts as REVOLTING, I’m on to VERSAILLES in my Town Car.
My brother had a white 60 2dr post, 144, 3 on the tree. painted it royal blue, tinted the windows blue. That was spray on tint back then, big messy fun. He put spacers in the front coils, shackles in the rear.. Baby moons, it was so slow but looked so cool. We used to cruise to the dairy queen in that.. The good ole days. After that he had the real deal, a 62 Dodge polara 500 hardtop, 361 with a torqueflite… Good times
Actually I quite like this Falcon, they are packed full of interesting details in a reasonably small package. The side sculpting, the way the bumper goes around the taillights, the electric shaver grille. All great stuff.
Then again I like AMC cars too, so there is no accounting for taste.
Don’t forget the faux hood scoop.
Lee Iacocca once said that Robert MacNamara wore granny glasses, and in the Falcon he’d built a granny car.
In my family the Grannies have the experience to make the best decisions and the best food.
One of the lousiest cars that I have ever driven. It was a gutless wonder with a poor seat. Uncomfortable.
Forgive me. As an ’80’s teenager, I probably would have considered this the ultimate sh*tbox, if I was driving this at the time. Likely would have driven it hard, especially in Winter. I would have maintained it of course, but it comes across as such traditional, basic disposable transportation. A lot of teenagers a generation or three later, would not have shown it much respect. Wide rear tires, a shackle lift kit for the leaf springs, Thrush muffler, etc. I would have been at Canadian Tire every Saturday, pampering and accessorizing it, with cheap Motomaster NuGold oil, and a Pulser tape deck. Playing artists like April Wine.
When new I thought the first Falcons drab and cheap looking .
I think the full size base model 1962 Ford sedan is even plainer than this , in spite of that (possibly because) I love them .
Time has taught us the Falcon was in fact not just the right car for it’s time but a very good low price automobile to boot .
-Nate
Today I found out I have bland taste!
The Econoline was not a derivative of the Falcon, the only thing they shared were the engine, transmission and possibly some of the badges on the passenger version. My bet is they used the Falcon Station Bus moniker because of GM actually deriving a van from their compact car and to share the goodwill the Falcon name quickly acquired as the best selling compact from the “low priced three”.
I’m guessing the brakes were the same? Rear axle? Steering wheel?
because of GM actually deriving a van from their compact car
The Corvair van/pickup was no more derived from the Corvair than the Econoline was from the Falcon. It too shared about the same number of components. The Corvair van/pu used a front suspension borrowed mostly from the full size cars. So the amount shared was almost exactly the same.
Bland was popular in 1960, and I believe Falcon outsold the other compacts until the equally bland Chevy II came along.
I don’t think the Falcon as a design is all that bland, it’s certainly less attractive than the Corvair or Mustang that replaced it, sure, but I’d also say it looks better than the early Chevy II and the Engalized 63 Valiants, even though the Falcon by the time those came out was on a more aged body.
The original 1960 was the blandest in terms of adornment but it actually shares a lot of styling details with the 1960 full size Fords, basically looking like a junior companion model to them, so I imagine as the styling of the big Fords drastically changed in 61-62-63 the Falcon looked stale.
Ford, on the other hand, should have been able to devise a compact with a little spice like the Corvair, or a little character like the Valiant.
And forgo outselling them both combined? The Falcon is exactly what folks were looking for in a compact in 1960. And at the time, it looked the height of modernity and chic, given all the rolling finned monstrosities of the late ’50s.
Falcons looked fine; it was the driving experience that was bland.
Those of you who have driven these Falcons really aren’t selling me the driving experience. On the other side of the coin though a Falcon like this would give me what I like about American cars in a practical sized package for where I live. It’s as well the back of the car looks good, with the overtaking opportunities as they are in this neck of the woods other motorists will be looking at it for a while.
The warranty repair experience came thru 5×5 though, somebody got their sums wrong in the design department, they looked ok especially the rear lights.
As I understand it and I’m ready to be corrected it took the Aussies to sort the Falcon out. The American designed ones broke into pieces when they came across dirt roads. Again I’m getting this second hand but there was consideration of Australian Ford taking the dies for the Mk2 English Ford which would have been a bit of a dead end. What surprises me though is that the Mk3 Zephyr/ Zodiac weren’t chosen, having driven a Zephyr 6 compared to what I’ve read here it sounds like it had more go than the Falcon and a four speed box to boot.
You might be conflating two stories there, Ed. It was Holden’s early Commodore prototypes that actually broke. The Falcons wore out their front ends really quickly, but I never heard of bodies actually breaking. Twisting perhaps. Dad bought an ex-govenrment-fleet ’62 in ’63 and had to have the front end rebuilt about ’65.
The front end was upgraded with the stronger Fairlane pieces when they became available, and the body later gained torque boxes underneath to give added strength. Ford made a big thing about that in their advertising.
It’s certainly right they had been considering the Zephyr. I think cost was the issue.
Thanks for clearing that up Peter, second hand information and the vagueries of memory don’t combine well all the time.
Weirdly enough, talking to various females of my age, an early 1960’s Falcon is their “dream car”. It actually looks good, and doesn’t have the “muscle-car” overtones of a Mustang. It appeals to the same demographic as a Beetle (esp. a Beetle convertible), or later a Rabbit/Golf convertible, or perhaps a Celica or Honda Prelude.
I think the Falcon was a fine looking vehicle and this article seems to be as much about Peter Sellers. My father had a light blue falcon Ranchero pickup truck. One thing I can tell you from experience is that if you are around 8 years old, not buckled in, you father has to brake fast and your Adams apple bangs into the top of the metal dash, you cannot speak for a few moments.
My parents finally traded our well used ’59 Rambler American for a low mileage ’62 Falcon station wagon. The Falcon was already 8 years old when it became ours, but it had been very well kept. At least to my eyes, it was far more stylish than the Rambler. I thanked to god of parental auto choices that my dad didn’t bring home a ’62 Rambler American. The Falcon even had an AM radio which our Rambler lacked.
As my teenage road testing quickly discovered, the Falcon upgrade was strictly in appearance and tunes. I’d describe the Falcon’s acceleration as being a mite leisurely. Popping the clutch on the Rambler could at least elicit a squeak from the back tires. Even a neutral drop on the Falcon’s 2 speed Fordomatic yielded nothing. That car had a hard time breaking traction on gravel.
It fit my Mom’s driving style quite well though it certainly dashed my dreams of a car with a real engine.
A high school friend had one of these in turquoise.
We had to run an errand for a class, so he offered to drive.
He loved that car but told me it was horribly slow.
We were on a gravel parking lot where he floored the accelerator and the tires would not break loose!
To me, that was dangerously slow if you were pulling out in front of traffic.
Non the less, the family drove that car into the 2000’s.
Sadly, his dad was driving it and pulled over to the shoulder to fix a flat. A car, speeding, plowed into the car killing the father.
Hope they have some wheel covers, hub caps, someplace. Whoever did the work is to be complimented. The car looks good.
I actually like the sober but curvy lines of the Falcon (and I am a GM guy), including “flowerpot” taillights (I like the “afterburner” reference better). The original Corvair certainly had the respect of the rest of the world in terms of design. But of the trio of Big Three “thriftys” my favorite was the original Valiant. I don’t know what it is, but the Exner styling made the small car look like a fortune. It’s still one of my favorite car designs. Unlike the Corvair which had the ’65 facelift, the year when the design gods smiled down on Bill Mitchell almost to every model IMO, the Falcon and the Valiant became progressively more anodyne as the decade progressed. The “Birdie Num Num” reference drew me in because I loved that film when it became a popular broadcast on Turner Classic Movies. Obviously a great concept, a greater actor, and the icing on the cake, all the classic iron briefly seen in the early and end scenes bookmarking the activity of the eponomus title. Classic Lincolns, a Riviera, Bentleys, Thunderbirds, and the quirky Morgan. Peter Sellers’ acting brilliance is an offshoot of his serious mental health issues, but I’m not sure the comparison to the Falcon really is a good match. The Falcon is a character actor who has been typecast in films and movies. I think of a familiar actor named “Charles Lane”, who actually is in a great interview on Letterman from ’82. The look is familiar and only slightly different costume differing in roles over the years, but it was that look supporting his lucrative career in Hollywood (as officious, fussy, suspicious, and cantankerous on everything from “It’s a Wonderful Life” to “I Love Lucy” and “Bewitched”.) Like the Falcon, he was dependable and reliable for his intended purpose. And though not well known to many modern car enthusiasts and film / TV fans respectively, each would get the respect in their respective realms for fulfilling their duties with exceptional excellence.
Let me set the wayback machine to 1975 or 76. I was a junior in high school and had just gotten my drivers license (Illinois). A high school ‘jock’ must have had a parent that owned or worked in a body shop. Since I was a nerd and not a member of the in crowd, I did not have access to this person. But he had a Falcon Wagon – it was restored and finished in a light brown color with gold down the middle section. I was told it had a small block Chevy in it, most likely coupled to a rock crusher 4 speed. Every time I see a Falcon I recall that machine. Admittedly strange, even for the time, but it sure was a great looking car.
I can contrast that to another Falcon – year unknown. After high school I worked at a retail store (worlds largest store) and a co worker had an old sh*tbox red falcon, looking a lot worse for the wear than the subject vehicle. Basically he drove it with the accelerator to the floor, the absolutely slowest and unsafest vehicle I’ve ever been in.
Thanks for the movie reference- “The Party” and “Being There” are 2 of my favorite movies. Sad to learn that the actor in person was less than agreeable, but then again, I myself have been often been described to have a similar characteristic.
Panoramic glass front and rear, thin pillars, sculpted sides, Volvo-style door hips, afterburners, everything a curve, I think they’re still a pleasantly breezy-looking thing, and certainly better than the heavy, gormless and over-wide 1960 full-size Ford.
I always assumed till finding this site that the distaste for this Falc was for its drivability – because that sure could be a rather sad affair if saddled with a 144 and the two-speed Powerdied automatic – and not for the looks. Admittedly, it wouldn’t be driven by a big Howdy Pardener type, but that’s no great failing to me.
In a digression, if you’ve not seen The Life and Death of Peter Sellers, with the incomparably good Geoffrey Rush playing the many Peter Sellers who existed through time, do so. The man who’s won an Oscar for Best Actor, and a Tony for the same category, deservedly got his Best Actor Emmy for it.
Same here. Put alongside the FB, EK or EJ Holdens, these were a good looking car. The Valiant, with almost twice the engine size and power compared to the Holden was in a different league.
The 144/auto combo was dire. Neighbours has one, in which I sometimes got a lift to school. I’d have preferred to walk in the rain.
Walking may also have got you there sooner.
The craptastic Falcon was most, but not all, of what was wrong with Ford. The Falcon and it’s derivatives was a millstone around Ford’s neck; while also being wildly profitable in some forms due to heavy cost-cutting. A beautiful curse that kept-on giving–and taking–long after it should have been discarded.
The front suspension of the Falcon made the engine compartment cramped for V8s. As a result, engine serviceability was poor and the cylinder-head exhaust ports turn too far down, so they wouldn’t flow decently. Bending the engines to suit the springs-on-the-upper-control-arms hurt the Ford offerings that didn’t have that suspension system, too. Of course the T-bird had a similarly-cramped engine compartment.
Torsion bars on the lower control arms instead of taking the spring stresses on the sheetmetal inner-fenders would have made such a huge improvement not only on the Falcon and derivatives by widening the engine compartment and permitting decent exhaust flow, but it had the potential to have improved power for all of Ford’s V8s.
Rear suspension was no treat, either; and sabotaging the low-power cars with four-lug wheels and tiny brakes just made things worse.
I understand what you’re saying, and would add awful, slow steering to those awful brakes, but they did widen that chassis by about 3 inches from ’66-on, though. And Ford Oz ultimately got enough exhaust flow out of a hot 351 Cleveland in their sportiest model by ’70 to get 14 second quarters and a genuine 140 mph from a dull old four-door Falc, so it could be forced to do good things!
As slow as the early Falcons might have been I wouldn’t blame it all on the engine. Ford’s 2 speed auto, the Fordomatic was a great at emasculating an engine, for whatever reason much more so than the Chevy Powerglide.