Cohort Outtake: 1965 Ford Custom – No Hips for Ford Cheapskates

Here’s another variation of the CC Effect™: I do a post on a ’65 Biscayne four door sedan posted at the Cohort, and then the companion ’65 Ford Custom sedan appears, posted by Tim Finn, and just in the nick of time.

Wow; so what did the Ford execs think when they first saw the voluptuous ’65 Chevy and other big GM cars? And here they went all straight edge, after having had a rather rounded body for the previous few years. Of course it was their take on the ’63 Pontiac, except they ignored its budding hips, which was just a foreshadowing of what was to come when the hormones hit full tilt boogie for ’65.

 

But the Ford’s estrogen deficiency didn’t hurt it all that much, but didn’t exactly help either. Sales increased 6% over ’64, which under-performed a hot market that year. But then Chevy’s hips didn’t do any better, also yielding a 6% increase. The Mustang was red hot, and so were the mid-sized cars and imports. That’s where the real action was.

It would be interesting to know if this was a six; if so, it would the first year for Ford’s new 240 “Big Six”, which was noticeably peppier than its predecessor. For some reason, it seems like sixes were less common in big Fords than in big Chevys; the force of tradition, presumably.