The trio of Falcon, Comet and Fairlane have always intrigued me, because of their somewhat confusing similarities and differences. This shot of these two by canadiancatgreen begs the question: just what are they? This inquiring mind wants to know.
Here’s the key dimensions that put these in proper perspective. It’s not news that the 1960-1965 Comet was based on the Falcon inner body/chassis, but had a pretty significant wheelbase stretch, to the rear.
Those extra four and a half inches back there only contributed to a 0.8″ increase in rear seat leg room, so it was of course mostly for show. But all the other key interior dimensions, they were identical.
The Fairlane was heavily Falcon-based, but it really did have a new slightly wider body along with a 2″ wider front track and a longer wheelbase (115.5″). The interior dimensions show that mainly in increased width, roughly between one to two inches. Not exactly significant, but still better than a Falcon or Comet for those families of six taking cross-country vacation trips, like the Niedermeyers.
Note that I left out the ’62-’63 Meteor. Why? because automobilecatalog.com doesn’t have detailed specs for it yet. But there’s no doubt in my mind that they are essentially identical to the Fairlane, as they did share the same body. But the Meteor had a one inch longer wheelbase, at 116.5″. And was that in the front or back? That’s another one of those obscure mysteries, but I’m 99% it was in the rear. Unibody cars are not at all easily changed in the critical front area, where the cowl and inner fender structure make up the crucial support for the front suspension. But the leaf spring real axle could easily be moved back, unless they did the same thing Dodge and Plymouth did, meaning it wasn’t really any different, except for the rounding factor.
Related reading:
The Falcon Platform: 18 Different wheelbase/width combinations PN
These pictures bring out one of Ford’s odd habits. In the early ’60s the smaller versions looked more like the established brand identity than the big cars. The ’60 big Ford had flat oval taillights, while the Falcon and Fairlane had real Ford taillights. The ’60 Comet and the Meteor had slanted Mercury taillights, while the ’60 big Mercury had vertical Rambler taillights.
It doesn’t seem too tough to figure out Ford’s strategy with the Fairlane and Comet. The Fairlane was a Pontiac Tempest fighter, and the Comet was aligned with the Olds F-85. Not too sure if the Comet was luxurious enough to go up against the Buick Skylark.
What’s odd is when GM moved the senior compacts up to the true intermediate class (adding the Chevelle) by 1964, it took Ford until 1966 to do the same with the Fairlane/Comet. I mean, that was how long Chrysler took with the B-body. You could even say they’d got it done in 1965 when the new C-body Fury was introduced and the former full-size Fury then became the ‘big’ intermediate Satellite. You’d have thought Ford, with their greater resources, would have gotten the Fairlane and Comet up in size to the GM intermediate class by at least 1965.
In effect, 1965 was truly a weird year for the Big 3. You had ‘small’ intermediates (Fairlane/Comet), ‘regular’ sized intermediates (the GM cars), and ‘big’ intermediates from Chrysler.
But then there’s Rambler, who arguably started the whole intermediate ball rolling, and were still very much alive in ’65. And Studebaker (just). Now we’ve really got a weird mix!
I have to wonder, had the market really ‘settled down’ to an intermediate size as we think of it by 1965, or was it still in a state of flux?
What I can’t figure out is why Mercury persisted with the ‘long Falcon’ Comet, when the Meteor was so much roomier.
Because the public bought the Comet and didn’t buy the Meteor. Full stop.
For 1966, the company put the “Comet” name on a Fairlane based car. Wjhy they didn’t do that for 1964 is a good question. Occam’s Razor suggests that Mercury brand managers didn’t want to risk wrecking sales of their volume leader because of a bizarre public attachment to a particular name on a particular size car.
For 1966, Mercury was forced to fit its plans to match Ford’s new rationalized Falcon and Fairlane product lines.
I remember a story of Collectible Automobile then Mercury did have plans for a Meteor for 1964 but seeing how sales goes, decided to gamble with Comet.
Meanwhile, the Meteor name continued to soldier more longer in Canada.
http://www.oldcarbrochures.org/Canada/Ford-Canada/Meteor/1965-Meteor-Brochure/index.html
When I see the front end of the 1966 Canadian Meteor. http://www.oldcarbrochures.org/Canada/Ford-Canada/Meteor/1966%20Meteor%20Full%20Line%20-%20Canada/slides/1966%20Meteor%20Full%20Line%20%28Cdn%29-01.html I wonder if the guys at Plymouth got the inspiration for the 1971 Fury?
There’s a terrific CC on the 1967 Fairlane 2-door sedan (here’s the link to the CC on the similar Mercury Comet version: https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/curbside-classic-1967-mercury-comet-202-two-door-sedan-cheap-thrills/ ).
It’s interesting because it’s hard to tell if it’s a Falcon with front and rear clips from the Fairlane/Comet, or Ford created the latest gen 1967 Falcon with nothing more than a Fairlane/Comet center with Falcon front and rear clips, sort like Ford’s version of the Studebaker Lark. Probably the latter since it was a quick and cheap way to keep a compact in production until the early VW Beetle-killer Maverick arrived on the scene.
There’s a similar example in the 68–69 Dart line. The two door post sedan was same size as Valiant, but the rest of the Dart line was on the Dodge exclusive longer wheelbase. Presumably, the production advantages of sharing the 108″ wheelbase underbody and roof justified the special shorter Dart rear quarters, same as the special Fairlane and Comet rear quarters for the 110″ two door sedan.
It’s probable that the Fairlane/Comet two door post sedans were derived from the planned 66 Falcon two door sedan rather than the other way around. Falcon also had an exclusive 113″ wb four door sedan, so the evidence is that Ford’s priority was to distinguish the shorter Falcon from the true midsize models that were built with 116″ wb hardtop coupes/convertibles/four door sedans, then to find opportunities to cheat that distinction with the lesser volume wagons and two door sedans.
This is interesting, I have never really had a command of how the Falcon, Comet and Fairlane lined up with each other. Meteor too.
I am coming to the conclusion that nobody knew just exactly what an “intermediate” was until GM came to define the segment with its 1964-67 A body. The Fairlane (even up through the larger 1966-1971 generation) always seemed smaller and lighter than the competition. This is, of course, purely a subjective analysis as I have not gone out looking for hard numbers.
The Rambler Classic/Ambassador, the 1962+ Stude Lark/Cruiser sedans, the Fairlane and the 1965 Mopar B body cars each hit “intermediate” in a different way. The Chrysler version was, of course, an oversized version and the others were tied to a traditional compact (with the Ambassador an odd mix between the two). GM really hit the Goldilocks sweet spot with the A body of 1964.
Sorry JPC, I hadn’t read your post before I commented above – we say much the same things.
I figure ‘full-size’ and ‘compact’ were pretty much defined in people’s minds by 1965, with a whole range of alternative lengths and widths on offer between the two, from Ford’s longer/wider compact to Mopar’s renamed/reskinned ’62 fullsizers (neat trick, that!). GM kind of split the difference size-wise, came up with a new BOF platform (which would’ve made a good Caddy) with a different skin for each make, and I guess came to define the segment size because they were the biggest selling.
Until the intermediates started growing, anyway.
Well, in 1965 we were moving from Catonsville, Md. to Burlington, Vt. and staying in a motel in Catonsville when my Father was in an accident with his 1963 Rambler wagon, where it was totalled. Somehow he made it up to Vermont, and bought a new 1965 Olds F85 wagon (also in green, as had been the Rambler, as well as the 1961 Rambler wagon he had as his first wagon purchase) at Val Preda in South Burlington. It had the 330 and was his first V8; both Ramblers were 6s as was his first new car, a 1956 Plymouth Plaza with flathead.
Sizewize, seems like a bit of a latteral; I always thought of the Rambler as being a “compact” but perhaps the F85 was only slightly larger but considered an intermediate. In 1969 he went all the way to fullsized when he bought his Country Squire wagon, and every wagon thereafter (3 in all) were likewise fullsized.
The funny thing is it seems like the sizes are all relative. As cars have downsized, the categories also seemed to downsize. When you rent a car, it seems like the “standard” sized car (when I worked for Hertz in 1977-1978) was something like an LTD II (which itself was downsized from the “regular” LTD which apparently had been “standard” sized a year or two previously. Though I wasn’t working for Hertz after that, think the “standard” size shrunk to a Granada, or maybe even the Fairmont (which probably was about the same size, but smaller than the LTDII. Hertz no longer seems to specialize in Fords as it had done 45 years ago when I worked for them; but now “standard” size seems to be something like a Ford Focus or VW Jetta or Toyota Corolla, though in the 70’s the Corolla was considered a “subcompact”…I know the Corolla is larger than in the 70’s, and the Jetta hadn’t come out yet and the current Jetta is larger than the 1984 version, but the 70’s equivalent was probably a Golf which was also a subcompact. Guess it is hard to pin this down since many car models have gotten larger (not that much larger) than in the 70’s but the rental classifications for standard size seem to have gotten smaller. I would think that something like the Ford Taurus or Chevrolet Impala would have become the “standard” size but these are instead considered premium rather than standard, I guess due to their large size (for these times). Guess there really never was a definition of what “compact” “intermediate” or “standard” sizes are, and if there was, it must have changed (depending on who was using the definition, too).
My Dad’s F85 wagon in 1965 was an intermediate, but would probably be considered bigger than “standard” size now, at least in terms of rental cars. Where would Trucks and SUVs fit in this (weren’t common rentals I’d guess until the 90’s and beyond?). Even his ’56 Plymouth Plaza was considered “standard” size but it was probably about the size of his ’65 F85, even though by that time the F85 was considered intermediate…so sizing classifications seem to have gone up then down again.
Love the look of the 64 Fairlane. Always wanted one, notwithstanding the fact that nearly every one of them seemed to overheat and spew fountains of rusty water all over the service station apron where I worked during college. When I look at the picture the smell of that hot engine and rusty munge from the radiator springs instantly to mind. I’d buy a nice one in a second, though! Strange obsession!
Yeah, well, ….1974 Maverick or 1974 Comet. What’s the difference? Even less!
By that time Comet had fallen off the name-debasement treadmill and been relaunched as L-M’s version of the Maverick a few years later.
Paul, is this useful re Meteor? Popular Mechanics, Jan. 1962:
Nice “Big T-bird” lurking in the corner.
Also, is that a ’59-60 Pontiac in the third photo? Just to the right of the Fairlane.
Yes, definitely; likely a ’60 model.
I always wondered how the early comet and early fairlane compared, I knew width would be an improvement but it’s remarkable how similar they are and even more so how similar the Falcon itself was, I did wrongly assume that significant wheelbase stretch improved rear leg room. With their similarities it’s really kind of a wonder they bothered keeping separate classes of car, ie they probably could have made the 63 Fairlane body an all new Falcon instead, or drop the Falcon name for it, how much less thrifty was a slightly larger Fairlane from one anyway?
Interestingly I always thought the 60-65 Comet was remarkably well differentiated from the Falcon and the Meteor was poorly differentiated from the Fairlane, but there seems to be more unique exterior sheetmetal on those than the Comet, weird.
That model Fairlane was always called the Fairlane compact here, it was more robust than the Falcon and a lot more expensive but they were and are popular mostly for the small V8 we couldnt get in Falcons from OZ Mercury had ceased to exist so no Comets arrived new.
One point to note is that the 1st gen Fairlane/Meteor (well, 1st and last gen in the Meteor’s case) are different from the Falcon/Comet not only dimensions-wise but in the front suspension department also – nothing is interchangeable really. They are very similar but the smaller cars are more closely related to the 1st gen Mustang with good interchangeability and parts availability (although even here there are a number of caveats – ask me how know). All (other than the Meteor) had racing history now somewhat overshadowed by the Shelby Mustang and are worthy cars in my view.
My first car was a 64 Fairlane 500 sedan just like this one, except mine was dark burgundy.
It was a good car for a young teen – the 260 V8 wasn’t up to many stoplight challenges but wouldn’t completely embarrass you like the 170/200 six.
I’m glad to see the chrome end piece on the black side trim still there – mine would routinely fall off and I’d have to pull over and search the street for it…
Paul, Ihad this ’63 S33 cp, friend Jim hd blue ’63 Fairlanbe cp, next to each other lokked like wb was rear axle moved basck, but vry close, int seemed ssa,er, meateior tail longer. S33 260/ 2sp auto. ps, pb, a/c, looked/drove gd, nice car.