posted at the Cohort by nifticus
1966 was a big year for the intermediates from the Big Three, as all of them sported brand new styling. The curvaceous A-Bodies with the tunnel-back roofs were the undisputed style-setters, after their big brothers had been in 1965. GM design was on a roll, and rarely had Ford and Chrysler looked so far behind in comparison.
Ford’s new Fairlane and Comet showed up with some token curves of their own, but were still outclassed in that department by GM. And Chrysler showed up with new cars that would have looked great in 1963, but were now hopelessly behind in the fashion parade. Good thing beauty is only skin deep, as there was still much to love under that boxy epidermis layer.
It wasn’t just the styling that set the GM intermediates apart either; starting with the 1964 Pontiac GTO, GM had jump-started a whole new class of cars, and by 1966, all the GM divisions were all-in. None more so than the Chevelle SS396, the most affordable of the bunch as well as the one with the greatest upgrade potential, thanks to the new 396/427 big block engine family interchangeability.
Ford did have the GT/GTA version of the Fairlane, but it generated extremely little interest. It came with the staid FE-390 V8, an engine that was much better suited to the Country Squire than red light races against GTO’s and SS396’s. In 1967, Ford upped the ante with the 427, but even that rare and price mill ended up laying very much an outsider role.
The Belvedere (and Coronet) were available with the four barrel 383, rated at 325 hp, so it wasn’t exactly a slouch. But there was no model trim specifically tailored to the go-fast crowd; you just had to order your choice of Belvedere trim and body style with the preferred engine (and transmission).
Meanwhile Pontiac was killing it with its third year of the GTO, selling just a whisker under 100k units. Standard 335 hp; optional 360 hp. And dripping with image and street creds.
These numbers tell the story better than I can: GM’s intermediates outsold Ford’s and Chrysler’s combined.
Chrysler saw the writing on the wall, and for 1967 shot back with the hottest intermediate muscle cars: the Plymouth GTX and Dodge R/T with standard Commando 440 V8s and the optional 426 Hemi. Take that!
They were hot all right, but they still sold in fairly modest numbers. Of course that all changed in 1968 with Plymouth’s Road Runner, but that’s a story for a different day, one we haven’t actually done full justice to here yet. One of these days.
Back to 1966. And the styling and detailing that was already several years out of date. But who cares? It’s still an attractive package.
To this day I find these more attractive than the 66 Chevelle. But then I liked the 63-64 GM big car lines better than the 65-66 lines, as a rule. I thought these still looked modern in 1966 – after all there were still tons of 65 Galaxie 500s on the roads that looked as square as these and the 66s were close. GM was certainly setting a new styling direction, but there were still lots of people who were not quite ready for it in 1965-66.
And this was by design – one of Lynn Townsend’s management edicts was that Chrysler Corporation would no longer be in the business of trying to set styling trends. Which is understandable, given how that worked out in 1960-62.
Am I wrong thinking that the Fairlane from the era has fallen completely into a memory hole? Given the strong sales it had, I cannot remember the last time I saw one, while the Mopar and GM stuff remains popular with old-car guys. The other surprise is the sales figures and how poorly the Oldsmobile version sold. I wonder how those numbers would have looked if restricted to the central/upper midwest – Olds seemed more popular where I grew up.
At first I was thinking that the reason you don’t see as many Fords was due to the lack of rustproofing that Paul mentioned in his article on E-Coat back in January. But upon rereading that article just now, it seems doubtful that GM and Chrysler would’ve adopted this process by 1965. It’s a bit of a mystery.
I was also surprised by the numbers for the F-85/Cutlass. But as Mark Reimer has previously posted, New Orleans (and by extension, where I grew up an hour away in Baton Rouge) was definitely an Oldsmobile town. It’s hard to believe that in a mere 10 years or so, the Cutlass would become America’s best-selling model.
The reason not many Fords are seen today is that the muscle car versions weren’t that popular when new, so not as many people bother restoring them today. People seek out and restore the muscle versions of the GM A-bodies and Mopar intermediates.
At the various Carlisle and Hershey shows, the 1966-67 Ford intermediates on display tend to be original, well-preserved, mild-mannered hardtop coupes and four-door sedans, along with an occasional convertible.
Here in benign, salt free Winters the GM cars of this generation suffered from windshield and rear window rust pockets….specifically with a vinyl top.
A walk thru a store parking lot in the late 1960’s/early 1970’s revealed more than one Chevy/Olds/Pontiac with globs of butyl rubber or windshield sealer showing all around the windows chrome trim.
My brother’s ’67 GTO had so much rust under the vinyl top/rear window that the trunk got an inch of water on the floor during the frequent monsoonal rain showers that dump on New Orleans during the 8 months the locals call Summer. He finally drilled holes in the trunk’s lowest point to allow the rain water to drain out.
Interesting to mention the water seepage problem on those GM products. A guy I knew yearned for a GTO and finally got one in 1968. Besides constantly getting beaten in street races, he couldn’t believe the rust around the rear window that began almost immediately (he lived in the snowy midwest). He traded the car after only a year.
High school days: Word on the street was that the Fairlane GTA was a poseur’s ride. A tuned Chevy 327 could take them.
In the pantheon of sixties’ musclecars, the 390 Ford was, indeed, on the bottom rung. It’s actually quite fascinating to watch Bullitt and know that, in reality, a 440 Charger would have left the 390 Mustang (even with a slightly modded engine) in the dust.
And the GTO wasn’t much better. While it was the top dog in sales (where it really counted), in stock tune, it was easy meat on the street for anything but the Fords. I knew a guy who bought a ’68 GTO after getting out of the Army and was so disappointed on how often he was beaten, that he traded the car after a year for a W-31 442. He was much happier with the Olds, although he had to remove the under bumper air scoops in the winter.
Coronet sales ranking above had to be police/taxi fleet sales, especially since it outsold the Belvedere that year. Dodge ruled fleets and intermediates were really standard size cars by 1965.
The Belvedere was just a dud. It has the most boring styling of any big 3 intermediate that year, and the details look cheap compared to them.
I believe if Ford USA had done in 1966what the Auzies did a couple years later by stroking the little 289 to a 327/331 sales would have been much stronger in Fairlane. By 1966 everyone new the 289 was light and quick but could not keep up with a 327 after 75 miles an hour in a Mustang much less a Fairlane. It has often puzzled me why that was never Ann option in North America. Sbf with its lighter rotating assembly would have been a strong runner, as has been proven in the aftermarket.
Unless someone actually wanted a car as big as a GTO, the most appealing sport model at the Ford dealer was the Mustang. Why bother with a Fairlane?
It’s been said that some cars are styled in a way that they look like they’re in motion when standing still.
With the exception of the 1st gen Charger, the extremely squared-off ’66-’67 B-body Mopars look like they’re standing still while in motion. In an odd twist, the convertibles actually enhance this perception.
But when equipped with the Hemi (then the 440 in 1967), well, those boxes could move.
Yup! Rudiger is (once again) correct.
Out in “The Real World” the boat anchor FE 390 Fairlane was made into mince meat by a 383/Torqueflite Satellite or a even a well tuned 4 speed/small block Chevy.
The FE390 huffed and puffed with adequate off the line torque, but fell on it’s face past about 2500 rpm. It did better in my Mother’s ’66 Country Sedan station wagon.
Smart GTA drivers hid behind the A & W root beer stand until they found a 389/2 speed automatic GTO to challenge.
I don’t know if the comparison is valid, but the 390FE reminds me of the Buick small-valve Nailhead in that they were great engines for low-end torque (that’s actually the number Buick would put on their air cleaner lids), which is terrific to get big, heavy cars underway, but not so great after a rather low point in the rpm band.
So, yeah, for daily-driver, grocery-getter use in a Country Squire or leisurely cruising in a FlairBird, the 390 Ford was fine. But in the stoplight-to-stoplight Grand Prix against Chevys or Mopars, not so much. The match-up with a 389/2-speed Goat was about as good as it was going to get for the Fords.
A co-worker had a Coronet with the 426 hemi and four-speed manual transmission. I drove it to 65 MPH before i shifted from second to third gear! I happen to like the styling. My first car was my 1966 Dodge Coronet 2-door sedan, model WL21 – YUP, the lowline trim edition. Great driver.
The small block Mopar V8/Torqueflite powertain combo made for a most satisfying “Real World” daily driver in these intermediate body cars.
More than enough oommppphhhh to keep up (or even lead) traffic as well as very good gas mileage (if driven gently).
This reminds me of the story about Tom ‘Father of the Hemi’ Hoover’s ’66 Dodge Coronet. The story goes that, unlike some guys at Ford and GM (Jim Wangers would ride along for Woodward street racing), Hoover just supplied the parts and, occasionally, his car, to try out new tuning ideas and parts. Here’s a link to what appears to be a now-closed auction for the actual car with some terrific information:
https://classiccars.com/listings/view/1006882/1966-dodge-coronet-for-sale-in-auburn-hills-michigan-48326
For Mopar-lovers, this has to be the Holy Grail of musclecars.
I agree, Tom. (Thomas Merjanian)
My 1966 Plymouth Belvedere II, 383 4bbl, 4spd, synchromesh, was a nice car for a 20 yr old, got a deal on it.
My buddy had a 65 Polara w Torqueflite, cool car, too.
Larry Dennis Brewer
When I was growing up, a neighbor had a ’66 Belvedere, 2 door, Petty blue, either a 318 or 383, 3 soeed on the column. That car would fly!
Where did you live? Charlotte?
GMH in Aussie stole the Belvedere grille and park/indicator styling for their facelifted HR Holden for 66/67.
My first ever car was a ’66 Belvedere I former phone company car. It had a heater and that was it. Of course it wasn’t as fancy as the one in the article, but I did like the formal roof line better than this slanted-nearly-to-a-point roof. That look never did anything for me.
Yeah…I’m calling baloney on 390 as “boat anchor”. Jeez Louise.
That’s not exactly how they came equipped in the cars back then, eh?
Like all engines, the FE could generate a lot more power. It just needed different heads, cam, intake, carbs, exhaust, etc., etc..
Nice quote on the blackboard. 🙂
“There’s nothing worse than a bored man.”
The FE engine family is painted with a broad brush. There were versions designed for family haulers, and there were versions that just plain hauled. Yes it’s true the factory 390 in the Fairlane GT didn’t breath well, but that was easily remedied. Hot Rod did just that in ’66 or ’67 and found it a great around town hot rod.
And of course styling is very subjective. I find the Mopars styling to be enduring, as well as the Fairlane’s. Popularity does’t necessarily mean better.
The 428 Cobra Jet used the 390 GT cam, so keep the cam. You really just needed a manifold and carb to wake these up, but if you wanted to be near the king of the hill, 427 low riser heads would do that.
Hell, the same argument can be made for Pontiac. You needed to order a Ram Air version of the 400 to be competitive. As for Chevy, the solid lifter 396 was much stronger than the hydraulic lifter version. And on and on…
The problem with the 390 is showroom stock performance. Ford simply didn’t put the effort into their sixties’ big-block RPO engines that the competition did. One of the big problems was, as stated, the craptacular low-flow Autolite 4V carb that Ford, inexplicably, seemed to insist on using.
In fact, the guy who set-up the 390 Mustang in Bullitt, Max Balchowsky, supposedly claimed he “always had good luck with Autolite carbs” and is what he used for the car, despite all the other mods. I guess it didn’t really matter all that much since it was just a movie, anyway.
Of course, that all changed when the 428CJ (finally) arrived. The 1969 Fairlane Cobra goes down as one of the best bang-for-the-buck sixties musclecars and could easily hold its own against the more typical cars from GM and Chrysler.
I didn’t realize Max tuned the Bullitt car. He was a genius tuner and his Buick nailhead powered Old Yeller embarrassed Ferrari’s and Aston Martin’s. If anyone could get that Autolite to respond it was him.
True on Ford not really caring about the performance mass market, they were selling plenty of low powered cars and their marketing people could have cared less until Bob Tasca read them the riot act and showed them his dealership built Cobra Jet.
To be fair, Hank the Deuce’s head really wasn’t into the domestic performance scene thru most of the sixties. He was intent on exacting vengeance on Enzo Ferrari at Lemans. To that end, he succeeded with stuff like the AC Cobra, Daytona, GT40, and Indy 255 4 cam engine. By the time Ford got serious about domestic performance, it was virtually too late.
A real shame, too, since, besides the 428CJ, the 351 Cleveland was a pretty great engine, too. Just imagine if Ford had gotten that one into the 1966 Fairlane or 1967 Mustang.
Yep. Just to be perverse I retained the Autolite 4100 carb and found it a very nice simple and reliable unit that lives and performs well with modest changes in cam, head mods and intake. It’s pretty much as straightforward as a Solex 28 and as painless to fiddle with.
There’s the trade-off. The Autolite might not have performed like the other brands’ Holleys and Carters, but it didn’t need the same level of attention to keep it adjusted correctly, either.
So, in the grand scheme of things when most wheel time was daily-driving, the Ford 390 set-up might have better in the long run.
And I would imagine the same applies to the Rochester Quadrajet that Pontiac used on their GTOs and Firebirds. I knew a guy with a cherry 1967 Firebird 400. Not particularly fast but it always ran well.
That’s an interesting comment by Balchowsky, because I believe the ’67/’68 390 GT Mustang came with a Holley.
***I came across this thread when I double checked***
https://www.vintage-mustang.com/threads/68-gt390-correct-carb.1042241/
Who knows…maybe he swapped out the Holley for an Autolite 4100. I can’t imagine he’d use a 4300.
OK, this was bugging me…I found a picture in a magazine of the recently auctioned original Bullitt Mustang; I can barely make out the carburetor under the air cleaner, but it looks like a 4100 to me, so Max Balchowsky must have swapped out the Holley. It wouldn’t have been hard; my ’63 T-Bird 390 has the larger 4100. The CFM ratings were probably similar.
Thanks for looking up and posting the link. Maybe Balchowsky replaced the Holley with a more reliable Autolite due to the abuse the 390 was expected to endure (hard cornering, jumping hillls, etc.). It’s also quite interesting to note that it’s stated in the thread that Ford did use an Autolite carb for the 390GT in 1969.
OTOH, who knows if Balchowsky was quoted correctly, or he was just saying it for some unknown reason. I vividly recall a really bad interview supposedly with Steve McQueen in Motor Trend where he stated that the Mustang had a 289 and the Charger was equipped with a Hemi. As well as some sources suggesting that the sounds of the Mustang were actually from a GT40.
The answer may be that the surviving car was not used in the stunts. So, while the non-stunt car’s 390 retained its original Holley, Balchowsky had replaced the Holley with an Autolite on the stunt car, which was destroyed during filming and junked.
No, the picture I’m referencing was the non-stunt car that was recently sold for 3.4 million or something like that. The stunt car was actually found in Mexico about five years ago, but there wasn’t much left. Apparently, the owner was having it restored in California, but I haven’t heard anything about it since it was found. Kevin Marti verified the VIN on the shell.
Another upvote for the 390
The pictured FE… Except for some time on the buffing wheel, not far from readily available factory stuff. Note the Autolite carburetor?
I wonder about the “mayonnaise jar” oil filter? What’s with that?
The ’66 B Body intermediates were done under the Elwood Engle regime, and perhaps suffered from post-Exner-itis. Very conservative but not unattractive styling, polar opposite from 1961. The Dodge Coronet faired a little better with more sculpted quarter panels. They were great cars and probably the best handling intermediates of the period. 1967 brought the LA318 and better heads on the 383 4bbl., improving the performance of the ‘regular’ B Bodies.
Cool! The Don Earle sticker on the back is from a long gone Chrysler-Plymouth dealership here in Peterborough, Ontario where I live. It’s been a lotta years since I’ve seen one of those.(Both car and sticker)
Interesting to mention the water seepage problem on those GM products. A guy I knew yearned for a GTO and finally got one in 1968. Besides constantly getting beaten in street races, he couldn’t believe the rust around the rear window that began almost immediately (he lived in the snowy midwest). He traded the car after only a year.
I wonder if that was also a failure to properly paint or treat the metal around the window. Quality control wasn’t “Job 1” during those years in Detroit. During 1968, when the new GM A-bodies were selling quite well, I’d imagine the first priority was getting the cars out the door to the dealer.
I’d love to know the aerodynamics on these, especially since Richard Petty tore up NASCAR with one of these once the Hemi was allowed back in, while the more-slippery looking ’68 was a dud. Deceptively smooth, like the contemporary Alfa Giulia?
The problem with the GM cars was that the area under the window trim didn’t flush itself out. The space just got packed with dirt which turned to mud when wet. Over time the area rusted under the trim until holes formed and then it started to leak. Vinyl tops were worse because the fabric was bunched up around the window openings. it retained moisture as well as the dirt. Some of the vinyl top cars didn’t even have the metal fully painted under the fabric. These cars were only built to last for a limited period. Through the ownership of the original buyer then maybe through a few years of the second. Back then, a 6-7 year old car was just going to be a junker soon. The original designers would be amazed that any of their creations would still be around over fifty years later!
Adding to my comments that won’t post…
I agree, the 390 is being slighted. And the performance 390 had a robust clutch, transmission, rear axle, to back it up. No “glass” components. A rear suspension that would hook-up, unlike some of the competition’s wheel-hopping linkage.
Ford’s clutch trans and axle could take a thrashing like no other.
It’s noteworthy that the Ford driveline components became the hot upgrade in non-Ford cars.
I agree. Out of the box a 390 didn’t live up to the stats of the competition but Muscle Cars were basically an extension of hot rod culture and there was more than enough selection of factory over the counter and aftermarket hop up parts to wake them up and like you said the rest of the drivetrain was ready to handle it. What’s cooler in hot rodding, a souped up Ford or a stock Chevy?
Can’t really argue about the stoutness of Ford’s Top-Loader 4-speed and 9″ rear end. Not so sure about the Cruise-O-Matic, though.
As to a Fairlane GT versus an SS396 Chevelle or 383 Mopar debate, it would come down to cost. If the three cars were priced equivalently, why would anyone buy the Ford and have to spend ‘more’ to get it to the performance level of the GM or Chrysler products? I sure wouldn’t.
If the 390 were cheaper and hopping it up would only bring it up to the price of the others, well, yeah, I could see it.
C6 automatic behind the hot 390; also a tough as nails transmission.
In my observation a “hot” 396 was fussy and not a “refined” engine. Poor idle, “clicky” valve train, spark plug fouler. Barely adequate cooling system. Required lots of tinkering, definitely a gearhead’s car.
Meanwhile a “hot” 390 made a refined smooth daily driver, yet ready to light off on a moment’s notice. No worries putting your girlfriend or mother behind the wheel.
This actually brings up another point that muddies the notion that the Ford 390 was a bottom-feeder stone during the musclecar sixties, and that’s the multiple variations of the SS396 which were available.
The hottest SS396 was the 375hp, solid-lifter L78 which, if driven properly, could actually beat a Street Hemi ‘if’ the race was from a standing-start. The L78 had the ability to grab an insurmountable lead off the line which the deep breathing heads of the Hemi could not overcome by the time the engine got into the upper part of the power band. But those L78 engines were surely of the nature as described above, i.e., cantankerous, maintenance-intensive, and a poor daily-driver.
One wonders how the much more mundane (and more widely seen) base 325hp L35 SS396 did against the 390. The gap might not be nearly as pronounced as generally thought.
These are one of those cars I think the refresh improved the looks, the basic body of these to me is very handsome, but the 4 headlight 67s and their taillights and trim substantially improved the attitude from the 66. I think there are two ways to look at Chrysler’s design in the 60s, 1) they followed GM themes and were dated because of it, or 2) they improved on GM design themes and made GM look silly for changing, I tend to fall into the latter camp.
I never was much of a fan of the 66 Chevelle design apart from the tunnelback roofline, the front end design with that ridge above the grille makes it looks like it has a unibrow. I like the Plymouth better(GTO otoh…)
Good points about Chrysler’s following GM styling trends. I suspect that, in virtually all cases, Engel and Company’s copy of the previous GM cycle styling were improvements. Would you rather have a ’67 GTO, or ’68 Charger? A ’69 Camaro, or ’70 Barracuda? Based solely on styling, I suspect most would choose the latter cars. Not to mention you also got Chrysler’s engineering prowess, to boot.
With that said, I like the ’66 Chevelle hardtop. Maybe not the best of the model line, but a distinct improvement over the inaugural years’ cars.