(first posted 10/1/2012) Not to beat the poor 1960 Ford brochure to death, but I couldn’t help but stop at this fine rendering of an Orchid Gray Starliner with a Convair F-106 Delta Dart interceptor in the back. But wouldn’t a Lockheed Starfighter somehow have been more appropriate? Delta and Dart are both names used by the competition.
Not to take anything away from the mighty Delta Dart, the ultimate “hot rod” jet of its time. Designed to intercept incoming Soviet nuclear-armed bombers, the F-106 set a new world speed record of 1525.96 mph, on December 15, 1959, with its P&W J-57-P on full afterburner. Maybe that’s its pilot, Major Joseph Rogers, getting into his Starliner after his record-setting flight Top operational speed was between Mach 2.2 – 2.3.
The F-104 Starfighter was a much smaller, more minimalistic design that was referred to as the “manned missile”. Lockheed Skunk Works guru “Kelly” Johnson designed the F-104 after seeing the challenges that American pilots were having in dogfights against the MiG-15 with their F-86s.
In place of the delta wing found on the F-106 and other supersonic planes at the time, Johnson came up with a radically small and thin wing, trapezoidal in shape and mounted mid-ships. The wing’s leading edges were so thin 0.016″ (0.41mm) that ground crew members had to be protected from it.
With a top operational speed of Mach 2.2, it too set a speed record, of 1,404 mph, a year or so before the F-106. Still, it didn’t really succeed in its original intended role of interceptor, having too short a range and too little armament. It did go on to serve in a variety of other roles, and was also used by many foreign air forces. The F-106, which never was exported, served in its role as top dog interceptor until well into the ’80s.
This shot shows how small the F-104 (at top) really was. Going clockwise, you can see the Northrop F-89 “Scorpion”; Convair F-106; North American F-86 “Sabre”; McDonnell F-101 “Voodoo”; and the Convair F-102 “Delta Dagger” from which the F-106 was developed. What later made all these wings obsolete was the F-111, with its variable geometry “swing-wing”. Maybe we can find a rendering of a Dart Swinger with one. Or is there an “Aardvark” car to pose with it?
A question I had never considered. My question, instead, is why did Ford choose to give the car a name from a 7 year old Studebaker? Studebaker was considered pretty much a dead letter by 1960. Why would you want to pick a name that would make most buyers think of their Uncle Milton’s rusty old Stude?
Also, there were by 1960 several very close names of competing cars, like Star Chief. Oldsmobile had a lock on Rocket and Jet images. What was Ford thinking?
I am probably in the minority here, but I really love the 1960 Ford Starliner. The sedans were really dowdy, but these thin-pillared hardtops were quite well proportioned and attractive. I’m not normally much of a purple car kind of guy, but I even like the Orchid Gray one in the picture. And unlike most buyers in 1960, I like to be reminded of Studebaker. But this would have made a great Galaxie Starview hardtop.
I love the 60 Starliner too and I like that color a lot also.
My twin brother and I bought an orchid colored 1960 Starliner as our first car in 1966. It had a 223 six cylinder and cruisomatic trans. Sure wish I still had it. We put a tear drop hood scoop on it an a 4 foot chrome straight pipe in place of the muffler. It sure looked and sounded good cruising the local Dairy Queen with the choke pulled part way out for a “lumpy” idle sound! Ahh, the days of being a 16 year old!
Galaxie 500 Star Cruiser … has a nice ring to it for me in 1960 Orchid Grey, no Problem
I Do miss these sideways Top of the line models that had visual differences in 1960.
Sweet! I saw an F-104 at an airshow once, and it easily would take the title of “The Loudest Thing In All The World.” Louder even than a Harrier in hover mode…
It was an F-104 that had a midair collision with the second XB-70 supersonic bomber prototype, killing the 104 pilot and XB-70 copilot. The remaining XB-70 is at the Air Force Museum in Dayton, Ohio.
Sadly, the Valkyrie accident is what I always think about whenever someone refers to the F-104. I’ve never seen one in action (it’s LOUDER than the Harrier?!?!)
Louder than a F-4 Phantom?
Yep.
When our boys were little, we used to drive to the top of Brasstown Bald mountain in North Georgia each fall and enjoy a picnic lunch. As we were munching away one beautiful afternoon, I heard a roar and a pair of ANG Phantoms at 500′ AGL (above the top of the mountain!) came right over the parking lot and broke in opposite directions, thick plumes of jet exhaust trailing behind them.
They were loud (and proud!), but the 104 puts them to shame.
A C-5B on takeoff comes real close, though…
Similar experience: While in the Seabees in Vietnam, we were working at the end of the runway, can’t remember what base, when an F4 took off and, apparently, went full AB, climbing straight up right above us. I can’t imagine anything louder!
Interesting. I was at Whiteman AFB in the mid-70s and we had a few B-52s stationed there on satellite alert. When they took off (empty) they almost always shook me out of bed. We had 19 C5s come in for a day from Dover AFB (hurricane evac), They left early next morning and I didn’t hear them. I guess the wind direction must have been just right.
In the summer of ’87 when I was in USMC OCS in Quantico, VA, I kept nodding off during the middle of an airshow when a Harrier was hovering. It seems as though everyone in my platoon was nodding off during that show – that’s how exhausted we were. The DIs were not happy.
An interesting question. I assume the brochure was printed right after the speed record, which was in the news and thus had recently been in newspapers and so forth. However, the F-104 had also just set a record: the day before Rogers’ speed record, a TAC F-104C set a couple of world records itself, for altitude and time to height.
On the other hand, the F-104 was an older and less sophisticated design with which the USAF was never particularly satisfied; the F-106 was replacing the F-104 in ADC service around the time this brochure would have been made. The Air Force press office would probably have been eager to steer discussion toward their latest hardware, particularly since the whole point of the records had been to beat a couple of recent Soviet records in the spirit of “anything you can do, we can do better.”
It’s worth noting that quite a few Ford execs of this time came out of the Air Force — including the Whiz Kids — and it’s not unlikely somebody had a buddy either in the USAF press office or at Convair (which made the F-106) who either suggested or helped arrange the tie-in.
“t’s worth noting that quite a few Ford execs of this time came out of the Air Force —”
Great point.
In reality, the F-111 didn’t really make anything obsolete, except itself, due to excessive complexity, weight, cost, and schedule overruns. The conceptual successor to the F-104 is the F-16, which was a response to the same sort of challenges, after they were again encountered in Vietnam. As with the F-104, the F-16 started out as a small simple lightweight day fighter designed around a single powerful engine and a multi-barrel cannon, ultimately evolving into a fighter-bomber (the same niche occupied by the export versions of the F-104). I’ve never seen a picture of an F-104 and F-16 side-by-side, but they would be fairly close to the same size.
I was only referring to the picture of all the different wing designs; the next major new design was the swing-wing (for better or for worse). Obviously, it didn’t survive the test of time all that well.
So, what is the automotive equivalent of the swing wing? A technology that seemed so compelling at the time that every major manufacturer had one in production, or at least on the drawing board, but was rendered obsolete in a few years by advances in other areas? In the case of combat aircraft, fuel-efficient turbofan engines with afterburners for the brief moments you really need to go fast, stealth and electronic countermeasures making speed less important, CAD/CAM technology allowing design and manufacture of aerodynamically more efficient blended wing/body shapes, etc.
Great question. Rear engines come immediately to mind. Cars of the future had them for decades, VW and Corvair put them on US roads in goodly numbers. By 1970 they were obsolete, replaced by FWD.
How about tail fins? Chrysler claimed they were for stabilization at high speed ;-).
Retractable hardtops?
But retractable hardtops were only on Fords back in the day and they made a comeback with many mfgs offering them currently or relatively recently.
Yeah humpbacked retractables are everywhere now, even Miatas :-(.
Speaking of Ford, the ’66 Mustang, T-Bird and Lincoln introduced in-dash 8-track players. An endless loop of tape inside, peeled off the inside of the one reel and wound back onto the outside. Jam city! But it was the first practical and widely used music player for cars. Cassettes took over in the Seventies.
I got in trouble as a young kid for taking apart one of my Dad’s 8-track tapes, but at least I saw how the loop worked around a common reel.
Cartridges of the 8-track variety were commonly used in radio stations (well into the 21st Century!) – Ford teamed up with RCA to make it a practical, non-skipping reality for cars (much like Chrysler teamed up with RCA for the Hi-Way Hi-Fi of 1956-61).
RCA had cartridge tapes and players as early as 1956, but in the 50’s they were much larger and rather expensive. The claim to fame of the first RCA Victor tape players (cartridges, mind you, not reel-to-reel) was that they introduced binaural sound to the public for the first time . . . . long before reel-to-reel home tapes (in stereo) were introduced and two years before the (more practical and cheaper) stereo records (limited pressings introduced in 1957, but mass marketed in 1958).
Air suspension?
It wasn’t so much that variable-geometry wings were rendered obsolete so much as their advantages were ultimately judged to not be worth their enormous costs. The purpose of the F-111’s VG wing, as with the wing of its rough Soviet equivalent, the Sukhoi Su-24, was to met a very difficult requirement for long cruising and ferry range combined with a supersonic low-speed dash, each of which demands a completely different wing profile. As a long-range interdictor, the F-111 eventually became extremely effective, and the F-15E, its successor in role, can’t really match it in low-speed range or ride (although the F-15E is much more able to defend itself in a dogfight, for which the F-111’s heavily loaded wing wasn’t well suited). The F-15 had the benefit of more reliable engines and electronics, but some Australian defense experts made a strong case for a life-extension program that would have given the F-111 new engines and a complete electronic makeover; the advocates of that program argued (fairly compellingly) that such a reengineered F-111 would be much better for interdiction, strike, and anti-ship missions (the Australians refitted their F-111s for Harpoon) than any available modern alternative. The question is more how much of a priority you put on the wing’s virtues and whether those priorities are high enough to be worth the price of admission and maintenance. (Not unlike a Porsche 928 or a Jaguar XJS, come to think of it…)
4-wheel steering?
Ding! Ding! I think we have a winner. 4-wheel steering on passenger cars was produced about as often as swing-wing aircraft.
Four-wheel steering (of the active variety, using additional steering gear and fully steerable wheels, not the passive variety used in some examples) is probably a good analogy – better than any I can think of. I’m reminded of the GMC trucks of about twenty years ago: maybe they had their merits, but obviously not nearly enough to make them a commercial success. But variable geometry does have a place where I think it might actually be worth the trouble, and it came close to what it could be in the F-14 Tomcat.
You have a combination of needing as much speed as possible for interceptor duties, with as low a landing speed as possible. Variable geometry does that better than anything. Despite my gold wings, I can’t say for sure, but I suspect that despite its generally superior capabilities, the F-15 couldn’t have been adapted to carrier use without being severely restricted or modified to something that would have got its butt handed to it by the F-14. The biggest problem with the F-14 was its fairly low g limit (6.5g) and that most of them were fitted with inferior engines. Even with the better GE engines, it took a lot of skill or luck to beat an F-15, but again, that was an aircraft that didn’t have to be engineered with the heavy landing gear to withstand carrier landings, nor the wing area needed for sufficiently low airspeeds to fall in the weight-speed envelope imposed by aircraft carrier arresting gear.
I believe that the variable geometry concept went by the wayside more because of cost, complexity, and maintenance requirements than because it failed to offer an advantage. Unfortunately, the Navy has saddled itself with the F-18, which doesn’t have the gas, range, and ability to transit and loiter like the F-14, and now the F-35 that’s a similar compromise – just with newer tech built in. I absolutely believe that a 20th century take on the F-14 would be a far more carrier-capable platform than the F-18 or F-35. Similar to the F-15 vs F-14, I’m not sure it’d be able to take on the F-22, but I do believe variable geometry would enable a platform with a much higher gross landing weight on a carrier without being saddled with a huge, speed-limiting wing (itself a problem for a carrier plane, given the limited hangar space). For land-based aircraft, it may not be worth it – you can work around it, especially with long enough runways – but that doesn’t mean it’s a pointless technology. It’s something still capable of expanding the envelope of an aircraft – that’s something that can’t change, even if better slat and flap technology and practicalities have made it a technology that tends to be ignored.
Sunliner was Ford’s name for the full-sized convertible from ’52 to ’64. The 1960-61 Starliner coupe must have been a play on Sunliner.
Ever heard of the 1962 Ford Starlift? Neither had I, it turned up checking on Sun/Starliner model years. The Starliner coupe was done mainly for NASCAR. When they dropped it in ’62, the notchback’s aerodynamics slowed Ford down. So they did a limited-production removable hardtop for the Sunliner convertible shaped like the Starliner’s top, and called it Starlift. NASCAR allowed it for one race then banned it. Read all about the Starlift at Power By Ford.
I do Remember a neighbor had a 62 Country Squire in that Color. It looked more like cream,and less yellow, as the years rolled by, though it was replaced by a 63 lesabre wagon
From the late ’60s to the early ’90s I hardly ever missed the Abbotsford airshow, and there were flying demonstrations by Canadian Forces Voodoos and Starfighters as well as F-106s from the Montana Air National Guard. It was always cool to see one flash down the flightline 200 feet or so off the runway at just under the speed of sound. It would be totally silent as it went by and then the sound would follow. As time went on the show got tamer and tamer due to safety concerns so I’m glad I got to see that stuff when I did.
As for the ’60 Ford, I’m guessing the Ad agency picked the newest, hottest plane in late 1959 and that just happened to be the F-106. The F-104 was kind of an also-ran in the USAF, although in a way that would have been fitting because the ’60 Ford was too.
Ford was really into the “jet age” theme for 1960, as print and promotional films also show the ’60 T-Bird leaving the Douglas DC-8 prototype at Long Beach (although the DC-8 entered regular service with Delta, United, Swissair and other carriers in late ’59). Mopar was hot into using military jets for the ’56 Forward Look ad campaigns as was Olds in ’58-’59.
Agree!
“As for the ’60 Ford, I’m guessing the Ad agency picked the newest, hottest plane in late 1959 and that just happened to be the F-106”.
I think Ford felt they could call them most anthing and post them with any type plane because most of us focused on the car. That car was such an improvement over the previous year that it was amazing. Always reminded of the 60 chevy when I saw it. Think both were a takeoff of the 59 chevy.
Friend of mine had one and it was hotter than a $2 pistol. Used to clean up at the drags at the abandoned AFB west of Dodge City.
Is this the first of the new Rampside Classic series?
Yes, the F-104 was a highly unforgiving aircraft. I remember Chuck Yeager stating in his book that the pilot of the F-104 that collided with the Valkyrie had been flying too close in formation for that plane. It was for a GE ad photoshoot, wasn’t it?
We’ve had others: https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/rampside-classic-simca-vedette-and/
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/rampside-classic/rampside-classic-1957-piper-tri-pacer-shades-of-la-femme/
and others too: just search for them in the “search by google” box on the upper right hand side.
Politicians in our country called the Starfighter “The Widow Maker” as a few them with the Royal Canadian Air Force crashed in Europe and here during the sixties.
Yes – all the aircraft in the formation were powered by GE engines.
As alluded to in the original post, I do remember my Jr High shop teacher telling us about the F-104s with felt protectors on their wings to protect the ground crews. Okay, so he wandered a bit from teaching to reminiscing about his Air Force days that Friday…
time to Offer Lilac Grey Today. I think it might be time to explore all the colors Purple, Pinks, and BlueGreens other pastels… like orangecream pearl
The color reminds me of my friend’s 65 Chevrolet Impala in Evening Orchid. What an adventure in car colors in those days, especially compared to the predominance of white, black, and silver today.
What are those trim pieces lining the Starliner’s thin C-pillar? I always thought they were “stars.”
The NASCAR ban on the Starlift was big news back in the day. I’m pretty sure all the car mags had intro pics when the model was introduced, and subsequent stories on the ban.
I know one brand of cars called things like those stars on the side, ” Dingbats”.. I think that fits perfectly. Was that ever a commonly accepted word? or just Marketing?
My question is why can’t we get this color today?
A lot of these colors only look good if the car also has some chrome accents and bumpers, along with whitewall tires, all of which have pretty much disappeared today.
Bring ’em all back, why not? They’ve done some marvelous things with metal films over plastics.
I want this car today.
How expensive can a few Chrome accents be?
This is an incredible story of an F-106 that landed by itself after the pilot ejected from a flat spin: http://www.f-106deltadart.com/71fis_PilotlessLanding_580787.htm
I saw a similar reference to that when I was putting this together. Amazing indeed. Who needs pilots anyway?
As soon as I found this pic I had to laugh..
The 73 Mustang Grande is apparently almost quicker in starting or maybe stopping than the “Queen of the Skies”. The defined Start/Finish line is perfect.
http://paintref.com/cgi-bin/brochuredisplay.cgi?year=1973&manuf=Ford&model=Mustang&smod=&page=10&scan=10
Back to the original subjects, I think it made perfect sense for Ford to name this top of the line Galaxie two-door hardtop the Starliner, in that their convertible was named the Sunliner and the recent retractable hardtop (and shortly before that, the plexiglas roof Fairlane Crown Victoria) was named the Skyliner. As for the jet in the picture, I think the F-106 was the most modern jet at the time and therefore was appropriate to use in the picture (I remember a ’70 T-Bird ad pictured next to the newly introduced Boeing 747 in late 1969.) As for the F-106 bringing up references to other car makes, the Dart was not introduced by Dodge until the 1960 model year, and Oldsmobile had not yet added “Delta” to the name of some models of their Eighty-Eights (I believe that was around 1965).
I was quite young when the 1960 Ford was new, but I remember always liking this metallic lavender color, even though some might call it a “chick color” (or something more derogatory.) I believe it was only available on some top of the line Galaxies such as the Starliner and Sunliner, and possibly the Galaxie 4-door hardtop.
As for other military plane tie-ins with automobile promotion, I recall the 1958 Buick brochure showed a Convair B-58 bomber (a supersonic state-of-the-art nuclear bomber, and the bomber equivalent of Convair’s delta-wing F-102 and F-106), and referring to the new Buick as the “B-58.” An even more obscure reference that I recall was a 1942 Oldsmobile ad I saw as I leafed through a 1942 Time or Life magazine. The ad copy proclaimed that the car was “powered like a B-18,” and showed a picture of that obscure plane. If the ad writers had the benefit of foresight, they might have wanted to compare it to a B-17 or B-24, both of which were abundant and successful during WWII, as opposed to the Douglas B-18 (which was not bought in large numbers and was not successful).
In the ad, the “pilot” is still wearing his partial-pressure suit as he gets into his “new” Ford. Couldn’t have been exactly comfortable.
“Zipper’s jammed AGAIN! Stuck in my suit, and I’ve got opera tickets tonight…maybe I can just make it to the car before anyone notices…oh, hi Mark!”
My family and one of my uncles owned 1960 Country Sedans. Being wagons, the rear springs were stiffer than those used on the sedans and hardtops/convertibles so the rear ends on the wagons were fairly high…especially when they were lightly loaded.
This is my way of saying that I never saw a 1960 Starliner or Sunliner that looked as long and as low as those in the color illustrations here. Somehow, that seemed to be corrected for the 1961 model year, even our neighbor’s 1961 Country Squire looked long and low.
In an earlier post, it was mentioned that Chuck Yeager had stated that the F-104 collision with the YB-70 Valkyrie was due to the Starfighter flying too closely.
I find this a bit ironic because it was an NF-104 (a Starfighter modified with an additional liquid-fuel rocket engine) that Chuck Yeager crashed (some say due to his arrogance for not heeding the information gleaned from a previous flight of the same airplane), the event of which was famously portrayed in the movie The Right Stuff.
Interesting post to revive. In true CC Effect fashion, just last week I saw an F104 fuselage being towed on a flatbed trailer near I5 a few miles north of Vancouver, Washington. At first I thought it was an F5 or T38 but the other guy in the car with me pointed out key features that confirmed it was an F104.
In a completely different vein, the hilarious Mystery Science Theater take on the thuddingly awful F-104-themed film “The Starfighters” is well worth a watch. Watching “The Starfighters” without the MST treatment is NOT recommended.
Early 80’s just before remaining Century aircraft inventory was retired, I was buttoning up an engine door at the far end of the flight-line while the sun held off the darkness. Noted two reserve 106’s taxing to the hold short and took a moment to watch how old school readied for flight. Staggered formation, military throttle stabilizing rpm, checking controls , then simultaneous throttle push, both birds yield an afterburner cone with perfectly spaced sapphire rings against a pink / orange sky. Ground shook rattling my tools while my skull vibrated, and thought this worthy of canvas. Brake release unsettling the landing gear, rolled then shoved themselves forward, J79’s doing what asked. Both lifted in unison confirming professional flight discipline followed by a gentle port turn above the mountainous skyline exposing delta wings while holding flame. Completing the 180 I returned to my task and when finished, from peripheral vision the 106’s returned completing a high speed run and enjoyed canvas a second time.
I thought those planes served our country well then turned to my aircraft, patted the radar dome and remarked to my Hornet, it’s your turn.
Who cars about the damn Ford? I’m a sucker for the F-104 and the 106! We Aussies seriously considered the F-104, in both the C & G variants. Picked the Mirage III instead. And yes, we should have reengined & updated our F-111 fleet.
Loud? I was at an air show at Andrews in 1958, a B-58 did a low level pass over the crowd and immediately went into a max climb. That was LOUD!
Just out of curiosity, I did a quick search for “Loudest Aircraft,” and it’s arguably the XF-84H, a turbine-supersonic propellor monster. Apparently the thing essentially wrecked anything or anyone unlucky enough to be close by while it was running on the ground, and it wasn’t very pleasant in the air, either.
The fighters and bomber may have been loud but at least they were fast and got out of the area quickly. I went to college in Plattsburgh NY and the local air base had a squadron of KC-135s with the original J-57 engines. When one of those took off the professor would simply stop talking for a couple minutes because of the noise.
The base also had a squadron of FB-111s. They were much quieter and faster. During a night takeoff you could see an afterburner flame as long as the aircraft which suddenly cut out as it gained altitude.
I know next to nothing about planes, and what little I do know I’ve learnt from you guys. So for me the car’s the star in this scene.
Not quite the right colour, but the closest I had.
The 1960 Ford has got to be the most un-Ford like Ford ever, certainly one of the most under appreciated model year Fords.
Other than the decoration between the rear bumper and the rear wheel cutout, nothing on the body below the belt line resembles Fords before or after. Its horizontal fins; the full length belt line chrome strip which gradually drops as it nears the front, then suddenly reversing course to drop downward to the front bumper. The half-watermelon taillights….
I was six years old when these hit the showroom, and I remember going down with my family to the local dealer’s debut night for the ’60 models to check them out. I still have the brochure I picked up there.
If you look at that side body accent, you’ll see it was repeated on the 60/61 Falcon, after which they changed it to a bulletbird accent for 62/63.
Massive fan of the 60 fullsizers here.
Always thought it looked more like a Lincoln.
You want LOUD?? Try a pair of USMC Crusaders taking off on afterburner at Da Nang….that was LOUD! We always knew when those were rolling! BTW, the ’60 Ford Starliner hardtop has always been my favorite 1960 car design. 🙂
The Orchid Gray was a far more interesting color than almost anything on today’s automotive scene. Of course, in 1960 car buyer’s really had a wide palette of COLORS to choose from. DFO
I love the Starliner! I sincerely believe that Ford had Chevy beat by mile in style in the early 60s, and the Starliner is one of the chief examples I would cite for that. It is a little mysterious why Ford wouldn’t seek the couple the *Star*liner with the *Star*fighter. Maybe there’s a reason for that; I have no idea.
I’ve got to be honest, I kind of hate the ’59 Ford styling. It’s not the ugliest car in the world, but it is frumpy and unappealing by an standards. I think Ford started well in ’49 and generally did well through the mid-50s, then started faltering in the late 50s. It wasn’t too bad until ’59, but what a mess. ’60 was a nice rebound, especially with the Starliner.
The Starfighter, for better or worse, was not a beautiful nor a particularly effective airframe. They were fast, especially for the time, but those stubby wings meant the maneuvering abilities were pretty weak. The F-106 was probably a better platform, for what it’s worth. The F-104 was also difficult to fly, it had a high accident and attrition rate, and had a poor (if limited) combat record. So maybe Ford missed a little marketing potential, but not a lot here. Incidentally, there’s a wonderfully hokey piece of cinema – err – propaganda called The Starfighters about the F-104. Mystery Science Theater 3000 did a great send-up of it – well worth the watch.
Think the 1960 Ford Starliner is a beautiful auto. A few months ago, at a traffic intersection, saw a late model Camaro custom painted a similar Orchid. The car was beautiful except for the oversized wheels. I would buy orchid paint today.
So many car makers use aircraft in their adverts, yet their is only SAAB & Bristol that ever built both.