1963 Ford Fairlane Sports Coupe, image from the brochure.
My first car was my mother’s 63 Fairlane. As mentioned last time, my father left it to her to teach me to drive, most likely because he lacked patience. So my mother took on the daunting task of teaching me to drive in traffic during the fall. We went to the local drive-in theater and I practiced lane-keeping until she was convinced I was ready for the road. I was a junior in high school and the deal was I had to drive my sisters to their activities if I wanted to use the car myself.
I gained a lot of experience on the backroads of Central New York. In 1968 it was still very much rural where we lived. I was active in scouts and church youth group which meant outings on most weekends. (Once I had my license my parents were grateful to relinquish chauffeur duties).
Her car was a 1963 Fairlane 500 sports coupe; which sounds far sportier than it was. It had the 260 small block V8 and the 2-speed Fordomatic transmission. In spite of the fact that it was considered an intermediate-size car, it was quite a bit longer and wider than the Jeep I had practiced driving on at the scout’s camp.
When I finally ventured out onto the main road I discovered that I had to pull over to roll up the window since I was scared to do it with cars whizzing by as I poked along. I did improve rapidly and that fall I took driver’s ed so I could get my license and drive at night.
’66 Fairlane Squire, image from the brochure.
My mother was a good teacher and I got my learner’s permit with no trouble. This was a relief to my parents who no longer had to play taxi driver to my two younger sisters. For this, I usually used our family’s 1966 Fairlane Squire wagon after my dad came home from work.
The first time I drove it was in Pennsylvania one night. The family had piled into the wagon for a four hour trip to Scranton for a wedding. We arrived Friday afternoon in time for the rehearsal dinner for the wedding party and out of town guests.
The party moved to a relative’s mansion where much liquor flowed and while I was only 15, I was offered both beer and pot by my new teenage in-law cousins. I took the beer but passed on the marijuana. When it was time to head back to the hotel my uncle Charles took me aside and told me my parents were tired and had too much to drink. He couldn’t let them drive, so he handed me the keys which he had taken from my dad and told me to follow him. I protested that I didn’t have a license yet. He asked me if I could drive, I said yes and that was the end of the discussion. We got home safely and I often wonder to this day if I should have told him I had been drinking too.
…
My parents encouraged after-school activities for my two sisters and me so there were plenty of opportunities for me to practice with the wagon. The Fairlane Squire wagon was truly a lemon, with the brakes and suspension being a constant issue, and my dad traded it as soon as the payments were finished.
The car was quite at home in our suburban development with its fake wood panels. I took auto shop my senior year at night and learned to do tune-ups on the 289 V8. Even though the car was much heavier than my mom’s, the wagon benefited from the three-speed Cruise-o-matic and possibly a lower rear-end ratio. I found that around town it had much more acceleration.
Winter of my senior year the neighbor’s mobile home camp in the Adirondacks suffered a roof collapse under the weight of a late winter snow. My friends and I were voluntold to drive up and dig the snow out of the living room so the carpenters could erect a temporary roof.
We loaded up the wagon with sleeping bags, snow shovels, and groceries and headed North unsupervised. After a hard day of shoveling snow and salvaging furniture, we decided we had earned a beer bash, regardless that none of us were of legal drinking age which was 18 in New York at the time.
There was no chance of getting beer at the grocery store in town where my family was known so we headed to the Horsehaven Inn, a dive bar on a back road we had heard about from older siblings. The camp was on Hoffman Mountain and the roads were barely a lane wide since the plows had not been able to push the snow accumulation completely off the road that late in the season.
What lanes there were had been scraped down to sheer ice. I drove carefully not sure what traction I could depend on. We had no trouble getting served our beer and after a few hours, we decided to head back for the night. My judgment being clouded by alcohol I was much less cautious on the way home, especially after I discovered that the snowbanks were frozen solid and pushed the car back into the middle of the road when I took the curves too fast. Bobsledding back to the camp I managed to wedge the car into the spot we had cleared and hoped there was no evident damage to the body.
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Later that year on a taxi trip in my mom’s Fairlane sports coupe while taking my sister to the movies my friend and I decided to skip the movie and drink a bottle of Schnapps until it was time to pick her up.
At the time the road from our house to the movie theatre was arrow-straight for miles through farm fields with just one traffic light intersection before the next town. Mostly. Unfortunately, I had not paid careful attention to the road going into the movie theatre complex and forgot the road took a sharp turn through a small subdivision before coming to the theatre’s parking lot.
I was not looking at the speedometer, but am sure it was in excess of 50 mph when I realized I was going to have to make a downhill 90-degree turn as I entered the subdivision. My buddy yelled my name, and I yelled “I know, I know” when we went airborne heading towards the side of a house. Fortunately, we landed in a garden and avoided hitting the house.
Once the car landed we actually made the turn and calmly drove out the driveway of the house. Neither of us said anything to my sister and I hoped for the best. A few days later my mom told my dad something was wrong with the car and I was told to take it to the mechanic to be checked out. After he got it on the lift he brought me out to the shop and showed me clumps of grass in the front suspension.
I gave my best “dumb look” and told him I didn’t know if the car had gotten stuck somewhere. An alignment corrected whatever damage I had inflicted, but the bill would come due a few years later…
Related CC reading:
Car Show Classic: 1963 Ford Fairlane Sport Coupe K-Code
CC Capsule: 1963 Ford Fairlane 500 – Out For A Night On The Town
Great post – the joys of early 60’s Fords. My first car was a 64 Fairlane 500 4 door with the 260 and Fordomatic – bought for the princely sum of $500.
Have to admit it was probably a good car for a teenage beginner – anything more powerful and I would have likely ended up in a garden or the side of a house too.
At age 16 my first-car experience mirrors Jim’s exactly, albeit a ’64 in r/h/d. Locally known as the ‘FD’ model and I agree these were very forgiving units for novice drivers. To mention, managing its slow steering lock (5+ turns) for me dictated a virtual straight-arm driving style, which remains forever imprinted.
It was only 10 years old and still in good condition, a bargain at AU$175. Truly my pride and joy, in white over battleship grey. It sported wider steelies to which I fitted the latest semi-exotic (Dunlop Aquajet pattern) radial retreads. Plus a dashtop VDO tacho to closely monitor that singular 1-2 upshift event on the 2-speed auto.
A thin el-cheapo Britax full harness seatbelt combined with giant Ford Oval stickers behind the rear wheels to complete the ensemble, as you can imagine.
Alas no registration or licence. But it reliably took me on a 800 mile adventure to attend the 1974 Bathurst 1000 enduro. I loved the styling, including those distinctive small ‘blade’ hubcaps which, like the cars themselves, became much prized hereabouts. And who can forget the unique interior smell of those early 60’s Fords?
I liked those early Fairlane sport coupes. A friend of an older cousin drove his father’s 64, which had a 289 and a 4 speed. And I agree with Jim above, one of those with a 260 and an automatic probably kept you out of a lot of trouble a red-blooded teen boy could have gotten into.
I am confused about one detail – you call the wagon a Fairlane Squire, but the artwork is the big Galaxie-based Country Squire. Ford did a good job at maintaining a family resemblance in 1966, but here is a Fairlane Squire.
My mistake. It’s updated now.
I can relate, in a number of ways.
Yes, the 260 teamed with the 2-speed Fordomatic was a bit wheezy. The 289/C4 combo went a huge step to rectify that.
“Joe Friday” had a white one, as his personal ride”, on “Dragnet”.
I like these cars, I know they’re slow but they were work horses that didn’t take much space nor fuel .
My middle brother had a blue one in about 1972, it was rusty but ran okay, the heater core was plugged because he couldn’t follow the simple directions on a can of radiator stop leak .
-Nate
An airborne family car resulting in clumps of grass in the front suspension.
I’ve been there too…… summer of ’83.
Excellent story, thank you.
At age 15, just before my 16th birthday, I found a 1964 Ford Fairlane Sports Coupe with the 289ci V8 in it. It was Black with a white interior & was pretty cool for a young kid to have.
My Grandfather (Dad’s side) had a ’63 Fairlane until he bought a ’72 Biscayne. He thought of it as a small car, used to complain it didn’t have enough weight (he equated heavier car to smooth ride, also not as likely to be affected by high winds) so likely that’s why he got the much larger Biscayne as his next (and final) car. The Fairlane was 4 door, baby blue, don’t know which engine but maybe the 6 with automatic.
He lived in Wilkes-Barre which is near Scranton (they share an airport). After Grandfather died in ’86, I got a chance to drive his Biscayne…we live 1800 miles away so we flew in and in lieu of renting a car, we used it for errands and kind of a joyride with a purpose, with my Grandmother (who never learned to drive) to see one of her brothers (who turned out not to be there but we used it as an excuse to visit the now departed Effort diner.
Turns out the last wedding I attended was my Cousin’s, which was in Moosic (part of Scranton)….we drove up in 2011 (other than for Funerals, my last trip to see relatives up there). Unfortunately it didn’t last, they divorced only a few years later.
It’s funny the perspective people have about cars…I was driving a ’74 Datsun 710 back in the day when we lived closer to my Grandparents (never lived closer than about a 3 hour driving trip away from them) same Grandmother who drove with us in the Biscayne thought my car was a sports car….she wasn’t into cars, but I think to her any smaller sized car than maybe a standard or intermediate was a sports car….certainly anyone who’s driven a 710 would hardly call it that, but of course she never learned to drive (neither did my other Grandmother).
Yes, I had one trip up there where I’d only had my learner’s permit….my other Grandmother was in the hospital and my Dad couldn’t get away from work, so I drove up with my Mother and did part of the driving….50 years ago (early 1974)…but we lived almost the closest we’d ever did to them, maybe a 5 hour one way trip.