The 1960 Ford Was A Big Styling (And Sales) Flop — Here’s How It Might Have Looked

Yes, the 1960 Ford has fans. But the sad reality is that there weren’t nearly enough of them around in 1960 to keep it from being a serious sales flop, down 34% from 1959. It was rushed into production because Ford had intelligence about the bat-wing 1959 Chevrolet and was afraid it would eat the staid and angular ’59 Ford’s box lunch. So they grasped for a quick fix—and it backfired. The 1960 Ford was flawed in many ways, mostly in being oversized, overweight and overwrought. Since they were stuck with that basic body through 1964, it hurt Ford all those years.

I’ve often pondered what the 1960 Ford should have looked, and then I recently stumbled into the answer in a most unlikely place. I was surprised at how close it was to the mental image I had created for myself. So now I can finally share both of those with you: a better 1960 Ford.

Before I reveal it to you, we need to first set the scene properly. The sharp 1957 recession ushered in an era of economic uncertainty that persisted through 1961. This had a huge impact on the car market, with a massive shift to cheaper and smaller cars. Big cars were suddenly out, and their market share took the first of many successive drops in 1958. Meanwhile Rambler sales exploded in 1958, championed by George Romney: “Has the gas-guzzling dinosaur passed its peak?” It actually seemed so at the time. The Big Three all committed to building their own compacts for 1960 in late 1957 and at least two of them also reduced the size of their future full-size cars. Not Ford.

The timing for all of this hit Ford particularly hard, as they had launched a massive program to increase their share of the mid-price market long dominated by GM. This involved a very expensive effort to push Mercury upmarket starting in 1957, to launch the new Edsel in 1958 and a huge new Lincoln in the same year. That all ended in tears; the timing couldn’t have been worse.

Let’s look at the styling language of the Ford family of cars in these years leading up to the 1960. The all-new ’57 Ford was generally an attractive car for its times, with the exception perhaps of its bulging headlights. It walked a middle line between the flamboyant and finned ’57 Chrysler family and the older Chevy and Pontiac.

The new ’57 Mercury rode on essentially the same chassis as the Ford, with a wheelbase stretch to the front (and rear on the top-tier Park Lane). The key differences are that the Mercury body is wider on the outside and also boxier, with more vertical sides that actually bulge out as they approach the beltline, creating wide “shoulders” there. The ’57-’58 Ford’s sides were trimmer and resulted in a narrower car. The Mercury’s flat but wide sides and the narrower upper body greenhouse created a distinct look that would become a Ford trademark for some time, one I have called “the two-box look”.

The ’57 Mercury was the forerunner of a line of Ford Co. styling themes that would be seen well into the ’60s. It’s a rather orthodox three-box shape, the kind that would become dominant in the sixties. If one mentally removes some of the extrusions and such, this could be the basis of a long line of Ford products.

The Mercury body really emphasized its width at the rear, and although it had the same front track as the Ford, its rear track was 3″ wider, although it might have looked better with an even wider rear track.

The 1958 Edsel bridged these two bodies, and in a rather clever way. The lower price Ranger/Pacer (top) used the narrower Ford body; note how its “shoulders” just below the side windows are relatively narrow just like the Ford. The higher price Corsair/Citation (bottom) used the wider Mercury body, but both lines used the same front end (bumper, grille, headlights, hood, etc.). But the Corsair/Citiation used different front fenders that flared out to match the wider Mercury body, with a very noticeable extrusion on the upper side of the fender to match up with the wide “shoulders” of the Mercury body at the front door.

The Ford got an extensive external make-over for 1959, although undoubtedly many key internal hard points and structural body pressings like were carried over, as well as the whole chassis.

The visual similarities of the new ’59 Ford (bottom) and the ’58 Mercury (top) can be startling, especially with these two base versions. One might easily assume the Ford just took over the Mercury’s body, or major portions of it. The Ford has adopted the Mercury’s wider “shoulders” and a number of other visual elements. But looks can be deceiving; digging into their key dimensions confirms that the Ford body is still using the narrower ’57-’58 body hard points, with the same interior hip and shoulder measurements as the ’57 and ’58, whereas the Mercury’s are greater due to it wider body.

Despite the stylistic similarities of their front ends, the two were different in all the details, most importantly in that the Mercury’s (bottom) front wheels were 4″ further forward than the Ford’s (top), making it impossible to share anything from the cowl forward. The front doors appear to be roughly the same size, but again a closer look shows that they were different, as in the shape at their rear trailing edge where it meets the rear door. Again, an initial look can be deceiving.

But clearly the ’59 Ford was heavily inspired by the ’57-’58 Mercury. Ford was going in a boxy and more formal direction,  exactly the opposite from the competition.

The 1957 Chrysler Corp. line, which was originally intended for 1958, was a radical departure from the established styling norms at the time, and threw GM into a crisis after GM stylist Chuck Jordan spotted an early production car behind a Chrysler facility. That caused a panicked redo of their planned ’59 line, which was heavy and overwrought. These Chrysler Corp. cars are very different from the boxy Fords, and although they claimed “Suddenly it’s 1960”, in reality, they were a stylistic dead end. Their successors from 1960-on shared same basic hard points and overall shapes, but they had wandered into a stylistic wilderness.

The complete redo of the GM ’59 line resulted in cars that need no introduction or explanation here. In the case of the Chevrolet and Pontiac, it was a particularly startling move since they both just had new bodies in 1958. Again, this was very different than the boxy Ford look.

According to this history of the 1960 Ford, unlike GM, Ford decided not to respond to the ’57 Chryslers with something similarly bold, but to stay safe with a quite conservative restyle of the ’57-’58 body for 1959. But when it was clear that the ’57 Chrysler line was a success, Ford styling chief Joe Oros started work on a finned car in an advanced styling studio, just in case…

The so-called “Concept” went through a number of evolutions, but the one key design feature throughout it was a horizontal fin that started at the front of the car, carrying all the way through.

This can be seen very clearly at the front, which was not yet finalized here.

As it progressed to its final iteration, it eventually acquired the name “Quicksilver”.

Ford got intelligence about what GM was up to for 1959, especially the Chevy. Just like GM styling had been shaken by seeing the ’57 Chrysler line, so now Ford was shaken by the knowledge that the ’59 Chevy was to be a wild, bat-winged all-new car. The planning had been that the 1960 Ford would be a direct evolution of the ’59, with a new body in 1961.

But Jim Wright, the new head of the Ford Division, was deeply worried that the conservative ’59 was going to get clobbered by Chevy’s radically finned ’59. This thinking took hold, and management now looked to the Quicksilver as the quick solution.

The result was the 1960 Ford, reasonably faithful to the concept, although it did lose the curved side windows. It did keep the side fins, which protruded from the already-wide new body, for a total width of 81.5″, which exceeded the maximum for passenger cars in some states, an issue quickly resolved with exemptions. Even without the side fins, this new body was large, wide and heavy, and this would be a burden for all big Fords through 1964 which would have to use this basic body with some annual external styling changes.

Fords of this era weighed some 100-350 lbs more than comparable Chevys, which did nothing for their performance given that Ford V8s were consistently more sluggish than the competition, and the Ford automatics of the time shifted rather slower and were less efficient. The results in vintage road tests of the time were significantly these slower 0-60 times than comparable competitors with similar hp-rated engines. Here’s just a few examples.

1960 Ford Starliner, 300 hp 352 V8, 3-speed automatic:  11.1 secs.

1962 Ford Galaxie, 175 hp 292 V8, 2-speed automatic:  16.2 secs.

1961 Ford Galaxie, 300 hp 390 V8, 3-speed automatic: 9.8 seconds

1964 Ford Custom, 195 hp 289 V8, 3-speed automatic: 15.2 secs.

The 1960 was also very long, at 213.7″, and its rear overhang, one of the longest ever and longest in percentage of its overall length, was noted as being problematical when parking and such in a vintage review. But regardless of subjective feelings about the 1960 Ford, it clearly was impressive in its purity of design, in looking like it managed to avoid too much committee meddling—for better or for worse.

And it was for the worse. No one has seemingly published a precise timeline as to the decisions regarding the ’60 Ford, but it must have been in the fall or winter of 1957-1958. By this time, the recession was well underway, and sales of the big 1958 cars were already under great pressure.

This was all-too clear to Ford management, as the new ’58 Edsel stumbled badly out of gate in the fall of 1957. Everyone except Rambler saw sales declines, especially the bigger and more expensive mid-priced brands. Big car’s share of the market began their huge drop starting at this time, dropping from 94.4% in 1957 to 86.2% in 1958. And as this chart shows, that was just the beginning of a vertiginous drop until 1962, when there was a brief respite before resuming its terminal decline.

Bringing out the biggest, widest, longest and heaviest car ever in the low price field in the middle of a period of economic uncertainty that lasted through 1961 turned out to be a very big mistake.

Especially so since GM read the tea leaves and their 1961 line of cars went exactly the opposite direction: lighter, shorter, narrower and even a bit taller, with improved interior space utilization, better performance and economy, and most of all, with styling that clearly conveyed a lither, trimmer and leaner car better suited for the times. The timing was perfect, and full size Chevrolets between 1961 and 1964 crushed the big Fords, outselling them by over 2:1 in 1962. That was a brutal blow to Ford’s ambitions to increase market share.

Undoubtedly the 1960 Falcon ate into 1960 big Ford sales to a considerable degree, but there’s simply no way to get around the fact that 1960-1964 big Ford sales were a major disappointment to Ford and set back its ambitions.

Having seen the error of their way, Ford toned down the styling for 1961. The front end is almost generic and the large round Ford taillights reappeared. Cleaving the side fins brought its width to just under 80″, and its tail was clipped by a few inches. Not that it helped; sales dropped further. Subsequent restyles in ’62, ’63 and ’64 worked to make it more palatable, and they do have their fans, but the excessive width and bulk make all of them feel rather heavy visually, belying their actual weight issues.

So what could Ford have done instead? I’ve pondered this question for some time over the years.

Somewhat ironically, some of the answer to that was right there, in the form of the 1959 Edsel, whose front end (except for the vertical center section) was much more modern and even leading edge for the time—with the headlights integrated into the grille—than the more old-fashioned 1959 Ford front end. The Edsel’s bumper is also much better integrated into the design.

The Edsel (top) was significantly cleaner at the sides and rear too. Imagine the Galaxie’s roof on the Edsel body; now we’re starting to build a better 1960 Ford.

We must not fail to credit the 1958 “squarebird” Thunderbird, which was of course the source of its distinctive roof as well as a lot of that Ford square-body look.

Since the Edsel was the most modern-styled of the ’59s, it should not be surprising that the 1960 Comet followed in its footsteps, as it was originally intended to be a compact Edsel. Its front end was a direct development of the ’59 Edsel’s, with its smooth and clean leading edge above the very straight-forward grille.

I propose that the Comet was the most forward-looking of all of the new 1960-1961 compacts, inasmuch as it better predicted the styling trends that became predominant in the ’60s: clean, unfussy, generally boxy, but in a good way, and with a formal roof, although we’ll have to eliminate the goofy canted taillights in the little fins—they would mostly be gone by ’62. But with the exception of that, it is more predictive than any of the others, and it truly does live up to the tag line “…only compact car with fine car styling”. That was undoubtedly a reference to the Thunderbird, whose C-pillar the Comet had of course also appropriated.

The Comet’s styling was undoubtedly a key to its success, handily outselling all of the 1961 GM “senior” compacts.

Speaking of, these 1961 GM compacts from Buick, Olds and Pontiac were not stylistic successes, and they look several years older than the Comet. Too fussy, and the 6-window roof is a throwback to the ’50s.

So it’s not surprising that the new ’64 GM A-bodies follow the basic stylistic themes of the 1960 Comet. Chrysler had already headed down that road with their restyled ’63 Plymouth and Dodge, and the Valiant and Dodge would come to be perhaps the ultimate exponents of the boxy 3-box look.

Everyone assumes that the 1965 Chrysler was heavily influenced by the 1961 Continental, and undoubtedly it was, given that Elwood Engel is credited with both. The ’61 Continental is widely given credit for instigating a sea-change in styling, with its slab sides and boxy proportions.

But let’s not forget that the ’60 Comet mostly got there first, and was made in massively more numbers, some 300k in its short first year and 1961.

So with a bit of imagination, let’s stretch the Comet a bit in length and width in our minds, and give it the trademark big Ford afterburner taillights where the ’62-’63 Comet’s taillights were. Is that working for you?

And of course, a Starliner version.

A trimmer, lighter, and boxier version of the real thing (’61 shown).

One that would be a much more direct segue to the…trimmer, lighter, and boxier ’65 Ford.

That’s the mental picture I made for myself; unfortunately I don’t do Photoshop, or I would try to turn a Comet into a full-size 1960 or 1961 Ford.

But it turns out I’m not the only one who’s been imagining a different 1960 Ford.

I was Googling for 1960 Ford images when this lilac-colored one appeared among the others. Whoa! That’s not a 1960 Ford! But it…looks kind of like what I’ve been imagining what the 1960 could and should have looked like. This is of course generated by AI, and it’s how I came upon that “Classic Car Guide” which is mostly full of hallucinations. But in some cases, these hallucinations have some basis in reality, or at least an alter-reality that rather jives with my own imaginings. I rather like this, even if it could use a bit of professional help.

I wouldn’t have put in those eyebrows, and instead just used the clean hood leading edge from the ’59 Edsel and ’60 Comet. There’s a few other details that could use some help, but other than that it really does look like a fairly realistic evolution of the 1959 Ford body. All the distinctive 1959 Ford body underlying elements are there: somewhat boxy overall proportions, the wide “shoulders” at the belt line, the wheel openings, the curved windshield, although I’d have liked to see that go away for 1960. But there’s some nice improvements too; the distinctive Ford C-pillar is now a bit sportier with a mild rake.

Which foreshadows the roof on the 1963 Fairlane.

Except for the windshield, this hallucination predicts the future of Ford styling trends much better than the actual 1960, which turned out to be a one-off, an outlier, a rushed mistake.

So what about 1961?

Here’s what this AI generator thinks the actual ’61 Galaxie looks like. And once again, except for the details of the front end, I prefer it to the real thing, as it’s also more evolutionary and doesn’t look as wide and heavy and earth-bound as the real thing.

I’m not suggesting these are brilliant or perfect or even great, but they were an unexpected visual aid in expressing my own mental picture of how the big Ford would and could have evolved from 1959 on without taking the quicksilver detour. And they would have been much more in tune with the times, which favored trimmer and cleaner-styled cars.

 

Related CC reading:

Curbside Classic: 1960 Ford Starliner – Haste Makes Waste

Curbside Classic (For Sale): 1959 Edsel Ranger Six 4-Door Sedan – For $950 OBO You Can Own The Most Advanced Styled American 1959 Car

1959 Ford Fairlane 500 Galaxie – “Thunderbird In Looks, Thunderbird In Luxury”

Which Car Had The Longest Rear Overhang? The Top 10 In Absolute Length And Percentage Of Body Length

Automotive History: Who Killed the Big American Car?