Maybe that’s a harsh assessment, but bear with me. The mid-to-late sixties was a great time for American car design and it was difficult to find an unattractive model from any manufacturer. I don’t think this 1966 Ford Fairlane 500 was the best looking sedan of its era, but there are worse things to be than “generic.”
I saw this blue sedan while carving pumpkins on a friend’s porch last Halloween. The taillights scream Ford, but without seeing the double stacked headlights up front, it’s otherwise hard to identify. I didn’t take very good pictures of the car, and had to search for some online. Most of the good ones I could find were of the coupe, so it would seem the four-doors aren’t the most sought after today. That, along with the lack of a hardtop variant, suggests the Fairlane sedan didn’t get quite enough attention from Ford.
The overall look is, dare I say it, dowdy. If you think that’s unfair, consider the expectations of the new-for-1966 Fairlane. Ford was expected to atone for the poorly received styling of its first generation intermediate while bringing the new Fairlane’s looks in line with both its full-size sedans and the sporty Mustang.
While double-stacked headlights suggest sportiness, shades of Brougham are evident in the decorated taillights. Coming from the company which recently introduced the Ford LTD, this isn’t far-fetched. Considered in isolation, the front and the rear styling is well done but together, they give conflicting impressions. The sides of the car–almost identical to the Falcon’s–look like an afterthought, with gently curving A and C pillars that clash with the straight lines of the body’s lower half. The upright B-pillar and low-rent painted metal window frames don’t help.
To be fair, the Chevy Chevelle also shared the latter feature, but the lack of a rear quarterlight made for a more uncluttered appearance, as did the availability of a stylish hardtop.
The Plymouth Belvedere and Dodge Coronet, which like the Fairlane only offered a pillared four-door variant, were at least committed to their severe, rectilinear shape. With a taller canopy and deeply sculptured shoulders, they were styled with a seemingly greater sense of purpose.
And the Rambler Classic, in its final year, at least managed uniform simplicity. The Fairlane’s mid-sixties pastiche was inconsistent by comparison.
It’s not that I think the ’66 Fairlane is a bad looking car, but there’s a reason it’s not as easily distinguished as the midsize competition. The front end, almost certainly Pontiac-inspired, is its best looking aspect. It lends an aggressive appearance and is very well matched to the coupe’s styling in particular, where the slight coke-bottle influence makes much more sense. The coupe pictured, incidentally, is a GT model equipped with a 335 horsepower 390 CID (6.4 liter) V8 with a four-barrel carb and dual exhausts. A handful were built with an enormous 427 (7-liter) V8 with 425 horsepower and a four-on-the-floor.
As we see, our featured car came with the famous 289 “Challenger” V8 (that’s 4.7 liters) with 200 gross horsepower. With thin-wall casting, Ford’s small-block V8 was lighter than any competitor’s.
At some point the owner upgraded it with dual exhausts, although flat tires mean his or her interest in the car might have ebbed.
I can’t necessarily blame them. If I were to own a intermediate sedan from this era, I would likely choose a Plymouth Belvedere or one of the GM A-body hardtops. This Fairlane, as benign looking as it is, strikes me as the product of an increasingly cynical and conservative company. Given what I’ve read about the ’66-’67 Fairlane, my opinion may be heretical. Fortunately, I know our readers will make convincing arguments that add to my perspective.
A little generic maybe, but there is a LOT of mid-sixties goodness there. And some great hardtops and convertibles in the mix. These looked awfully good during the ’80s parked next to the front drive wonder that was supposed to be good for us.
Driver training car. The year I took the class my high school had a ’67 Fairlane 500 with that stupid ‘top hat’ chest protector, which I guess was to try and get around the federal mandate for collapsible steering columns.
Absolutely boring, generic, and the teacher went bat-shit if you tried shifting the transmission manually. But it sure beat sitting in band practice.
The only other memory I have of the car was in one of the other driving sessions. One of the girls was driving, doing about 45mph, when the teacher said, “pull over and park it” to change drivers. So of course, without letting off the gas or doing anything else, she grabbed the lever and slammed it into park.
She didn’t live that one down for the rest of the school year.
I don’t think “generic” is quite the right word. More like “typical.” If you asked me to point to a car with “typical mid-60’s styling,” I’d probably say ’66 Fairlane. Handsome, but not particularly eye-catching for the times.
Which is only logical, really. From its inception, the midsize car was meant to be an appliance. Roomier and more solid-driving than a compact, but minus the ostentatious-ness and potentially poor maneuverability of a full-size.
In the context of the 1960s, I think the Fairlane more than holds its own. Its look is very much connected with that of the 1966 full-sized Fords. I remember when all of these were brand-new (I was twelve at the time); I never cared much for the 1966-67 Chevelles, no matter the trim level; the Satellite/Coronet looked OK, but maybe a bit too angular for my taste; Ramblers were also-rans that weren’t even on my radar. Particularly in the case of the Chevelle, no matter the trim level, there was a bloated plainness about the car that just made it look frumpy, inside and out. The other GM intermediates carried off their look far better, I think. The Fairlane pulled everything together better, I thought, than the Chevy, though it looks a bit bland nearly 40 years later. The interiors of the Fairlanes also showed more connection with their full-sized relatives than did those of the Chevelles. (This reached a high point with 1970’s Torino Brougham, which seemed every bit the equal of the full-sized LTD.) For what it’s worth, I think I see more old Fairlanes on the road these days than I do Chevelles, at least here in dry southern Arizona.
A good looker but so was just about everything from Detroit back then.If I had the time,space and money I’d have one
I agree that ford didn’t try very hard on the 4-door sedan, but the question is: did that cost them in sales? I bet it didn’t much at all.
It’s interesting that the 2dr hardtop is SO much better looking. I think this is another example of the design of the front and rear ends being designed with the hardtop body and then just throwing a typical 4dr sedan body in and using the same front/rear treatment.
An interesting piece of trivia: the front sheetmetal from a ’66/’67 Fairlane and ’66-’69 Falcon are 100% interchangable as a unit. You can take a Fairlane front clip and put it on a Falcon and everything will line up perfectly. The 66-67 Fairlane and Falcon station wagon bodies are the same too.
The cowl is also identical between the Falcon and Fairlane, and I’d bet the front doors of the sedans are interchangable too. I’d ask all CC’rs- is this the first example of what Chrysler later did with the K Car? Stretching a platform behind the cowl to make a different model?
This has been going on forever, almost. The 1929 Pontiac was a stretched Chevy. And so on.
In more recent times, with this family of cars, the 1960 Comet was a stretched Falcon. But that was just the beginning. Full story here: https://www.curbsideclassic.com/automotive-histories/automotive-history-fords-falcon-platform-from-falcon-to-versailles-in-18-different-wheelbase-lengthtrack-width-variations/
Isn’t it remarkable that the man who ran the Vietnam War so disastrously also gave us the craptastic Falcon? Drawn on a napkin wasn’t it?
And the Falcon spread its bad genes throughout the Ford corporate body. In Australia they literally fell apart.
The Mopar products were so much better than Ford’s it really makes you wonder why Chrysler didn’t reclaim the #2 position in the 1960’s.
That’s because these two cars are essentially the same. The four doors share their whole center sections, and only the front clip is different. The Fairlane’s wheelbase is extended at the rear by 5″, which can be seen by that space behind the rear door cutout, which the Falcon doesn’t have.
Ford saved a lot of money by just turning the ’66 Falcon into a slightly shorter Fairlane.
They made a fairly good car out of it too.
I see a lot of Ford Cortina Mk2 in the Falcon
The fact that this car shared so many dimensions with the Falcon would explain why these always seemed just a bit smaller than the Chevelle or the Mopar B body (despite the Fairlane’s 116 inch wb being one inch longer than the Chevelle’s). Of course, the Mopar was a heavy restyle of the full-sized 1962 car.
Very AMC of them. But it really made the Falcon wagons pointless which muddied up the marketing a bit.
I firmly believe that almost ALL cars, from this era, with AMC as an exception, were designed as 2 dr. pillarless hardtops. The lines prove it, and adding pillars and the two back doors, while a necessity, were an afterthought. However, for the most part, GM did it best.
Sometimes…
In Australia, our Fairlane for ’66-’68 used the Falcon fenders and hood with a locally-designed four-headlight grille. Also, our Falcons used the Fairlane rear door and carried the mid-body character line through to the round taillights. So the styling similarity between the cars was even more obvious; as the Falcon was the mass-market car, the upmarket Fairlane was seen as Falcon-derived not vice-versa.
I wonder if the same is true for the Mustang/Falcon. I know the Mustang is based on the Falcon but I wonder if the front clips would actually interchange without extensive cutting.
No, for two reasons. The Mustang’s whole passenger compartment was pushed to the rear, compared to the Falcon sedan, which explains its much smaller back seat. Also, the whole cowl is lower, since the Mustang seats were down lower on the floor.
Of course, with a little work, anything is possible, like this Falcougar: https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/cc-outtake-from-thailand-bizarre-falcon-cougar-mashup/
It was 6:10 PM , it was raining in Los Angeles,…… Good enough Joe Friday//Dragnet
On alonely road looking for a shortcut that didnt exist… David Vincent
David Vincent used a Galaxie convertible in the opening credits of the Invaders. Althought he did used a 1966-67 Fairlane in the episode “Moonshot” as well as a Falcon in another episode. http://www.imcdb.org/movie_61265-The-Invaders.html
I think the folks of the tv series “The FBI” also used briefly some Fairlanes.
doh!
11:45 PM…Detective Gannon and I returned to Parker Center……
If I recall correctly, during this era, the two-door hardtop versions of intermediates were more popular than their four-door sedan counterparts. While the sedans do look dowdy, that probably didn’t hurt overall Fairlane sales, which were quite good for 1966. In those days, the hardtop coupes were the style leaders. The sleeker roofline and lack of a B pillar help this car immensely – much more so than its GM competition.
By the same token, I doubt that GM’s decision to offer a four-door hardtop variant in its intermediate lines really garnered that many additional sales. (It’s interesting that Ford finally offered a four-door hardtop intermediate in 1970, and it only lasted through 1971.)
I believe that 1966 Fairlane sales were up strongly over the 1965 figure, even though the overall market was down for that year. The only intermediate that outsold the Fairlane was the Chevrolet Chevelle/Malibu.
The stacked headlights aped the big 1965 Fords, which, in turn, had copied the 1963 full-size Pontiacs. A little originality on Ford’s part would have been nice here.
Actually Lincoln started the stacked headlight craze in 1957 with the Lincoln Premiere. The next two years they used the stacked/canted arrangement. Chrysler followed suit in 1961 and 1962 with the canted arrangement. Pontiac used the vertical stack from 1963 through 1967, Cadillac 1965 through 1968, Ford 1965 through 1967 and AMC on their Ambassador in 1966 and 1967. Just about every manufacturer took a crack at it, some more successfully than others.
This front sheetmetal went on the Aussie Fairlane 70/71 it looked ok on those the inside was only plush Falcon and 302 C4 9inch underneath I shared the driving in one down Aussies east coast yeah good cruising car but only mechanically and styling similar to the US Fairlane which sold new in NZ as did the later Aussie version someone at Ford NZ liked em too so we got both. The earlier Aussie version had side by side 4 headlights and didnt look so good and more obviously a stretched Falcon.
The Au market always looked a bit more expensive than the U.S version to me, Bryce, but that is only going from illustrations.
How did they compare in reality (and New Zealand) 😉
back then. the two door hardtop was king. all the glamour publicity shots were of them, even for full sizes. 4 doors were utilitarian and not for people that cared about what their car looked like, except on highline luxury cars. sometime in the 80s that changed and two doors began to disappear. I bet people who grew up in the 80s and later mostly don’t realize that…
Ford Australia have only just ceased this practice for the local Fairlane the corporate cab market had to go Caprice or like our govt go BMW or Merc
Cash flow is a little tight right now, but I would take that blue Fairlane sedan in a heartbeat….
Count me as a fan of the 66-67 Fairlane. In my teens, I would have been all over one of these, and there was plenty of opportunity, as these were everywhere.
There was a young neighbor couple who had a 67 Fairlane convertible that the wife had bought new when she graduated college and got her first job. Ten years later, it was still pretty nice. I preferred the 67 Galaxie convertible I bought about that time, but that metallic beige Fairlane with its 289 would not have been kicked out of my driveway.
A co-worker around that time had a copper 67 hardtop that was really slick. A kid in high school had a beige 67 hardtop as well. Come to think of it, every one of these I came across was a 67 and not a 66.
Of course, anyone of my age or older will think of Joe Friday and Dragnet with this car. I believe that they drove a 67 as well (with the sport steering wheel).
My dad factory-ordered a new 64 Fairlane Sports Coupe in Guardsman Blue, what we considered to be a very good looking car at the time. As Paul noted in the earlier piece, the styling of the 64 pretty much sorted out the problems with the 62-63. Then along came that hideous 65 (don’t tell SaabKyle04 over on Youtube I said that) – no one could believe it. So when the 66 came out, it seemed pretty handsome by comparison, especially the hardtop and convertible.
Falcon was the odd man out by then, I think, too big and lacking any sporty pretensions (and Mustang had taught everyone to look love those), running on borrowed time. I had a friend in high school whose parents bought her a new 66 Falcon Future coupe, red with black interior, 289 and buckets. She wanted a Mustang, would have settled for a Fairlane coupe, but was disappointed with the image of a Falcon.
“This Fairlane, as benign looking as it is, strikes me as the product of an increasingly cynical and conservative company.”
I think I see where you’re going with this – the bloated Mustangs and T-Birds and the Mark III to come, the emphasis on bulk and glitz, and saving money through platform sharing. Not sure I’m seeing this Fairlane as a harbinger, though.
In 1966 there was a Fairlane 500 GT with 390 and 4 speed that in my home town that ruled the hot factory cars. We had an up hill main street and I can still remember the sound of it’s dual exhaust rumbling up the street; it would shake the windows of the buildings as it burbled by. Always thought these were the coolest hard tops.
Perry, thanks for this write-up. You have expressed very well what I have felt for years: while these were “nice” enough, they were nowhere near best-of-breed, and I’d rank them last among Big 3 midsize offerings, though they are far from bad in any way. My modern day analogy would be the Camry. Excels at being “fine” and “good enough,” selling well to brand loyalists, but not great or interesting by any stretch of the imagination. I do, however, love seeing these doing their “work” when I watch period pieces like Dragnet on Netflix. Seeing these cars new, clean and fresh and doing their job, pretty much sums up what these cars were all about.
Nice write up Perry. These pics prove once again that just about any car back then looked good as a hardtop. That GT is sweet.
The Fairlane was, in my opinion, a whole lot better looking than the Chevelle, which appeared to have been inflated like a hot-air balloon. The Fairlane looked like it did not have a wasted line on it.
Yes, nice article. I’m a fan of the 66/67 Fairlanes – especially after the 65’s which I thought were just plain ugly.
As far as sports models go, the GT or GT/A hardtop with the S code 390 is a “real deal” muscle car – even though the 390 was not given much “street cred”, the ones I’ve driven in were pretty brutal and quick………
From what I heard over the years, 390 Fairlanes got spanked by everything.
The GT 4 barrel 390 was a true high performance FE engine and was fairly stout. Add a set of headers to replace the restrictive factory cast iron units and they were hard to beat.
Then for some reason in 1967, the 289 was made standard in the GT with 2 or 4 barrel 390’s made optional.
Only the 2 barrel 390’s got spanked. It was actually just a TBird engine.
That’s the one that gave the 390 a bad rep.
Growing up in Philly in the 60s, our next door neighbor had the wagon version in a turquoisey blue color. One day he painted the trim and shutters of the house the same color. When he was done he had lots of leftover paint, so he painted the flower pots on the stoop. I left, and rode around the neighborhood a while on my bike. When I returned, he was brushing the paint on the Fairlane. Things got a little sloppy around the door handles.
Ha!
The top pictured car is a mash-up of 2 years. The side trim and grill are ’67, but this is a ’66 car by the looks of the tail lights and small inside mirror.
Also, it appears the center grill bar is body colored, which is definitely not stock, and the Ford crest has been removed from said grill bar. Those spotlights don’t help it’s cause any, nor do the Magnum wheels and ugly tailpipes. All in all, a misguided “customizing” attempt by a clueless individual.
The 1965 Ford Fairlane was pretty ugly. I owned a 1966 Fairlane 500 2 door hdtp with a 289 and then a1967 Fairlane XL (dk green w/saddle interior) flloor shift & buckets. These were great cars and stylish. Back the, 4 doors weren’t considered. Most of my friends had Mopar or General Motors cars so mine stuck out.