The plan for any good muscle car, according to everything I was brought up to believe from youth, was simple: take one midsize two-door car built between 1964 and 1972. Order the most gutted stripper model you could that had the biggest, wildest, Dear God-power level engine on the list, and make sure you get the manual trans. Pick up from dealership, go home and swap on some go-fast goodies, and prepare to both become the racetrack hero and measure just how quickly you can come to voiding your bowels the first time you row through the gears. Drive the holy hell out of that machine until the gas crisis kicks you right in the berries, trade out for a Toyota Corolla, pretend you’re an adult, then swiftly kick yourself in the ass when you see what is probably your old hot rod crossing Barrett-Jackson’s block for at least ten times what you paid for it new. Do I have that down right?
Truth be told, not every car sold was an LS6 Chevelle, a Hemi Super Bee, or an Eliminator Cougar. Those are the highlights from the era. For every thundering, barely-legal machine there was a ton of pedestrian cars sold, and Ford sold one of the biggest, best kept secrets in town. For 1970, there were two versions of the Falcon: one was the final run of the original, small Falcon, then for 1970½ a new Falcon appeared. Effectively the most gutted form of the Fairlane that could be purchased, the Falcon 70½ is pretty much nothing more than a footnote, except for one really neat feature. The luxuries list was pretty much empty, but the engines list was wide-open. That meant you could jam the 429 Super Cobra Jet into a 3,200 pound two-door post car that screamed “cheap-ass” and that was that. It wasn’t a Torino Cobra, it wasn’t a fully optioned Fairlane. It was the most basic Ford your penny-pinching hide could get, and you wound up with a street sweeper with rubber floors and two broad benches…and a lot of leftover coin in your pocket.
One of the great pleasures of reading BangShift is finding new Fords that I didn’t know existed. I thought the Falcon was only made in Australia and didn’t know it was carried on in the States. With a 429SCJ in that fairly light body it must have been a flyer and a lot cheaper than the comparable Mustang – but that’s probably sadly not true today. I feel another bank job coming on and a ticket to that auction is already booked…
Nice, but I’ve never seen one, ever. How many of them were made this way? What was the production numbers?
The reason why many have never seen one of these cars is because not many were built. The mid-size Falcon was introduced as a mid year car and only 26,000 were made (2Dr Sedan). Of those less than 200 had a 429 in them,
There were 3 optional 429 engines: Thunder-Jet, Cobra-Jet and Super Cobra-Jet.
Mine came with a M code 351 C and rubber floor mats . this one is high end with a vinyl roof and carpet , the other weird thing is they are a post car with wing windows the Fairlane I had was the same formal roof but with no post . The Fairlane cobra and the Ranchero GT had the same lowline door panels .
Didn’t even look at the flea bay ad I was so excited to see a falcon holy shit the Marti report on my Ranchero says one of 190 with this engine trans code so its worth a 100 grand and if you break it down to one of 11 with my paint trim code its worth a million , and I can sell my radio delete plate out of the Falcon for 5000 bucks . mmmm terminal dreamland .
I have one of these in my garage. Got it from my grandpa who won it in a poker bet in 1976. Was my first car when I was 16 and will never get rid of it. It is just too beautiful.
90K, the carpet is buggered around the shifter, which has the incorrect shifter boot so what else would be dodgy on this still cool car? This dealership has lots of cake but they charge huge for them. This one will be a guaranteed no sale at this price, and they should be embarrassed about the carpet, that’s pathetic.