(Words and photos by Scott Liggett) Last November when my friend, Carson Jaeger, first texted me pictures of a blue and white Galaxie 500. He was asking me what I thought it might be worth. He was trying to sell a ’60’s C10 pickup, but the prospective buyer wanted to trade this car as a part of the deal. Based on the pictures of the car in a dark warehouse, I did my best to give my buddy an idea what it might be worth. See the pictures below that Carson sent me that day.

You can see by these pictures, the old Galaxie was now parked inside. But, it definitely looked like it spent a good many years outside.

The interior of this Galaxie has a bench seat in a really cool two-tone blue, plus a very thick layer of dirt. Anyone who has lived in the farming heartland of this country has as much, or more dirt roads as paved ones. It is near impossible to keep a car clean if you live any distance down one of these dirt roads. Many do not waste time after a while and the car starts getting dirtier and dirtier inside and out.

Under the hood showed a very dirty FE based engine of unknown size. In 1964, Galaxies had options for 352, 390 and 427 FE engines. It was most likely a 352 by the blue valve covers and air cleaner; the 390 and 427’s got gold valve covers and air cleaners. The 352’s were also far more prevalent. But, in a 50 year old car, anything is possible.

Since Carson was constantly flipping cars, I just figured he would do a little work on it and sell it off for the next interesting car that came along. He was just starting college, but already had owned more 30 cars of all sorts. At this point, I really didn’t give it a second thought. I just got rid of my ’70 Caprice in order to finance a paint job on my ’65 Impala, so I had no interest in another project car taking up space in my garage.

About a week or so later, Carson calls me up saying he got the car running. He asked me if I wanted to come by and take a look at it. Being a gearhead, of course I wanted to go see a cool car. I grabbed my friend, John McHarness, and we headed over to look at the Galaxie.

In the waning evening light, this was my first view of the Galaxie. I noticed that fender patch fix right there in front right away. I have to give credit who did the repair, they went the extra mile to save the fender spear. I also noticed that this was a 2 door sedan, not a hardtop that was so popular in the ’60’s. After some research, I discovered of the fullsize Fords sold in 1964, only 13.000 were these 2 door sedans.

The front clip, and especially the grille and trim up front is in surprising good shape. All of the trim is still on the car. Even if a few pieces are dinged up pretty good, trying to find these pieces today is near impossible. All the glass is in great shape too with all four windows roll up and down perfectly.

These Galaxies have huge, flat trunk lids that can double a place to land a chopper in an emergency. These Galaxie 500’s had a bit of a fast back design, but not as dramatic as the 63 XL’s. You can really see the post design with each window in a frame.

The 9 foot long quarter panel on this side was pushed in, the the wheel lip was pulled back out to clear those tiny snow tires. One side had a Sears white wall snow tire and the other side had a JCPenney. The tires were so old and weather checked, I was stunned these tires held air at all. The narrow 14 inch steelies painted the same Guardsman Blue with the dog dishes really give it a cool look.

This is how I first saw the interior. There was smell of a car that sat closed up for decades with the faint whiff of mouse crap. The glove box had some mice nesting going on, but not bad. They didn’t chew up the fiberboard these old glove boxes were made from. They did munch on the original owner’s manual a bit. I didn’t think there was carpet in the car at first because off the ground in dirt. This was totally a farm car that never saw a vacuum in its interior. The oil filter box, empty oil jug, jumper cables, and other bits confirmed that Carson had done some work on the car to get it running.

That third pedal really got my attention. The column shifter said it was a 3 speed manual trans which piqued my interest even more. The door panels were on the back seat and also filthy, but appeared to be in really good shape. Carson had a box with all the window cranks, door handles and arm rests. The driver’s seat shows the usual wear on a car this old, but not bad at all. Overall, the interior looked liked all it needed was a thorough cleaning. A LOT of cleaning.

Now that is a lot dirt in the trunk. I don’t think I have ever seen a trunk this filthy that wasn’t pulled out of a lake. The original spare tire was still in here, along with all the pieces to the bumper jack.

Let’s get to the powerplant. Under the hood, was a very greasy blob in the shape of an FE big block. The blue valve covers and air cleaner from that era say it is a 352. The Galaxies that got 390’s had gold painted versions. But, after 50 years, it could have been replaced with any of the FE’s. There is a four barrel under the air cleaner.

At this point, Carson had already replaced the fuel pump, connected to a 1 gallon gas can, a full tune up and he had rebuilt the carb. He got it running, but it would drown in gasoline after a couple minutes of running. But, during that time, it ran smooth as silk.

The cool factor of this car jumped up quite a bit with a big block under the hood and manual transmission behind the man pedal.

Carson had a price of $2500.00 on it. I thought it was cool, but for me, it wasn’t $2500 cool. I had other priorities. A month or so goes by and Carson texted me a lower price. I still had control of my impulses and said no again.

I am sure you can tell where this ended up. Yes, the price dropped enough for the impulse control to get tossed out of the window. A few days later I had it towed to my garage.

Over the coming weeks, we will show you how this old farm derelict gets turned back into a daily driver without spending a bundle of money. Stayed tuned for part two.