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Regular Car Of The Past Review: A Look Back At The 1960 Ford Falcon (Before Mr. Regular Started Wrenching On It!)


Regular Car Of The Past Review: A Look Back At The 1960 Ford Falcon (Before Mr. Regular Started Wrenching On It!)

“Compact” had a connotation in 1960. If you owned a “compact” car you were bucking the long, low and wide trend that had been all the rage in Detroit for at least a decade. You were bypassing the idea of a powerful V8 for a small, thrifty engine that drank fuel at a pace that wasn’t akin to a waterfall into the Grand Canyon. You didn’t need every last Electro-whatzit and Astro-widget and whatever else in your car. You just needed enough power to move along without getting killed, enough brakes to stop, and enough comfort that you didn’t feel like you just escaped a gulag when you stepped out of the car. That’s it. You didn’t need tons of chrome, fins that were so sharp you could cut steak on them, Dagmar bumperettes that gave boulevard cruisers two great big rubber ta-tas, none of that mess. You just needed transportation, and right at the turn of the early 1960s, a small movement started to occur from the American companies: compact cars started to appear.

Mr. Regular of Regular Car Reviews owns this one, a 1960 Ford Falcon. Appearing about the same time as the Corvair and the Valiant, the Ford Falcon was a bare-bones, minimal gingerbread car meant to appeal to buyers who might have been tempted by the Volkswagen Beetle or other imports that were starting to chip away at the USDM marketplace. Unlike the rear-engined, air-cooled Corvair and the solid-but-strange Valiant, the Falcon had a lot going for it: a solid chassis, a low price, the ability to sit up to six adults if you really tried, solid fuel economy and cheap and easy maintenance. Often overshadowed by the cars that appeared on the same platform (Mustang and Maverick, among others), the Falcon is a solid root for 1960s and 1970s Ford products.

It should be noted that this car, known as the “Vagabond Falcon”, is no longer stock. It’s been resto-modded, but Mr. Regular has gone to great lengths to keep as much of the stock feel of the car as possible. It still sports steel wheels with hubcaps. It still has whitewall tires. And while it’s now powered by a V8, he quieted it down as much as possible and ran a single pipe out of the back. But prior to the Falcon’s conversion, he was sure to go over the dead-stock car beforehand. Check it out below!


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3 thoughts on “Regular Car Of The Past Review: A Look Back At The 1960 Ford Falcon (Before Mr. Regular Started Wrenching On It!)

  1. Chevy Hatin' Mad Geordie

    Although the Mustang was based on the 1964/5 model, I’m sure that most upgrades for its chassis could be used on this beauty – but try finding one! I’d keep it as stock-looking as this but swap in a hot Coyote motor or even a Cammer with those chassis upgrades to make one sweet little ride.

  2. PJ

    Being the owner of a once completely stock and restored 1960 Falcon in red with a white roof. I’ve since swapped in a healthy sbf, c4 and a narrowed 8.8″ diff.
    A lot of the Mustang stuff does translate, but the Mustang is wider so some Falcon stuff is still needed to make it work.
    I love my car, and its simplicity is part of its charm.

  3. THE FALCON

    This is funny.
    There’s a cream-colored 1960 Ford Falcon in my city/town/village/municipality.

    I was looking at it a few days ago and was thinking that those stock tires look even too narrow for the car’s own good.

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