Ford Falcons for Sale

In the 1950s, compact cars were on the rise, and the Bi...

In the 1950s, compact cars were on the rise, and the Big Three took notice. For 1960, Chrysler introduced the Plymouth Valiant, GM brought out the Chevrolet Corvair, and Ford came in with the Comet and Falcon. The cars from Dearborn would prove the clear winners of the segment.

The Corvair and Valiant were technologically innovative, but neither appealed to mainstream buyers as much as the highly conventional Ford offerings. The Falcon and Comet were essentially the same car, but the Comet?intended as a part of the luxurious Edsel line?was longer and fancier. Both used a 144-cu.in. OHV straight-six engine, liquid-cooled and located in the front, running torque to a live rear axle through a three-speed manual or two-speed automatic transmission.

The bodies were clearly styled after larger Ford products, and even the chassis, despite its unitized construction, was commonplace, with a ball-joint independent suspension up front and parallel leaf springs in the rear. And apart from some re-engineering for 1961 to simplify and reduce the costs of manufacture, the Falcon changed very little in its ?round-body? years of 1960-?63.

A semi-sporty bucket-seat version called the Futura debuted for 1961 to compete with the Corvair Monza. A 170-cu.in. engine also became optional. Part way through 1962, Ford added the Futura Sports model, which had a new Thunderbird-like roofline and a British-built floor-shift four-speed manual transmission. But while the Blue Oval moved lots of Falcon sedans and station wagons, the youth market favored the Chevy, which offered a turbocharger and, as of 1962, a convertible body.

For 1964, Ford responded by giving the Falcon more aggressive, angular styling. It also put its Windsor 260-cu.in. small-block V-8 (designed for the slightly larger Fairlane and Meteor) into a reinforced Falcon chassis, creating the Sprint. This model came only in convertible and two-door hardtop body styles and included sporty features like bucket seats and floor-shift transmissions (such as the Toploader four-speed). But it didn?t do much good. The Mustang, which was essentially a Falcon Sprint cloaked in a new body, debuted in April 1964 and would spell the end of performance Falcons in the states. Even when the 289 became available in late 1964, Falcon Sprint sales still suffered, and the sporty model did not return after 1965.

Ford changed the line dramatically for the car?s third generation, which spanned model years 1966 to 1970. It dropped the hardtops and convertibles, leaving only sedan and wagon bodies. The chassis, now with a 111.0-inch wheelbase (up from 109.5), was a shorter version of that found under the redesigned full-size Fairlane. For this reason, the third-gen Falcon would become known to enthusiasts as the ?big bird,? even capable of accommodating a big-block engine (though Ford never offered a V-8 larger than the 302 in these cars).

Unfortunately for Ford, Plymouth restyled the Valiant for 1963 and again in 1967, both times making it more conventionally attractive. That plus its mechanical superiority over the Falcon led compact buyers away from the Ford. Having lost its grip on the market, the Falcon was slated for replacement by the new Maverick.

The nameplate briefly returned for the 1970 ½ model year, when Ford repositioned the Falcon as an intermediate car below the Fairlane. Remarkably, this model was available with any Ford V-8, including the 429-cu.in. Cobra Jet.

The current value of Falcons varies considerably. Rare, performance models like Sprint convertibles can be quite pricey, whereas basic six-cylinder sedans are affordable. Luckily for Falcon enthusiasts, the car shares many parts with Mustangs, which means you should have no trouble finding what you need to restore and upgrade a lesser model.

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