Regular Car Reviews: 1960 Ford Falcon (stock)

this is a 1960 Ford Falcon in stock form it's Robert McNamara's love letter to bean-counting the Ford Falcon was America's first modern economy car I say modern economy car because the Model T and Model A were also economical but in a farm tractor Old Testament mass in Latin Hand Crank Tom Joad way see the Falcon was designed to be easy to drive easy to assemble and easy to repair while model T's were just designed to be assembled easy and repaired easy flashback to the mid 50s in Robert McNamara who later became the future Secretary of Defense under the Kennedy administration he was the president of Ford's vehicle division that doesn't mean he's the president of Ford the vehicle division was responsible for number crunching and combing your hair combing your hair remember that episode of old Top Gear where Jeremy Clarkson was making fun of a 1980s a Lincoln Town Car and he said something to the tune of I'd like to see the designers part in his hair and he goes he's talking about Robert McNamara McNamara was so uncool to borrow a line from Calvin and Hobbes he had a head for numbers and not much else Lee Iacocca said of McNamara McNamara didn't have a passion for cars he viewed them as just numbers on a spreadsheet McNamara never wanted to party or even enjoy his Ford money he didn't he didn't believe in luxury in cars or in life ever use a McNamara condom it's just wax paper and a rubber band what McNamara liked was reducing cars to their most basic forms that's why when McNamara flew across the pond to check on Ford's European division he got so excited by the plane baked-potato simplicity your wreath role sounded an unsharpened Dixon Ticonderoga and began to work on the Falcon did you know Robert McNamara had a porn collection yeah there's just a stack of black and white anatomy textbooks people get all excited about Mustang how it was an incredible seller and yes in 1964 and a half for half the year it sold 120 1538 units and for the full year of 1965 the Mustang sold five hundred and fifty nine thousand four hundred and fifty one cars yes that's huge but don't forget the Falcon in its first year sold four hundred and seventeen thousand units of a basic economy car that had aside from the peanuts no marketing to put that in modern terms the last time the Mustang sold over 200,000 units in one year was 1989 and 2014 the Ford Mustang only sold one hundred and thirty four thousand and eighty two cars Iacocca didn't like the Falcon I'm going to quote directly from his autobiography McNamara believed in basic transportation without gimmicks and with the Falcon he put his ideas into practice although I didn't care for the car styling I don't really think it had any I had to admire it success here was a car price to compete with the small imports which were starting to come on strong and it arlier each nearly 10% of the American market and that was in 1960 but unlike the imports the Falcon carried six passengers which made it large enough for most American families and we at Ford weren't the only ones to challenge the imports around the same time General Motors came out with the Corvair and Chrysler offered the valiant that the Falcon was the easy winner in part because it carried the lowest price tag in addition to good price the Falcon also represented good value although fuel economy was certainly not a high priority item in 1960 the Falcon had excellent mileage more important it boasted a fine reputation as a trouble-free rattle free carefree car it's simple design made repairs relatively inexpensive when they did occur so much so that insurance companies were willing to offer discounts to drivers who owned one but despite its enormous popularity the Falcon did not bring in as much money as we'd hoped as an economical small car its profit margin was limited nor did it offer many options which would have greatly increased our revenues Robert McNamara didn't believe in options he only included the in cars because they would increase revenue and even then he did it begrudgingly today the equivalent of a Ford Falcon would be a four-door focus a base one and when you think an American four-door car from the 1960s you think boats you think of the Ford Galaxie the Falcon is no bigger than a modern Toyota Corolla this car is smaller than my father's toyota cressida it doesn't look it but it is and in the 1960s big American cars sold so what it was was a small car that didn't feel small and it certainly doesn't feel small on the inside it has bench seats that go across and the seats are heavily sprung in fact they're part of the suspension to my knowledge power steering was never an option but the ratio is so easy you don't need it you can if you're determined steer this car with one hand when it's barely moving it does that through the old reciprocating ball steering method which is very smooth although I can't do a vase of maneuvers in this there is none and it's weird to think that way but you can't do it in a falcon you almost need one complete turn to do evasive maneuvers if you want to do a vase of manoeuvres with this you need to do hand over hand at least once to work that wheel enough the brakes are good if your standard is a honda nighthawk 250 with mechanical drums that's all this has 4-wheel 10 inch drum brakes all driven by a single master cylinder that means if anything goes wrong all your brakes stop working and you bounce in these seats you bounce like an old school bus they feel like a college dorm room cot Boeing Boeing Boeing what don't you see on this car side mirrors optional they were considered safety options in 1960 what else don't you see on a falcon reverse lights didn't have them to my knowledge they didn't have reverse lights until 1962 you know what else this car doesn't have hazard lights you either have the left side blink of the right side blank in an odd sort of forward-thinking way its turn signals in the front are white yet white lenses and white bulbs I'm gonna change these to yellow I know that's going to be period incorrect but it's just confusing at night when you see this car you have to sort of look to it to see which which bright light coming forward coming toward you is slightly strobing on the inside yeah you should really have amber in the front let's get to the engine those familiar with the channel know all about it but this is a hundred and forty-four cubic inch straight six engine fed by a single Bower Holley carb and in 1960 they claimed this made 80 horsepower and that is horseshit in the 1960s when they rated horsepower they rated the horsepower of the engine with the engine out of the car and with all accessories removed including the water pump they just had a big tank that had water coming in about that yes they made the maximum amount of power they could with no in anything and yes I concede in that way this engine could make 80 horsepower I'm pretty sure this thing makes 50 and it's also a reverse flow head with the carburetor on top of the intake and exhaust manifolds oh yeah and the fan not shrouded that means it just pulls air from everywhere it's nowhere near the single core copper radiator oh yeah the copper radiator it doesn't have an overflow tank none of them did that meant when it got hot all the antifreeze and your 50/50 mix just pees on the ground just pees on the ground there's no EPA in 1960 just just there for that and it will pull up and dogs in a parking lot would just lick it and die and ya know evap the the not even a catch can that your oil cap doesn't seal all the way in fact it has vents in it and so all the gas just just comes out you open the hood of this and you see you fumes when you think something's wrong zyk nope it's just venting the atmosphere all the crankcase fumes and everything comes out catalytic converter nope this thing smells like gas all the time and all sorts of stuff interestingly enough technically it's a unibody this is not body-on-frame it has a partial frame in the front partial frame in the back but they're welded directly to the body they don't come apart and the frame disappears in the middle of the car in the middle of the car the only there is no frame the body holds this whole thing together even Mustangs were like that first generation Mustangs they had no frame strengthening this engine was so terrible the one forty-four Ford got rid of it after 1960 and boarded out to a hundred and seventy cubic inches and later stroke that and made it the thrift master 206 that became the stock motor for the Mustang and buy stock motor I mean the base motor but like Ford tempos and old Subaru loyals you don't see the Falcon anymore you see plenty of Mustangs you see plenty of Corvairs you see plenty of Chevelle's because they were all sexy and unique cars while the Falcon no that was just whoa who saves Ford escorts mmm the rarest thing at Cars and Coffee today is to see a bone-stock Honda Accord from the 80s that would take the entire show the only option this 1960 Falcon had was its transmission to speed for de Matic for America around the mid 20th century having an automatic transmission was a huge deal that was prestigious I know it's not that way in other countries were some other countries view automatic transmissions as those for the week but for whatever reason in the United States the automatic was seen as the thing to have so whoever bought this car skipped all the other options and went for the most expensive one of course the Ford o matic two-speed was Ford's original automatic transmission which was designed in the 50s reverse is your lowest gear in fact if you start slow enough this transmission will start in second gear and second gear is one to one there is no overdrive you can click this down but that will only get you to 30 miles an hour after that you've hit the end of the rev range and it has to shift into second so when you're pulling a long hill what will happen is either you keep it in Drive and you go up the hill and you start slowing down slowing down slowing down slowing down slowing down to 30 miles an hour 30 28 and then then it goes into high gear and then it goes up to 30 again and then it can't go any further and it drops down again and it drops back down to 20 so what you have to do is you shift it in the Lo and just hold it there 29 miles an hour and that's all it can do and you hope that I would pull over on the shoulder like just just go by me but this is how this is the way the world the people lived that way if you had a basic small car you did not expect it to go fast you were happy to have any vehicle to begin with and maybe that's where Americans love affair with the v8 came from you didn't slow down when you went uphill oh you had power I could keep this video going on and on and on about all the stuff we've learned about the Falcon but this is now our flagship car this is the face of regular car reviews and I am devoted to this vehicle and I will do whatever it takes to keep it running because the world must understand that classic cars are not all chevelles and Boss 302s and O's Mobile four four twos and Grand Nationals and rat-rod Cadillacs some classic cars are just regular cars me juice peace

Channel: undefined

Views: 518,154

Rating: 4.9081192 out of 5

Keywords: Ford Falcon, Regular Car Reviews, 1st Gen Falcon, Ford Falcon review, 144Ci I6, Ford Falcon sedan, Vagabond Falcon

Id: 3HNYtMTCxFI

Length: 12min 13sec (733 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 06 2016

Reddit Comments

[u/sketchesofspain01]

That last line brought a tear to my eyes.

[u/gravylookout]

This video really stands out to me as the subtle climax of a crescendo that has been building over the several years of this series. All meat aside, Mr. Regular's channel is a slow, smoldering novel. Deliberate and measured in its appreciation of the history of the automobile; its ability to free Man from the confines of relative space, and to stand as an analogue for the American Dream. The primal need to ameliorate the individual and collective human condition.

The Falcon may not be as significant or calculated as most cars from the Model-T to the Tesla X, but for millions of drivers and passengers this car was a way to explore and participate in a world that was changing faster than dreamed possible. In that way this car truly is a regular car. No more than many others, but equal in standing among the cannon, and no doubt why he picked it.

Thank you for sharing you dream with us /u/RegularCars, I can't wait to see what's next!

[u/oh84s]

What are these worth in the united states for a nice example like that?

Its funny to hear they were perceived as an ugly, cheap car. In Australia the first gen Falcon's (identical to this) are now semi collectable as a model that started the Falcon revolution, not a name plate dropped half a century ago.

One in that condition would probably be worth $30,000.

[u/Hoptadock]

Just gonna plug /r/regularcarreviews

Mr Regular is a regular ^lol on the sub

[u/twatsmaketwitts]

Seems like this was a European car for the US market at the time. For all those people who couldn't afford the Cadillacs and the full blown American Dream cars in the adverts, there was the falcon.

[u/Kitteh5]

Yo /u/RegularCars. Buddy, you just had to burn my ass, didn't you.

[u/airoderinde]

Everyone knows a MacNamara condom is Durex.

[u/Astrobody]

The rarest thing at Cars and Coffee today is to see a bone stock Honda Accord from the 80s

Ha, we sold our pretty mint, totally stock '86 Accord about a year ago. Maybe we should have kept it.

[u/DogWHOspeaks]

Dogs lick it up and die! Holy shit.