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1960's Ford Falcons

133 messages, Last post on Feb 05, 2008 at 7:50 AM
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When I was a kid, I worked for a now defunct company, Chicken Delight. Anyone remember that? Anyway, our delivery cars were 62-63 Falcons. We drove the bejezes out of them! The 170's weren't THAT gutless and they were cheap to fix. I caught the back seat on fire on one of them once. The can of sterno slid out of the stainless steel ovens we carried in the back seat to keep the chicken hot! The boss was NOT amused! |
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| If a 1962 Falcon hasn't blown up or tipped over or crashed by now, I wouldn't worry about its safety features. | |
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| The Falcon wagon was okay around town and would have made a decent delivery car. But it's not a car built for the open road. Out of the 60 or so cars I've owned since 1970 my '61 Falcon would be the last one I'd pick for any trip of more than 30 miles or so. Even my '70 Hornet was Cannonball Rally material compared to the Falcon. It's just old bare-bones transportation. | |
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It wasn't too gutless with a three speed. Very bare bones, I don't remember a Detroiter with less stuff on it...AM radio was the only option on this car! Very rugged, a kind of American Volvo (at a time when Volvo imported few wagons). I rember it fondly, it was our Surf Wagon, it swallowed a big Hobie board w ease (they were bigger then). |
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Yeah I sure do remember chicken delight Isell. Was that just a southern California company? Anyway, one time I was putting away the Falcon wagon after a day of delivery as a mailmen. I happened to look under the seat, and there were a bunch [maybe a hundred or more] of old letters picked up by some previous carrier who forgot to turn them in so they could be mailed. You know when the mailman comes, you put up your flag, and put some letters in your box for him to take as well? Also, sometimes on the route, the carrier will empty smaller deposit boxes along the route to take back. That's why ever since, I NEVER leave mail in the box-or, any other deposit box on the street. I ALWAYS take it down to the post office and mail it. Heck, I even found some old forgotten parcels in one of those Falcon wagons once. Good thing that wasn't forgotten, un-delivered chicken under the seat eh?! |
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| ...yet another example of 'our government at work', LOL? I live in Chicago, the phrase 'lost in the mail' should actually be a legitimized excuse for as often as it actually occurs here. | |
| Each was painted yellow and sported a huge chicken head on the roof. Quite a sight to be sure. | |
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...as a first car. It really wasn't much of a car. The turn signal lever resided on the floorboards. You had to pick it up and poke it back in if you wanted to signal your intentions. Maybe that's why I still don't signal my turns much. At that time I barely knew to put gas in it. I did think that after driving it and getting it hot in Oklahoma's summer, that red OIL light coming on at idle didn't seem to be a good thing. I traded it on a 64 Impala, from a lot run on the side by a couple of my co-workers. One of them later asked me about the OIL light.... I said it always went off when I drove it. They put crank bearings in it and sold it. I've got a nephew that got a hair about a Falcon a while back. He tried to drive it to some Falcon gathering in Denver. It turned a bearing...... So, from my history the bottom end of that 6 cylinder is weak.... |
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| so, the Falcon sixes after that were much, much better. Especially the later 200 inch version. Made a huge difference on the highway in smoothness. | |
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The 200 is the first seven bearing engine and that came in 1965 IIRC. That's why the "1964 1/2" Mustang six is the 170. I have to say that the 144 in my Falcon soldiered on for quite a while. I don't know how many miles it had on it but it was over 100k and it was a hard 100k--85 horsepower trying to drag all that weight around and 3.89 gears so it was screaming on the freeway. I sold it to a friend and immediately the steering wheel came off while she was driving it. A few months later it blew a head gasket and that was the end. |
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