For the 1970 model year, the Ford Motor Company offered two completely different products that wore the familiar Falcon nameplate, and enthusiasts have been scratching their heads ever since. 

How Ford ended up with two distinctly different products in 1970, each wearing the Falcon emblem, rightly begins with the introduction of the Ford Maverick on April 17, 1969. As Ford’s replacement for the Falcon in the Detroit compact class, the new Maverick boasted ponycar-like long-hood/short-deck styling, an updated version of the Falcon’s versatile unit-construction chassis, and a bargain-basement price of just $1995. As the Mavericks filled up the dealer network, the trusty ’66-’69-style Falcon was continued with almost no changes for MY 1970 (above) but only until the end of the ’69 calendar year. New federal safety standards were going into effect on Jan. 1, and there was little sense in updating a car that would soon be discontinued anyway.

There was only one drawback to this orderly phase-out/phase-in plan: For its introductory model year, the new Maverick was available only as a two-door coupe, unlike the Falcon, which included four-door sedan and station wagon body styles. And that left a fairly sizable hole in Ford’s economy-class line-up, or a perceived one, anyway. To plug it, the product people whipped up a stripped-down, bare-bones version of the mid-sized Fairlane 500, slapped some Falcon badges on it, and sent it into production as a mid-year model.

This 1970 1/2 Falcon, as the sales folders described it, was available as a four-door sedan, four-door wagon, or a two-door pillared coupe (below). Since it was built on the intermediate Fairlane/Torino platform, this Falcon boasted a longer 117-inch wheelbase. And even more interesting, it could be ordered with the full slate of Fairlane/Torino driveline options, including the mighty 429 Cobra Jet V8, and a small number of such cars were actually produced. This mildly confusing product alignment didn’t last long, however. For 1971, the Maverick became available as a four-door and meanwhile, the Fairlane and Falcon names were dropped. All the Ford mid-sized models for 1971 wore Torino badges.