Ford aimed right for the sweet spot between compacts and full-sized sedans with the 1962 Fairlane. This new Ford was big and trim, the automaker declared.

Even as the Detroit compact movement took bloom in 1960, the Motor City’s product planners could see that there was one more vehicle segment ripe for the picking. While many Americans had decided that Detroit’s full-sized cars had grown too large, there were also many who found the new compacts too small. In 1961, General Motors took aim at these buyers with its Buick, Olds, and Pontiac “senior compacts” (see our feature here). One year later, Ford joined the new mid-sized class with the 1962 Fairlane.

In the original Fairlane campaign below, Ford’s messaging went straight to the point:  This new car was “Big on the inside, trim on the outside, low on the price side.” Despite its generous 115.5-in wheelbase, the Fairlane was a whole foot shorter than a full-size Ford, offering easy parking and maneuvering. Better yet for Ford, the package was essentially a stretched and restyled Falcon, sharing many of its components, so it could be attractively priced and support a comfortable profit margin at the same time. The Fairlane’s base price was just $2,216, less than $200 more than a Falcon, and the automaker sold more than 297,000 cars in the first year.

The ’62 Fairlane also served as the platform for the introduction of the company’s new short-stroke, thinwall V8—221 cubic inches in its initial form, then enlarged to 260 CID at mid-year. Produced in a number of sizes and flavors over the years, the small-block became one of Ford’s most popular and long-lived V8s. But for some years after its introduction the engine was commonly known as the Fairlane V8, and it receives plenty of attention here. Video below.