Winning the Detroit Compact Sweepstakes: 1960 Ford Falcon

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In its own way, the humble Falcon was as important to the fortunes of the Ford Motor Company as the Model A back in 1928.

 

Introduced on September 2, 1959, the Ford Falcon was, among other things, the crowning achievement of Ford Motor Company president Robert S. McNamara, who would soon depart to serve the Kennedy administration as the U.S. Secretary of Defense. At that moment, the first wave of imported cars was already making a sizable dent in domestic auto sales, and the Motor City automakers were answering the challenge with small cars of their own design.

While Chrysler’s Valiant and the Chevrolet Corvair were fairly radical departures from the Detroit engineering of the period, the Ford Falcon was conventional in the extreme. It was very much a full-size Ford scaled down to compact proportions with unit construction, a 109.5-inch wheelbase, and a freshly designed 144 cubic-inch inline six that mounted up front and drove the rear wheels. The distinctive front suspension used a triangulated lower strut rod with the coil spring perched atop the upper control arm, a setup that would look increasingly familiar over the coming years.

 

Ford’s messaging for the Falcon played up the car’s simple and conventional design with taglines that included “the easiest car in the world to own” and “the world’s most experienced small car.” As the advertising copy made clear, this “new sized Ford” was indeed a conventional Ford sedan, just shrunken down a bit, and the sales pitch emphasized the Falcon’s roomy cabin and generous trunk capacity. The marketing strategy was the correct one, evidently, as the Falcon zoomed past Corvair, Valiant, and the rest, racking up nearly a half-million sales in the first year alone. While the Corvair and Valiant were each influential on various fronts, the Falcon was the winner of the Detroit compact sweepstakes.

 

The Falcon brand enjoyed a 10-year run in the North American market before it was phased out in 1970, but the name lived on for many more years in South America and especially in Australia, where it was finally discontinued in 2016. But the Falcon’s greatest legacy is in its basic unit-construction architecture, which sired a dozen or more Ford Motor Company products over the next 20 years.

As every car enthusiast knows, the Falcon served as the basis for the groundbreaking 1965 Mustang, shown below with Ford product gurus Don Frey and Lee Iaocca. Meanwhile, the Falcon also lent its mechanical DNA to the Mercury Comet, Meteor, and Cougar, the Ford Fairlane, and the 1970 Ford Maverick (essentially an updated Falcon). The Falcon’s basic architecture, including the front suspension arrangement, would also live on, Lazurus-like, in the 1975-80 Ford Granada, Mercury Monarch, and Lincoln Versailles. If we were to add up all the production figures for the Falcon and its multitude of variants, the total probably exceeds the 15 million units of Henry Ford’s most famous product, the 1909-27 Model T.

16 thoughts on “Winning the Detroit Compact Sweepstakes: 1960 Ford Falcon”

  1. I had 2 Falcons. My first new car in 61 and a decked out 63 Futura hardtop after that. The only issue I had with the 61 was the 144 6 got noisy lifters from the oil passages clogging up. No problem with the 63 170 6.

    • I remember my father having the same problem with our 1960 Falcon. Valve cover off, trying to adjust lifters, finally it was suggested he use high detergent oil and voila no more ticking. Darned oil passages! Thanks for the old memory!

      • Same with our 69 with the 200 engine. Dad would add some Marvel Mystery Oil and the ticking would fade away.

  2. My parents bought a new 60 Falcon late 1959 and drove it to Mexico in Feb. 1960. It was just like this one, white with blue interior. While touring Mexico City, Acapulco, the silver district, etc. people kept treating them very well, constantly wanting to see the car, etc. They kept wondering about that and finally in Mexico City they found out that the people were so interested because the President of Mexico had been gifted with an identical car by the President of the USA! The folks therefore thought my parents were very important people ! In 1965 that car became my first wheels. The day before mom told me it was to be mine I had driven to a horseshoe out in the western suburbs, rather undeveloped at the time, of St. Louis on a very dry windy day so brought the care home filthy dirty inside and out. Mother then told me that the car was to be mine AFTER I thoroughly cleaned it. I drove it for another year or a bit more and traded it for a brand new 1966 Chevelle which I loved too, but later in life became enamored of Ford Taurus wagons, owned two gorgeous, reliable, fun ones before leaving the Ford camp. I recently saw one at a car show and the owner invited me to sit in…as soon as I touched the knobs and gear shift I recognized the feel like I’d driven it the day before! Great memories on this post -thanks!

  3. Well it was a horse SHOW not a horseshoe! The feel of those knobs on that Falcon was amazing, and reading this reminds me my father also bought himself a 1960 Falcon Wagon later in 1960 which he allowed me to drive at his new home in Florida…long before I had a license to drive, on the back streets of the town of Cape Canaveral…which were only paved part of the way to the beach. I tried to do a U Turn on one and got that cute wagon mired in the deep, soft sand…I was SO embarrassed, he was amused, BUT true to his form, he used it as a teaching moment to instruct me on how NOT to do it again as well as what the heck to do about it when I did! He was quite a car guy, I have more car stories but this thankfully is all that have to do with the Falcons!

  4. Im in Australia and my first car was a 1962 Falcon that was my late Grandfathers car , I purchased it from my Grand mother when he died in 1973 , had a genuine 21000 miles on the clock and was a basic model 3 on the tree non power assisted drum brakes no synchro on 1st gear no radio no cigarette lighter rubber mats vacuum wipers no fan for the heater which was a door on either side of the car under the dash , but as a first car I still loved it

  5. “Distinctive” front suspension? As in as distinctive as a the Rambler, from which it was stolen from??

    • First, distinctive does not imply unique or first. Next, the Rambler used trunnion pins instead ball joints and a lower wishbone instead of a strut rod. -McG

  6. As they famously said then about Ford head honcho Robert MacNamara: “he wore granny glasses, and made a granny car.”

    • Robert Strange MacNamara was one of the worst human beings ever. He took his talent of “bean counting” to the Defense Department to escalate the war in Vietnam. Worst human being ever.

        • I clearly said ONE of the worst. Go to the Vietnam War Memorial in D.C. and see his handiwork.

  7. Owned a ’63 Falcon convertible w/a 260 V-8 automatic. Not the Futura but a very memorable car.

  8. My dad bought a new Falcon in 1960. It was a four door sedan, three on the tree, and no radio. I remember two things about that car. The lecture my brother and I got about not opening the doors while we were moving. And the fact that we were the first and only family in our neighborhood to have two cars.

  9. I live in Australia and my first car I bought in 1981 as a 17 y.o. was a 1971 XY Ford Falcon 500 250 – 6 cylinder column automatic. paid $950 Have always had Falcons and many different types but next year will finally own a Mustang. 40 years of Falcons even my late Dad left the GM brand for one.

  10. Had a 63 Futura hardtop. It was bought in California and ended up in Indiana. It was my 2nd car after a 65 Mustang fastback.

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