Total Performance Car Show

Ford Motor Company was flush with newly minted money courtesy of the runaway success of the Mustang which commanded a healthy 7.1% market share of all passenger cars sold in the US by 1966. Racing budgets grew as Ford’s Galaxie 427 V8 battled it out for supremacy with the Mopar 426 Hemis on the high-speed banked NASCAR ovals in front of a TV audience of millions. The 600hp Ford SOHC 427 powerhouse was sold over the parts counter for a paltry $US2400 [the same price as a base Mustang Coupe] and powered some of the eras hottest Drag Racers. Carol Shelby’s lethal 289 & 427 Cobra’s and his Shelby Mustangs were the cars to beat on the SCCA circuits. The legendary Offenhauser was finally conquered as Ford-powered Lotus racecars took the Indy 500 for the first time. European Rally titles fell to the Cortina then the Escort, both with help from Lotus. All this paled into insignificance for Henry Ford ll as the sublime Ford GT40 won the Le Mans 24hour race in 1966 then each year through until 1969, ending Ferraris six year winning streak. HF2 and Enzo Ferrari had locked horns in 1963 over a proposed Ford takeover of Enzo’s beloved Prancing Horse badge, and the GT40 was developed purely to defeat the Italian Marque at it’s own game which it certainly did. Across the world in mid sixties Australia the success of the Mustang Stateside spurred Ford to release the “Mustang Bred” XR Falcon, as the ads of the period exclaimed, with the 289 V8 an option across the range in 1966. Newly installed Ford Australia Managing Director, Bill Bourke, a noted Petrolhead, drove a V8 Police Interceptor prototype, and decided to put it into production with an upmarket interior and four speed manual, borrowing a badge from the Falcon’s US Mustang and Fairlane cousins, and an Aussie motoring icon was born in March 1967, the Falcon GT. Bathurst, known as the Gallaher 500 in those halcyon days duly rolled around, and when the dust settled the XR GT driven by Harry Firth and Fred Gibson had taken the chequered flag albeit after a confusing recount of laps that saw 2nd place fellow XR GT drivers, the Geoghegan Brothers initially proclaimed the winners. 1968 would see the new HK Holden Monaro GTS327 line up against the XT GT 302 on the starting grid, ultimately beating the Falcon GT and igniting one of the Great Tribal Battles of our time, one that’s 42 years old and still playing hard. Ford versus Holden with Mt Panorama as the ultimate backdrop and battleground venue.

Car Lust: Old Fords Week: America's Ford Falcon

Contest in 1986 (Published in the January, 1987 issue ). The car I found was a 4-door Falcon that had been shortened into a 2-door, souped up, and had been very nicely done. The doors were half front door, half rear door. He sat in the (former?) back seat to drive.

I met the guy that owned the car and did the work, but I never got his name. I don't know if he ever knew his car was in the magazine, but I hope he finds out some day that it was.

I'd like to make a little comparison here. The Falcon supported a wide range of compact body styles on a single platform, using many of the same parts. This concept was repeated about 10 years later with the Chevy Vega. But Ford used proven techniques and didn't "reinvent the wheel" and then break it .

It served the job of transporting a crushed and cubed Lincoln Continental from a Kentucky salvage yard back to Auric Goldfinger's horse farm.

I think I've said this before... whoever the electromagnet crane operator was in that scene was a magician... he maneuvered the heavy cube into the back of the Ranchero quickly without even scratching the bed... quite an accomplishment considering the tidy space he had to work with.

Could a Falcon Ranchero easily transport a smushed 2+-ton Lincoln Continental in its bed? No. But this is a movie, and that scene is a favorite with us 007 fans. Now that's

Gack! I remember those Falcons from my short time in Argentina in the 1990s. At the time I didn't know too much about them but I recognized them as a continuing version of an older American car (and, you know, there were other sights in Buenos Aires to capture a young man's fancy, IYKWIMAITTYD). That always fascinated me because you could still see the original car in the design but there were enough modifications to it to make one think of those science fiction books where history is different (Nazis win WWII, for example). Kinda neat seeing all those time-capsule cars running around.

I think Falcons have been showing up in greater numbers at car shows in the last few years, at least I've always seen one or two hanging around. Neat cars.

MarkD, there is nothing wrong with your memory at all! According to Wiki: "In the first 1961 model year, 29,932 standard vans, 6,571 custom Econoline buses, 11,893 standard pickups, and 3,000 custom pickups were made. It was originally offered as a cargo van, an 8-passenger van with 3 rows of seats (which carried the Ford Falcon name), and as a pickup truck.