(First posted 8/28/2014. This was probably my favorite CC For sale I found in Eugene) Let’s celebrate Two-Door Sedan Day with this 1965 Ford Custom two-door (“Tudor” in old-time Ford-speak). It’s the perfect bookend to the ground-breaking 1965 Ford LTD too; not only is it the very lowest man in the full-sized Ford totem pole, but it’s exactly the kind of American car that the LTD soon abolished from the (non-fleet) market. It was the victim of the perpetual ratcheting up of the name hierarchy, ironic since the Custom itself was once at the top of the pecking order. That’s ok; even the LTD would eventually fall by the wayside, superseded by something more grandiose. But it wasn’t just the name alone; the whole full-sized two-door sedan era was drawing to a close.
The first Ford Custom appeared in 1949, with the all new models that year. Ford had already depreciated the old regular Ford, Deluxe and Super Deluxe hierarchy, and decided to start with a clean slate: Standard and Custom. Of course, that wouldn’t last, as it never does.
By 1952, the Crestline Series pushed the Custom back into second place. That was a short run at the top. 1954’s Fairlane bucked the Crestline out altogether. And by 1957, eight years after its arrival at the top, the Custom now slid into low-man status, as the Fairlane 500 pushed everyone down, the Mainline right off the edge.
With the Galaxie’s arrival in 1959, the plain Custom was now the next victim, being replaced by the ever-so slightly more prestigious Custom 300. In 1962, things get odder yet. With the arrival of the new mid-sized Fairlane, Ford kills the strippers, and the lowliest big Ford is a Galaxie sedan. Not exactly luxurious, but still with carpets on the floor unlike the rubber-matted Custom.
That lasted all of one year, and in 1963 a “300” appears for those just needing to have those black rubber floors. By 1964, order is restored, sort of, as the Custom and the new Custom 500 settle into the new pecking order that would now actually last longer than usual.
1972 would mark the last year for the un-numbered Custom, and the last Custom 500 would be found on the 1977 models. It was all LTD, all the time, until that uppity Crown Victoria showed up in 1980. Of course, that CV wasn’t a new name, having graced some top-line hardtops in the mid-fifties. And by 1991, the LTD too was tossed overboard by the CV. For some reason, that never sat well with me; the LTD name should have stayed right to the bitter end.
Back to this Custom, the cheapest big Ford that year. It listed for $2313 ($16,862 in 2013 dollars); the elusive stripper $9,999 Nissan Versa of its time. Just to put the Ford hierarchy in perspective, here are the prices of the four-doors up the whole line: Custom: $2366; Custom 500: $2518; Galaxie 500: $2678; LTD: $3313. The LTD did have a standard 289 V8 and automatic; the rest all started with the 240 (yea!!) six and three-speed manual. Power steering and brakes, automatic, and god forbid A/C and electric windows were all optional. So just who bought a Custom two-door anyway?
The four-door was obviously bought by Police and taxi fleets and such, which explains why it outsold the Tudor two-door two-to-one. Misers, one assumes. My Dad made a tradition of such choices, although never anything as large as a full-sized car, God forbid, despite having four children.
I remember climbing into the back of full-sized two-doors like this; kinda’ odd really, to then suddenly find yourself in such a roomy rear seat. So it was in the olden days.
Now since we’re prattling away on the Custom’s history, how about the Ford two-door sedans? 1969 was the last year for the full-size two-door sedans. Since the 1970 Fords were only slightly refreshed using the same body, the Custom Two Door must have died in 1969 of natural causes: not enough interest. These just screamed “flintskin” or “fleet”. And even the fleets were done with them. If memory serves my right, Chevy and Plymouth pulled the plug that same year too. The end of the Tudor era coincided with the beginning of the Brougham Epoch.
I like this particular Custom a lot, despite being the kind of car I loathed as a kid. Needs dog dish hubcaps, though. Its almost endless tail has a bit of rakish uptilt, and sports a Hurst floor-shift conversion for the three-speed manual that backs the 289 (4.7 L) V8. Simple, plain, rugged, easy to fix, no problem finding upholstery for that. It’s the sedan counterpart to my ’66 F-100. I’ll bet it has manual steering and brakes. Even the brake drums are the same; and in stock at the parts store too. How many fifty year-old cars can say that? Someone will end up with a keeper (don’t call though; that was a while back; it’s long gone).
WOW a clean old Ford I would have bought it, a little tlc and some regular use it would last for ever,
I drove my ’67 389 Galaxie for several years in the late 90s couting through New Orleans “rush hour traffic” 62 miles one way, I got 17-20 mpg, delending on how many times I nailed it to go around son idiot.
I love these 60s full size big three, I was surrounded by Ford since I was a kid, a couple of bowries and one ’69 Ply. Fury that my brother-in-law had in the mid 70s-All great cruisers and very comfy. My only ownership was a ’67 Galaxie 500, 289 auto, ps, manual 4 wheel drum brakes( plenty adequte, I was planning on adding vintsage air but health issues removed me from the work force.
The body appears nearly flawless, but someone did a poor job with the window tinting.
I find these plain jane, no nonsense models appealing…not to purchase new of course, but in this very situation.
When picking up a vintage automobile the fewer adornments of the day, the better. As we have noted, opera windows and velour interiors, beyond their camp factor don’t age as well as this Ford with it’s ultra basic fittings. There is something comforting about it. (remove those ridiculous tail pipes!) And your correct, dog dish caps would work better.
But someone probably paid more for those wheel covers as an option that what it would cost to get a set of dog dishes now!
I’d love to see an LTD or Galaxie make a comeback. Especially if it had some retro cues.
I’m a huge fan of the base “stripper” cars. Rubber floors, no options, not have to buy an option group.. You could actually buy A la Carte!
There are several “Limited” models in the current Ford lineup, where you may see a link to LTDs of the past. I agree with earlier posts about the current Taurus Limited. I’ve driven one and it seems very similar to the past LTD models – very plush and quiet inside. The Tauruses of 10 years ago, while decent cars, did not feel like that.
Me, too. I dig those ‘stripper’ cars of the ’60s. I have one basic ’60s car (a ’64 Ford, but it’s a compact stripper), but if I could have another loooow-optioned model vehicle it would be a 1968 Chevrolet Biscayne with the 2-speed Powerglide and nothing else but those Chevy dog-dish hubcaps of the time. I liked those a lot. 🙂
This reminds me of Ford’s history with model designations.
Back in the early 80’s, if something was a GL, it was rather fancy. By 1986, GL was a mid-line trim, LX took over for that. It was all good for a while till 1995, when SE began to take the crown. Of course that wouldn’t last long, by 2000 the LX was the loss leader. An SE was the slight step up, the SES was for the masses, and the SEL was the fancy car! Try and find a new LX model now…Next up, Limiteds! And now….Titanium!!!
I guess some things never change…
The way letters as trim levels took hold in the ’80s was really odd. I’m not sure what all the letters were supposed to stand for, but they stood for something, because no matter which brand you were looking at a DX was always a stripper or near-stripper. Why were G, L, S, and X so popular?
I have read that trim levels such as “SE”, “EX”, and “SX” were used because our brains subliminally processed those combinations as “SEX”. I have my doubts that is true, but that’s what somebody thinks.
A thousand dollars !?!
That’s a $3000+ car all day long in the salty midwest.
True story! Buy it for a grand, another G in shipping and you’re still ahead..
Yeah I know, I had to look at that several times because I couldn’t believe the price was 1,000 bucks! I would have been all over that!
Name inflation was the game back in that era.
GM was an even bigger proponent of it; probably it started with them. The Bel Air was a deluxe model; then with the abolishment of the 150, it became the midline (Biscayne replacing the lower end) With more time, Bel Air became the low model, and then disappeared. The stripper bore the once-sporty name Impala; and that too, disappeared.
Likewise the trucks. The Custom was the decked-out model; then later the stripper; and finally the Cheyenne was the base.
It’s the way cars were marketed and excitement generated around new names on old formats, right up until about a decade ago.
My old man, after experiments with Rambler and Kaiser-Jeep, was a Ford man, right up until his last car, a Plymouth minivan. We had a 1968; it was a four-door Custom; but the same basic car.
I’d have loved to have had the chance at that one. I’ve always been partial to two-door sedans and wagons…and a Ford of that era? Stand aside…
It also took them forever and a day (well into the ’80s) to stop referring to their B-bodies collectively as “The Chevrolet” and treating the Caprice Classic and Impala as separate models.
Ford was similar but as early as ’65 it would’ve been a no-brainer to call the base model Galaxie (no suffix), with the 300/500/XL/LTD trim levels always amended to “Galaxie” and never used alone to emphasize that 1) they’re different trim levels of the same car, and 2) Falcon, Fairlane, Mustang etc. have no less or more claim to being “The Ford” than the Galaxie line does.
I like strippers too! I also, low-line, base-model cars! Chevy Biscayne offered the 2 door sedan through ’69 ditto Plymouth Fury I. I knew a guy in high school in San Rafael back in the mid 70’s that drove a 2 door Fury I (1969) sedan; absolutely NOTHING – 3 on the tree, slant six, vinyl cop car benches front and rear, rubber floor mats, NO power steering/brakes – no radio. Did have a heater; did I say no radio??
I still have an love for low-line big cars . . . . and I’d take a clean Custom/Biscayne/Fury I/Ambassador 660 with a six and stick any day (I’m in no hurry!).
Also remember visiting relatives in small-town Missouri in the 60’s and 70’s and actually seeing a number of 2 and 4 door baseline Ford Customs and Biscaynes; sixes with three on the tree. A contrast to the huge Chrysler New Yorkers (like my Grandma’s car), the Olds 98’s and Buick Electra 225’s (and mondo Chevy Caprices, Ford LTD’s and Fury III’s) that everyone in Eastern Mo/Western Ill/Southern IA seemed to drive. I knew some people out there back then that didn’t even know what a Datsun or Toyota was.
Aunt/Uncle had a brown over brown Fury III “Gran Fury”, ’71 coupe, 360 2-bbl. For readers unfamiliar with the original “Gran Fury” they were introduced as a ’70 1/2 spring special and in ’71 they expanded to a “Gran Sedan” (hardtop). Came only in brown – brown paisley pattern top with brown vinyl interior and nylon paisley patterns in the nylon inserts. I thought it looked like a rolling turd – at the time, my aunt and uncle LOVED that car!
This ’65 Custom, I hope, finds (or found) a good home and that the stupid 2 3/4″ ‘bubba’ exhaust extensions and “moth-haven” upholstery gets replaced.
I think it goes back to potty-training days and all that.
When I was a freshman in high school, in the student parking section were two specimens: A 1959 Ford Ranch Wagon two-door; and a 1965 Plymouth Belvedere, also a two-door. The Belvedere was trimmed up with a red stripe and a blackout grille; and the Ranch Wagon, although clean, was just…sinister.
Those were the days. Kids’ cars had CHARACTER back then.
My first “real” car in high school was a 73 Chevelle Deluxe.. The seats had the Nylon fabric inserts but nothing else..
I could go on and on about the finds from my HS days. Little old ladies and base models were still out there in 1990.
I can understand today’s interested in an old stripper, but back when they were new a total stripper was derided and its owner labled (usually correctly) as a miserly skinflint. I mean, dozens of a la carte option were avaialble. One particular neighbor was noted for his strippers. I recall when he traded his ’57 Plymouth Plaza with ZERO options for a similarly equipped ’66 Falcon four door. When it arrived in his driveway I was shocked that the Falcon had whitewalls and full wheel covers. Alas, a few days later they were replaced by dog dishes and blackwalls. Seems the dealer neglected to make the requested switch by delivery. IIRC he died of a heart attack at a relatively young age and shortly thereafter his wife traded the Falcon on a loaded LTD brougham.
No offense, but a Rambler 660 was the mid-range Classic. The lower of the two Ambassador models was the 880, and for Ambassador money NO car was a stripper.
You want a basic Rambler, step above the American? – the Classic 550 was your cup of tea. 232 CID I-6 with three-on-the-tree and overdrive. Heater and defroster was standard, or delete option…radio, A/C and power anything all was extra cost. They all still came with the split-back-bench seat with recliners, though. GREAT drive-in cars for teenagers. 🙂 I don’t remember if Dad’s had carpet or rubber mats, he bought it used in 1968 for a second car for work use.
I remember seeing these in the lot at Menard & Holmberg Rambler, when we had bought our new Ambassador 990 off the showroom floor. Entry-level models never made the showroom.
It took a while but it set in. The headline fits the shot well and that sky would send most of the midwest to a root cellar!
We have those clouds all the time from November until summer. But its harmless; as long as you don’t mind getting a bit wet. Actually, the clouds were particularly nice that day, and that’s why I didn’t crop the shot at all.
There’s a joke that goes like this: If somebody from the other 49 states hears a tornado siren, they run into the basement. If somebody from Oklahoma hears a tornado siren, they run outside and look at the sky. In my experience, this is true.
I am also a great lover of strippers. I have always had one. My present is a Canada only 2008 Honda Fit DX. It doesn’t even have a/c! It is the main car in the family, being a great all rounder. A stripper simply has less to go wrong. Buy it new and drive it into the ground. The depreciation on a stripper is much less because it cost less to begin with. I have always thought that strippers drove better than their loaded versions because they were so much lighter.
On the other hand, I have always had a Gentleman’s Express in the garage, too. A carefully chosen used luxury car can be had very reasonably with someone else having eaten the depreciation. You can have your stripper and your nice car for less than one loaded plebeian device.
A lot of Police Depts drove 2 doors, especially State. The Montreal cops used them too, until they couldn’t get them anymore. The RCMP in Western Canada also.
Today’s nearest equivalent to this is the new Dodge, er RAM Tradesman “work truck.” 3-person bench seat. 390hp HEMI V8 for less than $22k. Only thing missing is a manual transmission.
There was a number of differences in Canadian built (Oakville, Ontario) cars before 1967. For one,you couldn’t get a 289 engine until 1966. So in 1965, you went straight from the 240 Six to the 352 ,minus the 4 bbl carb of the US version, which made it a real boat anchor at 220 HP (versus 200 for the 289, and a lot less front end weight). Also, our option listed was more restricted, the most notable restriction being no factory in dash AC. If you wanted air, it was a dealer-installed unit under the dash.
In 1966, while you could finally get a 289, there was no 352 as in the US (no big loss).
And the 390 was 2-barrel only for Canada. Curiously, the two 427s (4V & 8V) were available in both countries, although I have never seen one.
These variations were all a result of the trade barriers which existed before the 1965 Auto Pact. We could order AC starting in 1967, but it had to be a US built car. Oakville was finally set up to install factory air in 1968, when it finally became available on the Meteors.
One of my father’s friends had a car similar to this, but a four door instead. Other posters mentioned the stripper cars. I had a buddy in HS who had a 65 Biscayne, 230 six, three on the tree and a heater. That’s all. One day we were in auto shop and were fixing a brake line that had rusted through, and in our hurry to get the job done, we had lifted the side of the car with a frame jack. We were having a hard time threading the new brake line through the frame, so my buddy pushed on the handle of the jack and whoops! The car rolls onto it’s side and then it’s roof! We hurriedly got some other guys to help us get the car back on it’s wheels. There was no real damage, other than some scuffing from the concrete floor. We finished the brake line once we calmed down again. My buddy drove that car another three or four years, that old beast was tough as nails…
My father-in-law had the stripper of Mopars; a white on green 1959 Savoy 2-door sedan 6 3-speed that didn’t even have a factory heater. Someone had installed an aftermarket heater, and I gave (and installed for) him a wrecking-yard radio. That body style really looked like the two-door sedan it was – the rear quarter windows were about the same length as the door windows.
Paul, this wasn’t as much a torture chamber as today’s tudors – the back windows rolled down, at least most of the way. Tell that to OEM’s now! These stripped-down cars were more ubiquitous than you may think back in the day. My second car was a 1961 Chevy Bel-Air 2 dr. sedan. Really basic. It did have a radio – no pushbuttons! It did have mats, but the humps were carpeted! 235 three-on-the-tree and not an option more! Black with white top! Dish hubcaps! We fixed the rust, reupholstered most of the interior, added a 1960 Impala steering wheel, installed a Foxcraft floor shifter that would smash you knuckles against the dash when you power-shifted and the bolt that held the shifter in place would break loose! We also added a padded dash and changed to a black interior from gray. Oh…when I was in basic training, my friend painted the car Camaro Rallye Green! What a sight in a kind of good way!
Ahh, yes. I remember the strippers. Usually as used cars.
I would get one that inexplicably had factory stereo but no headrests. Or power windows but no a/c. Or it was missing some trim strip that all the others like it had.
Thank God those days are over.
My Dad would favor strippers, or so he claimed, less to break, son, a good is nothing more than a way to get from point “A” to point “B”… I heard those words more than a few times, usually when I would try to upgrade him to the Ambassador SST, or God Forbid a 1970 Mustang, (“That car won’t last 5 years”) … yeah but they have survived in big numbers 40+ years later… Not so his Ambassador in Hileah Yellow, not even a D/L if I remember Correctly. I think it was a company car, and he chose it. His previious car was a Base silver 68 Opel Kadett, with black vinyl floor. My 1981 Mazda GLC Basic was a stripper, I took Dad’s advice and kind of regretted the lack of amenities.
What always use to puzzle me was WHO would choose a Cadillac and then settle for a Calais with no power windows? I was fixated on the P/W being the coolest device. As a kid I would peek into every car on the side of the street to check whether it had P/W and what the Switches looked like. I much preferred the 69 Chrysler Rocker p/w switches back in the Day. GM always seemed to have the standard Chrome slitted ones…
LAx – Your observation on the Cadillac reminded me of one of these in my family. My aunt and uncle inherited one of these from my uncle’s parents. It was a 67 Calais with crank windows and an AM radio. I think it is the only Cadillac with crank windows I ever saw. At least it had air conditioning. Of course, it also had the little compass affixed to the windshield. You know, the kind that had the disk that floated in fluid. Oh yes, and the AAA sticker on the back bumper.
Crank windows are more reliable than power windows, and even more so in the 60s and 70s. I can see somebody wanting a Cadillac but not wanting to deal with the headache that power windows will inevitably become.
I would’ve bought a ’67 Cadillac Calais 4-door with the crank windows over power windows. It really isn’t a big deal to use your arm to roll the window down, is it? I reckon by the 1968 model year all Cadillacs had standard power windows + the 4-door pillared Calais model was dropped after only producing 2,865 in the 1967 model year (according to the Standard Catalog of Cadillac book).
I have an old automotive color brochure that shows an interior picture of a 1967 Calais and the window crank is easily visible.
What always use to puzzle me was WHO would choose a Cadillac and then settle for a Calais with no power windows? I was fixated on the P/W being the coolest device. As a kid I would peek into every car on the side of the street to check whether it had P/W and what the Switches looked like. I much preferred the 69 Chrysler Rocker p/w switches back in the Day. GM always seemed to have the standard Chrome slitted ones…
I was the SAME! I would check every car to see if it had Power Windows. Most interesting ones were the Mercedes 600 switches and the Jaguar Mark X/420G inlaid in real wood.
My father had a small body shop in the 1960’s. He had a friend in the junkyard business that used to funnel him some of the nicer wrecked cars for rebuilding. He repaired one identical to this one to be my cousin’s first car. I don’t remember what color the interior was, but what is indelibly in my memory is how sharply those round red taillights stood out against a fresh coat of Wimbledon white paint.
Paul, are you going to revisit your CC of the 1966 7-Litre Galaxie that you originally had on TTAC? We had the 390 version of that car, and man did that CC bring back the memories.
This brings back memories. My dad always bought full-sized strippers – a 57 Chev 150 wagon, a 60 Canadian Strato Chief, a 63 Chev Biscayne and a 4-door 65 Ford Custom. The only options he got was the “big” 250 six and automatic transmission. No radio, no power steering … no nothing.
Then as now, I liked the lines of the car, sharp and crisp with good visibility.
But what a pig to drive. I’d learned to drive on the 65 Chev Biscayne. The Ford Custom was even worse. The suspension wallowed, the brakes were virtually nonexistent and the steering was beyond belief! No matter how often my dad had the alignment fixed, the thing would not drive in a straight line. One had to constantly make minor corrections in order to say in a lane. It was like tacking a sailboat, but you had to do it every two seconds.
Fortunately the big six burnt out its valves in two years and the fenders rusted away in the third thanks to the tons of salt Toronto poured on its streets in winter).
It was the first Ford he had bought since 1950 and the last until 1987 when he got a Ford Tempo.
He traded it in on a 1970 Datsun 510. That was a car!
I too have a soft spot for strippos. A friend of my mom’s had a 69 Valiant 100. She told me that the only options it had were back up lights and the 225 slant 6 instead of the 198. I loved that column 3 speed.
When I was in high school, my best friend’s dad found a used 74 Charger. The car was 4 years old and had about 10K miles on it. Bright red and absolute strippo. Slant 6, 3 on the tree, rubber mats, dog dish hubcaps. The car did not even have a radio.
Another high school friend drove a 70 Falcon sedan. I think that the radio was its only option.
Years later when I had 3 little kids who took turns barfing and spilling things in the back of my 94 Chateau Club Wagon, I came to appreciate the genius of the strippo with its unpleated vinyl seats and black rubber flooring.
Love these. Strippos have been my favorite for a long time. My 63 Valiant Signet is a “top of the line” car but only came with AM radio, heater and probably whitewalls.Three speed column mounted manual transmission. No automatic, power steering or power brakes. It was chosen for the simplicity of it. A 65 Ambassador wagon with 3 speed was in the running but it smoked and had a cracked windshield. Wish I had them both, but the Valiant is still here after 30 years.
The closest thing in modern times has been the Saturn S Series. The people who talk about the “decontenting” of the Taurus over time have no clue what “decontented” really means.
Love this site and have loved CC since TTAC.
Exactly like my first car, white w/blue int. Mine had the 240 ci six w/auto and am radio!
Love these cars too! Strippo Biscaynes and Customs with dog dish hubcaps and I6’s were somewhat common in my NW Chicago neighborhood in the 60’s. I’d say driven by WWI, yes the first one, Vets. They remembered the Great Depression well and saved $$$.
New strippos started dissappearing by early 70’s. My great uncle bought a 1972 Ford Custom, with only AM radio and as an option. It had a Ford I6! It had an automatic, maybe that was another ‘luxury’ he splurged for. Anyway, my great-aunt said the dealer tried to sell them white-walls, but they thought it was a ‘waste of $’.
Actually , although there is some disagreement between the brochures and price lists I have, the automatic I believe became standard equipment in 72. Here’s some pics.
Here’s 67 Custom 2 door……..with a W code 427 no less. One of one.
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=oa.10150488867650670&type=1
the full size stripper still exists…Crown Vic Police Interceptors. Mine has police cloth buckets in front and a vinyl back seat, black rubber flooring…OK it has power windows and locks….but simple manual heater controls.
It also has a V-8 engine, AM-FM stereo, automatic transmission, power steering, power brakes and A/C. None of these were standard back in the ’60’s. Might be modestly equipped by today’s standards but hardly a stripper.
To this day, I tend to think of cloth seat inserts and FM radio as nice little luxury touches. And when I went from a base ’95 Tercel to a new ’08 Yaris with the default Northeast options (the only choices were manual, auto and color – dark silver or murky light blue for the manual) I was astonished at the luxury – an MP3 jack! Air conditioning! Blanking panels where the power window switches would go!
needs trim cant find any lol 65 custom 500 240 i6 three speed used to be tree but in floor now hurst shifter 23 mpg lol
hi the ford galaxie and ford fairlane some interchange plus if you want to make it into a disc brakes for front the ford fairmonts are the same front a-arms just make sure you use the same sway-bar out of the galaxie theres alot of stuff you can do with that car im redoing a 66 galaxie and the headers off a truck fight better because of the frame under the oil pan there the same hight if you look
I ran into a guy @ a FOMOCO classic show who had a ’65 Custom who told me that ’65 was the last year for the big Fords having overdrive transmissions. He’d dropped a 427 into that cavernous cavity underneath the hood which rarely left him behind anybody else’s dust.
Why did overdrive transmissions disappear in the ’60s?
can some one tell me how many 1964 ford custom 500 were made in 1964
My dad, worked for Ford and always had Fords, but he had this ppredilection also for plain jane cars.. Our first new car I remember was a 1960 Fairlane 500 Club Sedan {two door}. It had 6 six cylinder, straight shift, no radio, manual steering and brakes.
I learned to drive on this one.
Those round taillights plugged into the squared-off housings are the things that say “stripper” loudest to me. Wonder if those are leftover molds from another year adapted.
It’s fascinating to see the lengths to which car manufacturers would go to ensure that their lowest carlines were separated from the more expensive ones. It had to be far more expensive to have those special, strippo, no backup light rear taillights created instead of just using the regular full-size taillights with integral backup lights.
Some cars look good with vertical headlamps, while others look awful with vertical headlamps. It sometimes depends on what the grille looks like that goes on the front of the car. The 1965 and 66 Galaxie and Custom have good looking grille and vertical headlamps, but the 67 looked awful.
Surprisingly handsome as a stripper. A testament that the basic lines are very good.
Despite the tail lights, I want it.
+1
Much love here for this car. There are a fair amount of Customs from ’65-’66 with 427’s, including a 4 door post sedan!
Strippers were very common in Quebec when I was a kids and they are still common now. To be somewhat diplomatic, the standard of buying power in certain eastern regions of Canada varies from western regions and the climate is very harsh, eating up cars in no time. Many keep strippers for winter and nice cars for summer for this reason.
My dad was a stripper king. His 1961 Biscayne hand only the mandatory for Canada heater. It had the 194 Stovebolt and 3 on the tree. He bought a lightly used 1965 Biscayne which afforded him a 283 and Powerglide, but he always hated that car because it was not new. Next was a 1970 Pontiac Stratochief, a two door hardtop with only 350 V-8 and Powerglide. With no power steering and a small steering wheel, it was a beast to park. By 1976 it was too rusty to drive. His next car was a 1974 Corolla 1600, a rubber floor mat, no armrest special. That car got sold to me in 1980 and it ran until I crashed in in about 1987.
After that was a 1979 Impala, custom ordered with 350, F-41 and a/c. It somehow arrived with a tilt wheel and dad fought like a tiger over the $69 it cost. No other options on that one. That lasted until 1984 when he bought a loaded 1984 Jetta Turbo Diesel. He liked it so much he bought a 1986, loaded except sunroof, which he drove until his death. After the kids were gone, he could indulge himself a bit and on the Wet Coast, cars last a lot longer, making a loaded car more viable.
Going back to my 2011 post above, I was a stripper lover, mostly because I had one at the time. After a few years of driving a loaded car with leather, heated seats and sunroof, I will never go back to a stripper. They are not worth it here since reselling them is very difficult. Try selling a used car with manual transmission and no a/c. Heck, most young drivers can drive a manual, reducing your market quite a bit.
Beast to park: my first two cars, MGB & Ford Escort, had unboosted steering & brakes (latter was my choice); of course the MGB was no sweat. I like to think it was a cheap way to get a muscle workout.
Are any cars available minus power steering & brakes anymore? We are a strange culture, eliminating anything requiring effort, then having to spend leisure time in exercise so we won’t become flat slobs as in the film “Wall-E.”
There will be a few with no power steering, but the only car I can think of without power brakes was the original Lotus Elise. I’m not sure whether that has changed on newer models.
Power steering is a must-have these days with the amount of camber & caster in the suspension geometry, and the number of turns lock-to-lock not much more than 2 on some cars. Steering a modern car with the engine shut off is heavier than an older car with manual steering.
Powersteer on a 4banger sedan with rwd is completely unnecessary even 6 cylinder cars dont require it, actually until I moved to New Zealand and began driving FWD cars I hadnt had a car with pwr steer since the old Dodge Pioneer and that didnt work properly anyway thats 50-60 cars without.
Strippers were common in 60s Britain.I can remember car coats an overcoat to wear inside the car when heaters were an option.My brother helped Mr Watkins my favourite music teacher fit a rear window demister to his Wolsley 1500
Perhaps the UK Ford Popular was the most Plain Jane car ever.
In the US, the Japanese could be “blamed” for the decline of stripper models. They had more standard goodies than US makes.
Could well be,I’m sure some CCer will tell us otherwise if not!A sure sign of a skinflint’s car was seeing “Popular” or “Popular Plus”(a slight step up from the Popular on UK Fords
This is because the Japanese makers intensively studied the works of Charles Taylor, which breaks every assembly operation into a series of timed steps. The Japanese extended this to create “just in time delivery” which massively lowered their production costs. This, coupled with Breton Woods exchange rates, allowed the Japanese to have more content in their mainstream models, although they always had strippers, too.
Now we now longer have a la carte ordering, only specifically equipped models, in fewer colours, albeit at lower cost.
Don’t you mean Frederick Winslow Taylor, the original Efficiency Expert? He was incredibly influential, with disciples of his Time & Motion studies ranging from Henry Ford to Vladimir Lenin. No history of the industrial era should omit him, but I wonder how much factory workers might admire him, if they knew about him.
The Japanese were more unique in their appreciation of W. Edwards Deming, the Quality Control Prophet (w/o honor in his own country, at least at 1st).
Now there is a Canadian philosopher named Charles Taylor.
Toyota’s original parent company, the Toyoda Automatic Loom Works, had come up with the idea of just-in-time in the ’30s, but didn’t have the resources to implement it until much later. As the companies that have switched can testify, converting to just-in-time production is a major undertaking that requires you to reexamine and potentially reinvent your production methodology — it’s not something you can just easily tack onto an existing system.
I once helped my brother put a Smith’s heater in his 62 TR3. And this was in Southern California, so I guess it made sense it had no heater originally. We took it out of a 56 TR2 he bought for a parts car for $25.00. The TR2 even made it to our house under it’s own power, although barely. This was around 1971.
I fitted a heater to my 59 Hillman in 2010 it survived fine without one till then it did have an optional radio from new but no heater.
Ford, Chevrolet and Plymouth all carried two-door sedasn throught he 1970 model year. Plymouth ran out their supply of two-door sedan bodies by creating the Gran Coupe, with a vinyl roof, 383 V8, A/C and deluxe interior. Most of them were brown, with a brown paisley vinyl roof and paisley inserts in the seats.
I’ve heard rumors that when the new C bodies were being developed for 1965, that Dodge was scheduled to have one, but it never materialized. Too bad!
I don’t know about Plymouth, but I had thought ’69 was the last year for fullsize pillared 2-doors at both Chevrolet and Ford.
1969 was the last year for both the Ford and Chevy two door sedans. Plymouth continued into 1970 (running out the bodies with the Gran Coupe model as noted above), and then in 1971 offered a fixed rear side window model with frameless glass and the hardtop roofline in the Fury I series, while the Fury II got a proper two door hardtop.
After the two door sedans were dropped, both the Chevy Bel Air and Ford Custom 500 added two door hardtops in Canada for 1970.
Initial post mentions Ford’s use of “Tudor”. It’s companion in 50’s car ads was “Fordor”.
This bit of preciousness seems to have started sometime before the end of the roaring 20’s.
Wow, that’s a bargain for a $1000. Even as a sort of DD, you’d have quite a bit left for gas and stuff considering the other options for that price (aka more modern cars in need of repair).
I also like strippers, specially nowadays in the age of nav systems and options for everything. It’s nice to see simplicity, which usually equals longevity, like the Jetta posted recently…
I like this car a lot. The dashboard is attractive. Reminds me a bit of the GM A-body dashboards from the 80s, with the flat top and driver centric controls.
Nowadays, even the lower tier Hyundai’s can be had with leather and cooled rear seats(!).
Hubcaps are another thing that are not as common. Not as often do you see a new Civic or Corolla with hubcaps.
My dad did have a stripper 2007 Kia Rio he bought for work, since he had to drive quite a bit daily. Had crank windows but AC and radio. I think it was auto too but it was actually quite nice.
He previously had 2 used 2004 Grand Prixes in a row, since he liked them so much but gas was starting to go up. He sold the first before mileage got too high and got another one.
I’m not that nostalgic about strippo cars — having dealt with a car that didn’t even have a radio, I can’t say I found it endearing — but hubcaps are sort of too bad. A plain steel wheel with a trim ring and a simple hubcap looks better than most plastic wheel covers, which I’m pretty sure exist mainly to shame people into popping for alloy wheels.
“1973 would mark the last year for the un-numbered Custom, and the last Custom 500 would be found on the 1977 models.”
The last year for the un-numbered Custom was actually ’72. I believe that ’77 is correct for the Custom 500, at least in the U.S.; for ’78 this trim level (which was officially fleet-only after 1975) was renamed LTD ‘S’. The Custom 500 name continued a bit longer in Canada, and it’s my understanding that ’78 Custom 500s were built in the U.S. for export to Canada, but the name was not used on ’78s sold in the U.S.
The last year for the un-numbered Custom was actually ’72.
Quite right; text amended.
The Custom 500 was available as a separate model line in Canada through ’78, and then from ’79-’81 an “LTD Custom 500” model was offered – I don’t believe it had any external identification, only a badge on the dash.
Damn, isn’t that ’49 Ford a great looking car?
I like stripped-down cars too. Engine, wheels, and a good place to sit. My 1st-gen Miata has no power anything except brakes, and I’m looking into deleting the vacuum boost on that as well.
Don’t know why a Brit sports car (which the Miata is conceptually) needs power stuff, since they’re lightweight, & it’s all about driver involvement. My old MGB didn’t even have a power windshield washer; it was push-button, like a squirt gun. No complaints there, & not being electrical, no Lucas™ worries either.
Manual windows, mirrors, door locks, seats, no rear defog, steel wheels. Total ‘stripper’ 04 King Cab Titan. Only 2 (mandatory) options, mud guards and floor mats. People ride in it and ask me how do you lower the windows. I point at the handle and get a puzzled look. Yet it came standard with equipment fully loaded cars had plus features not available at any price when this Ford was built. But it also came with a sticker of $22,400. But the 05’s were out and no one wants a stripper, so it sold for $18,000. Today’s strippers are anything but.
I also wish Ford had kept the LTD name, not the Crown Victoria name. The 1992 full size Ford should have been the LTD and LTD Brougham, and the 1992 Mercury should have been the Marquis and Marquis Brougham.
+1
My grandparents bought a new ’65 Tudor with 289 and 3-on-the-tree. Quite a step-up from the ’56 Chevy 210 2-door post. Still kick myself for letting both those cars get away.
A priest at the church where I grew up had a sort of desert tan 1965 Custom 500, but I think it was a 4-door. It probably had automatic, PS, PB, and A/C, being a Tucson car, and I remember seeing that it had a power seat–really! But there was nothing externally that made it look like anything but a boring low-level full-sized car.
I remember, too, that one of the Ford dealers here in 1966 advertised the lowest-level Custom 2-door sedan for as low as $1999. I’m sure that was base everything; I wonder if that even included a heater. Funny the things that stick with a person!
Late September 1966—Ford cuts prices, with specific mention of our beloved 2-door Custom sedan:
.
I remember when these came out ~ I thought they were super modern and so good looking .
-Nate
Late in every model year in the latter ’60’s, Ford dealers would run a special promotion titled “Ford’s White Sale” which offered stripped, six cylinder, stick shift, white Custom four and two door sedans for bargain-basement prices…..always dog-dish hubcaps. They were popular with the frugal (miserly skinflint) buyers in rural areas and small towns.
Full-sized two door sedans were popular with route salesmen too, bought as fleets, run to high mileage quickly, shipped off to the auction when the next fleet arrived. The secondary market was just as hard on those strippers, they landed in junkyards quickly, though some could be caught beforehand on the back line with cheap prices soaped on the windshield.
Whoever bought this car for a thousand bucks got an incredible deal! Hopefully they had the good sense to leave it as-is rather than adding some ridiculous wheels and a Hot Wheels paintjob.
The only thing I’d change is switching to the dog dishes Paul mentioned and cleaning up that shifter installation. It was possible to order a Custom with the 4-speed (sans console), so there has to be a factory boot somewhere out there that would make it look perfect.
I could never understand the “stripper mentality” of some buyers.You could always buy the better car for only a few hundred more, even if you got it with a V8 , auto and, at least a radio, Someone on my block, a real skinflint that made Scrooge look like a philanthropist had a `64 Custom -not even a Custom 500 4 door with no heater-in NY nontheless, no radio, a 3 speed manual and not even dog dishes.And, to further add to the conundrum, he had clear plastic seat covers over the el cheapo base interior! A friend who had a newspaper route claimed he never even got a dime tip out of him,and a neighbor who was partners with his brother at a diner claimed the waitresses hated to serve him and his wife and two kids because he gave them squat.I remember him and his family going to mass at St. Francis on bone chilling winter sundays and freezing their -sses of in that frigid Ford. Hell, the cheapskate never even put money in the collectlon plate.His occupation-he was a college literature professor. Glad I never had one of his classes when I attended Brooklyn college about 4 years later.
Is the 65 ford customs till there
In the early 90s I bought a partially-restored ’61 Rambler Classic “Deluxe” which = miser special. 196ci six, three-speed column shift, no overdrive, no options at all save a heater. It was a beast to drive but once on the highway it’d cruise at 70 all day, once you got there. The body was pristine and rust-free, but the interior was a mess and the engine needed a rebuild; I think that car contributed significantly to the Los Angeles-area smog problem for a few years from severely-worn rings. I sold it to a guy who drove out from South Carolina and trailered it back to swap everything off his rusted-out version.
I have owned or driven ’59, ’61, ’62, 3 -’63’s Ramblers & 2-’65 Rambler Ambassadors without power steering and had absolutely no problem driving them. I learned to drive on a ’63 Rambler V8, Auto, R&H and nothing else. If nothing else the 6 cyl cars were a bit easier to steer, being lighter in the front. Took my drivers license exam in ’66 with the ’63 V8 and breezed through it even having to parallel park. Never owned a car with PS or PB’s until the late 80’s, the less there is the less there is to go wrong and I have never paid over $1500.00 for a car to this day. It is rather hard or next to impossible today to find the stripper like cars I drove for years, but I try to find the ones with the fewest options as possible.
My high school/college friend still has the 1966 four door Penalty box version of this article’s car. 240 six, three-on-the-tree, manual steering & brakes, cloth & vinyl bench seat, no floor carpeting, Wimbledon white exterior and turquoise interior.
The only options on the car: heater, AM push button radio, dealer add on “knee knocker”, round vents A/C unit.
He loves it, I struggle to keep my opinion of it to myself, the few times I drove it.
Man,1000USD!That Is Practically For Free.Down Here That Is What We Pay For A New Vespa150 cc.You Guys Are So Lucky.God Bless America.
My first thought on looking at this car today is how amazing it is that those wheelcovers are still on it. Those really flat 65 wheelcovers (coupled with the cars’s slightly flexy wheels) got thrown into ditches quite regularly back when.
I always wondered why those had a circular tail light in the same housing that the more upscale models had, but which fit the housing with a different shape, a more diamond-like shape.
No back-up lights. It’s hard to imagine a day when you could get a car so stripped it didn’t have a heater or back-up lights. In fact, I wonder if they were even optional and, if so, did you get the normal Galaxie taillights or were there some sort of special, Custom taillights that included back-up lights.
Perhaps this is of some help: A buyer of a 1964 Ford Falcon Standard Series 2-door sedan could buy optional back-up lights for the car. I’ve seen pictures of ’64 Falcons w/out the back-up lights, but I have them on mine.
There was no cheaper model that I’ve seen for the 1964 Ford model year than a 2-door Standard Series Falcon and b/up lights were available for it so I’d figure all Ford cars from the 1965 model year had back-up lights as an option.
A grand??? Oh baby… I would have been all OVER that Custom for a measly grand!!!
In ’65-’66, you could get the same 2-door sedan roofline as the Ford Custom on a Mercury Monterey.
For a stripper, that Mercury doesn’t look half bad. With the more horizontal lines and complex sheetmetal stampings, the styling comes off better integrated with the 2-door sedan roof than the Ford. Of course, I doubt you could get a Monterey anywhere near as cheap as a Custom.
A stripper meant something completely different until about 1990 than it does today. Stripper cars were real hair shirt penalty boxes with crank windows, freezing in winter searing hot in summer cheap vinyl upholstery, no radio, no a/c, tinny cars with all semblance of comfort removed. Today in 2017 you can buy a base model economy car which has more features than a luxury car from 1987 and is in some cases roomier and more powerful. The quality of the materials isn’t as good as it was 30 years ago, but a stripper isn’t a bargain basement hell like it used to be. Manufacturers figured out that a) it was cheaper to equip all their cars about the same, with at least a minimum level of equipment and whatever profitability was gained by advertising a hair shirt model at a low price and then making the hair shirt models so awful that most people would buy a slightly optioned model at a considerably higher price wasn’t worth it and b) no one was going to buy a vinyl seated, crank windowed, no radio/no A/C compact in the face of the Korean compacts which were fairly decently equipped for less money. Since now the luxury features of 20 years ago have migrated downwards, I am happy with a stripper car although I would have fled from one 20 years ago. It always felt like a false economy to me to save a few hundred, or a few thousand bucks, when you noticed every dollar that was taken out of the car in comfort and convenience. A few options made the car drastically more comfortable in those days.
Some of the gadgets and toys on a contemporary car, like power doors and liftgates on a minivan, have a bad reputation for breaking expensively but most of it seems pretty well engineered nowadays.
Even for a stripper, the two tone blue interior is quite attractive especially compared with the cheap plastics that would follow in the 1970’s and today’s black and gray plastic caves. I don’t much care for the proportions of the two door v. the four door, the two door seems to have a mismatch between the size of the greenhouse and the body. Chrysler seemed the worst at tiny greenhouse- enormous car ratios.
“Since now the luxury features of 20 years ago have migrated downwards…..”
I like to call it “Trickle Down Ergonomics”.
My 2016 Honda Civic for example (although not a stripper, but more of a mid-range EX-T) has push button start (personally, my first car so equipped).
I seem to recall Infinity making a big deal out of that feature in their top of the line Q-45 in about 1996 or so with their TV advertising.
Funny you should mention 1990 as a turning point; I read in an article how auto loan interest rates were lowered sharply during 1987, before which it made a lot more sense to buy (finance) as cheap a car as you could get away with and buy your upgrades for cash over the counter. So you had those ’80s strippers you described getting decked out in short order with aftermarket stereo, fluffy faux-sheepskin seat covers, pop-up sunroofs and the like. Once the factory tires wore out, why not get a set of aftermarket alloys for the new summer tires and keep the stock nekkid steelies for the snows? Even aftermarket AC stuck around a long time although it was never a big thing up here. Every town had at least one soup-to-nuts auto accessory store.
Since then, as standard equipment levels have risen, auto loans extended with rock-bottom interest rates, and old standards like DIN/double DIN radios have been moved away from, the accessory business has declined but the ones that are still in business will often still do that stuff even though their bread and butter is now in outfitting and wrapping commercial fleets.
The Fairlane’s debut was for the 1955 model, not the 1954 model.
Also, the 1955-1956 Crown Victoria was not a hardtop, but rather a pillared sedan/coupe with frameless doors.
It’s interesting how the full sized two door post disappeared at the end of the 1960s only to reappear in the mid 1970s. In the 1960s, high end coupes were hardtops while low end coupes were post sedans but in the mid 1970s and later even the high end coupes had B pillars (and fixed rear side windows). The B pillars were added in anticipation of federal rollover standards that never came to fruition. GM four door hardtops lasted a bit longer than two door hardtops.
If I could go back to the 1960s, I would special order two cars: One would be a Custom like this one or a Biscayne with most available options and a big engine. Power seats, brakes, windows, steering, A/C…virtually every option available with the exception of an automatic transmission. The other car would be an LTD or Caprice with very few options. While the V8 was standard on those cars, in those days one could order a car pretty much the way they wanted it within reason, and I’m sure the right dealer could hook me up with a six cylinder/3 on the tree LTD or Caprice. In 50 years when the cars were classics and ready to be restored, the owner would think “what kind of a nutjob would order a car this way?”
Power windows and seats were not offered on Custom & 500 series until mid-70s.
V8 & auto were standard on LTD from 1965-67, then the auto went away in favor of 3-on-the-tree to quote a lower base price. No six cylinder LTDs until the 1983 Fox body.
The Ford Mainline was replaced by the custom 300 in ’57. There was no “custom” in “57, 58′ or 59′. These custom 300s came with full carpeting, not rubber mats. If your going to write about automotive history get it straight….
Of all the first gen models, this one is probably your best buy. The XK Falcon was a bit of a disaster with front-end durability issues, but they had been effectively eliminated by the time this model arrived. To change the negative perceptions within the Australian market, Ford conducted a 70,000 mile endurance test at the company’s You Yangs circuit with five examples of these model.
I have a 1965 Custom . It’s a nice car, it’s in the Ford Museum . Its the gold colored one. It’s in there because it’s a winner of its class. It has a 352 in it. It’s a real fast car. The only problem I had with it , is that you need to own a gas station to keep it going. I’m told it worth a lot of money. I don’t have a way to upload pictures right now. If you want to see it it’s at the Ford Museum in Dearborn MI. I’m letting Louie Ford borrow it for a while. I don’t know what the class is called but it’s show room floor original. Like I said before it’s fast ! ! !
My father bought it in 1965 brand new , I was 16 at the time so I learned to drive in it .
Then he gave it to me in 1970. I raced it all over town.This was in
Daly City, Ca.
Back when things like Customs, Biscaynes, and Fury I’s were available, and options could be ordered on an a la carte basis, Consumer Reports used to advise full sized car buyers to start with the base model and add only the options they really needed, to get the car with the lowest price and also potentially the best gas mileage since it was lighter than an LTD or Caprice.
You have to smile looking at those circular tail lights in the rectangular housings. With the additional surrounding trim and relatively low production volumes I doubt if Ford saved any money on them, but they probably pushed a lot of buyers up a notch to the 500.
Just a slight additional measure of ‘shame’ artfully applied…marketing in action. :-).
I always wondered what was up with those circular taillights. Left over in the parts bin from earlier vintages I suppose.
The 500 also had round lights. FWIW it’s apparent by this early pre-production factory photo that they briefly considered carrying the theme over to 1966.
I had to look twice, the lower crease on the doors looked like some one had scrapped the side of the car.
I’ll pass on the strippers. (car wise)
I was fifteen and a half at the time, so I had my learners permit . My DAD wasn’t rich and he traded in a 1957 Custom on it . But I’ll tell ya , that thing just guzzled gas . He was glad to get rid of it, he gave it to me in 1972. It went like stink ! ! ! He got a brand new Maverick .
Paul
Too bad that the last two digits of the regional code of the tel # on the window are not inverted
Those 1965-1970 big Fords were really nice cars!