It’s hard to imagine any vaguely style-conscious American in 1967 voluntarily buying a new Ford Falcon, especially a four-door sedan. Just as its Australian cousin was starting to get interesting, the U.S. Falcon was sinking into colorless oblivion, offering neither sporty performance nor sex appeal. It was too banal to be a symbol of defiance and too bland to be worth making fun of. Especially in four-door sedan form, the Falcon was just a plain, ordinary, cheap generic car for people who didn’t have the time or energy for all that fashion stuff, which is exactly what makes it stand out today.
Fashion is hard work. Staying on top of trends and developing a personal aesthetic doesn’t necessarily require a lot of money (although it helps), but it does take ongoing effort and attention — what’s on-trend today may be embarrassingly dated tomorrow. Some people would just rather not bother: We’ve all had (or been) that friend or coworker who just always buys the most anonymous department store essentials, wears them till they wear out, and replaces them with as close to the same things as possible. They’re not just unfashionable, they’re ANTI-fashionable, refusing to even try to play the style game.
If you were buying a new car in 1967 and you were image-conscious, you did have some attainable choices even at the lower end of the price scale. So long as you didn’t get carried away with the options list, a six-cylinder Camaro or Mustang wasn’t much more expensive than a compact sedan, and it was stylish enough to earn you a LITTLE credibility, even if you were a middle-aged math teacher with a crew cut and a pocket protector. By 1968, there would also be some interesting new import options, like the Opel Rallye Kadett, which looked like a miniature Chevelle SS.
In 1967, the trouble started if you needed four doors and a real back seat that could regularly carry normal-size adults or lanky children. Americans bought a lot of two-door hardtops in this era (they were far more popular overall than two- or four-door sedans), and so that was where Detroit stylists focused most of their attention.
In the higher price classes, you could get a stylish four-door hardtop, and occasionally a pillared four-door sedan that was almost as sleek. Down in the “popularly priced” segments, the compacts and intermediates people bought when they needed basic transportation, domestic sedans were about as fashionable as cheap JCPenney polyester slacks.
A few years earlier, when the compacts were newer, some of them had at least tried for a little panache. The 1962 Falcon Futura had been cute — maybe TOO cute for some tastes, but it made an effort, like a Depression-era housewife adding a nice thrift-store brooch to her flour-sack dress.
Look at its Corvair Monza-fighting interior, with bucket seats and center console. You might or might not like it (I think it’s adorable), but it was at least TRYING to be sporty and fun.
By 1967, the Falcon had gotten bigger — much closer, in size and structure, to the midsize Fairlane, of which it was now a foreshortened version — and whatever zest for life it once had was basically gone.
The brochure claimed the Futura was “Falcon at its sportiest,” but even the top-of-the-line Futura Sports Coupe just looked like a bargain-store version of the far more popular Ford Mustang.
The Futura Sports Coupe was the only version of the 1967 Falcon that still came with buckets, but if that was what you wanted, a basic Mustang was only a little more expensive and had much more self-respect.
The Falcon sedan was affordable, practical, and probably reasonably reliable (Ford was offering a 5-year/50,000-mile warranty on powertrain, steering, and suspension). It was also just about as roomy as its big brother Fairlane except in the trunk. However, it was about as exciting as a prepackaged ham sandwich from an automat vending machine. From a styling standpoint, I don’t think a 1967 Chevrolet Nova was really any better, but a Nova buyer could have a two-door SS hardtop with a 327, creating a brisk little package that might embarrass some big-engine Supercars. Falcon buyers were limited to the sedan, the Sports Coupe, or the even dowdier club coupe, with the 170-cid or 200-cid sixes or a 289-cid V-8.
Almost three-fourths of 1967 Falcon buyers ordered the 289. In two-barrel form, the V-8 cost $131.54 on a base car or $105.63 on a Futura. The 289 could be ordered with a four-barrel this year, giving an extra 25 hp over the standard two-barrel engine for an extra $51.08, but the high-compression “Challenger Special V-8” needed premium gas, which likely crossed it off a lot of low-buck shopping lists. The sensible choice for undemanding commuter duty was the 200-cid “Fairlane Six,” standard on the Futura and a $25.91 option on base models. It was smoother than the base 170, had decent low-end grunt, and came with a fully synchronized three-speed manual rather than the crash-low box on base-engine cars.
If you didn’t care about resale value (kind of a lost cause with a Falcon by this point) and you didn’t spend a lot of time in slow-moving traffic, the three-speed stick was probably your best choice — the optional three-speed C4 Cruise-O-Matic sapped a lot of the six’s energy. Motor Trend‘s 1966 Falcon six with automatic returned a 0 to 60 time of 17 seconds, which wasn’t too bad for an economy car, but needed a lazy 5.5 seconds to reach 30 mph. While the automatic car would cruise at 70 mph, there was little reserve at higher speeds. (The four-speed manual was now only for V-8 cars, and very rarely ordered.)
You could get power steering and power brakes on the Falcon, but almost no one bothered. Front discs were a new Falcon option for 1967, but only with the V-8, and only with power assist; they were almost as rare as the four-speed manual transmission.
The Falcon handled and stopped a bit better with the lighter sixes than the V-8, although the slow manual steering meant a lot of wheel-winding in tight maneuvers either way, and a sharp stomp on the brakes was likely to lock up the rear wheels. Ride quality was okay, and the Falcon was relatively quiet inside, a big improvement over early cars.
In all, a Falcon sedan was a competent if thoroughly uninspiring four-wheeled appliance. It was also cheap, starting at $2,117.51. Selecting a four-door Futura V-8 with automatic, power steering, radio, and whitewalls might push the sticker price past the $2,800 mark (a relative worth of about $30,000 in 2025 dollars), but your chances of wrangling a steep discount off list price were pretty good — Falcon sales were weak by 1967. Judging by the unenthusiastic tone of the U.S. marketing materials, even Ford Division would really rather you bought a Mustang or a Fairlane instead.
If you grow up poor, or lower middle class, you get to be a connoisseur of store-brand generic products, many of which work just as well as the fancier name brands and cost a lot less. The late ’60s Falcon was kind of like that: There were many more stylish cars with more prestigious names, more power, and more sex appeal, but if you valued function over form, the Falcon wasn’t a bad deal. Certainly, you could have spent a lot more without really getting more car in a going-to-work, hauling-the-kids sense.
That wasn’t a formula that had a lot of commercial traction in 1967. I found several sets of contradictory production figures for the 1967 Falcon, so I contacted Ford, whose records show a total of 64,335 cars, not including the Club Wagon van. The Mustang outsold the Falcon by more than 7 to 1 in 1967, which tells you how many buyers were willing to pay a premium (in practicality as well as initial cost) for image.
Judging by how hard it was to find photos of clean, relatively original 1967 Falcons, I assume most of them have long since gone to the junkyard. A lot of the survivors now seem to be hot-rodded V-8 cars, stuffed with aftermarket performance equipment and/or the more powerful engines Ford wasn’t interested in selling in the Falcon at the time. At least around these parts, the hipster interest the Falcon enjoyed for a while didn’t really extend to these later models; a 1966–1970 Falcon was in some respects a better car than the earlier models hipsters preferred, but it was so bland that it didn’t generate the necessary sense of irony.
Which means that the few mostly unmolested Falcon sedans that remain are ordinary cars that have somehow beaten extraordinary odds, managing to weather — for almost 60 years — the use-it-up-throw-it-out-get-another disdain that usually attends cheap, utilitarian products. These Falcons are still as oblivious to fashion as they ever were, and I can’t imagine they’ll ever be worth enough to justify the cost of restoration, but most of the mechanical stuff is commonplace and inexpensive, and they can cope with modern traffic well enough. As long as they’re still running, there’ll probably be somebody who wants them, which is more than one can say of a lot of once-fashionable articles, automotive or otherwise.
Related Reading
Ford Falcon Memories: The 1960s Everyday Car In Vintage Photos (by Rich Baron)
Vintage Road Test: 1966 Ford Falcon Futura – Road Test Magazine Considers A Mustang Alternative (by GN)
Curbside Classic: 1969 Ford Falcon – Low Fidelity (by Perry Shoar)
CC effect strikes again. While dodging right lane bandits on my commute today a I passed one of these in 2 dr form. 289 badges on the guards, and a RHD conversion
The trunk lining in image 16 looks odd. Like a fitted PVC tablecloth.
Was that original factory equipment?
It is indeed OEM FoMoCo. I have the same in my ’68 Cougar, but I don’t care for it either.
That lining was in a lot a “FOMO”, cars for a good while.
Yes, it was as it is in my 68 Cougar and 68 Mustang.
This is great fun to read in upside-down under. Falcon acolytes here will be slavering, enraged, uncontainable. The mighty Falcon XR, from ’66, a throwaway blandmobile? Where does this guy live?
Here, you see, in a tiny automotive world, this car is part of the social fabric, and history. Fully locally made (panels, engines, boxes, the lot), it is interwoven with national pride, and nostalgia. What’s more, this model was rather a nicer car (my opinion) than the wheezy and skinny-tracked GM-Holden offerings of the time, and more signifcantly still – in car-culture terms – it brought the V8 to the people. Incredible to see that in ’67, they sold considerably more in this wee market than the whole of the US!
Of course, I get that it’s not a special car out of its context, though I’ve always thought the styling was actually very decent. I owned almost the identical car to the first pic, albeit in gold. 200ci, non-syncro first three speed, awful drums, no heater, no seatbelts even, when it was 20 years old. In a kind climate, mine was what we’d now call a very sweet survivor: in excellent condition. I loved it, but in truth, the handling was sloppy, the brakes mere suggestions, the steering heavy AND slow, and it roared very boomily if one exceeded about 55mph (it’d do nearly 90 flat out, but scarily). In further truth, with the slow column change, the no-syncro, the hard brakes, the steering, it really was no great advance on a good thirties US car, for what was really different in operation from then? Unitary body, tubular shocks and such, yes, but in feel and style of working, not much new.
But as to unhipness, well, think of it this way, perhaps: in another world, in a different time and a familiar but strange type of culture, indeed, as if through the looking glass, you’ll find that your very dull cousin turns out to be worshipped as a king.
I did say in the very first paragraph that the U.S. Falcon was sinking into a depressive haze just as the Australian Falcon was taking off. The XR Falcon kicked off the GT era down under, but here, Ford was careful not to do anything interesting or exciting with the Falcon because then it might have encroached on the pricier Fairlane (which was more or less the same car with a longer nose, a longer boot, and the rear axle shifted 6 inches back).
My uncle had a 67 sitting in my mother’s yard back in the late 70’s. Don’t remember much about it, or why it was parked. I used to play in it when I was about 8 or 9. He had several cars parked there over the years back then, usually given to him as he always helped everyone fix their cars. When they got something new, he saw them as too good to junk, each needing something that “sounded easy” to a young kid. Most ended up junked eventually, (or given away), as he “never had the time”. (Probably because he was always Helping everyone else with their car troubles.
Anyway, that red 63+ convertible is BEAUTIFUL.
For whatever reason, mid 60s Falcon Squire wagons seemed to be popular in our small town. Most seemed to have the V8. When using the parents’ car, at least a Falcon Squire wouldn’t get you mocked in the high school parking lot. Not the type of car to star in teenage car lust dreams but at least acceptable.
Pity the high schoolers doomed to borrow some far more loathsome auto choices their parents may have made. Insert your own memory of teenage car hell here. It probably isn’t a Falcon.
The Falcon wagon wasn’t very popular by 1967: only 10,105 were built this year, more than half of those the plainer base model. In 1966–1967, the Falcon, Fairlane, and Comet wagons were all virtually the same (same wheelbase, same interior space, about the same external size), so I guess people who wanted something a little fancier bought the Fairlane version instead.
Yes, beginning with the 1966 model year the Falcon, Fairlane and Comet station wagons all shared the same body-shell with a unique wheelbase that was halfway between that of the compact Ford Falcon sedans and the mid-sized Fairlane and Comet sedans and coupes.
(Starting with the 1966 model year, the Comet was no longer a compact car and became mid-sized. It shared its wheelbase and chassis with the mid-sized Ford Fairlane.)
Aside from minor trim differences, the only real difference between the Falcon and Fairlane wagons was the front end clip. The Falcon front end clip had less overhang than the Fairlane front end clip and this resulted in the Falcon wagon being slightly shorter in overall length than the otherwise nearly identical Fairlane wagon.
Also, starting with the 1966 model year, the Ranchero pickup used the same wheelbase as the Falcon, Fairlane and Comet station wagons. 1966 Rancheros used the front end clip from the Falcon, but starting with the 1967 model year they used the Fairlane (and later Torino) front end clip to better complete the with Chevelle-based El Camino.
It probably is in my case, a utterly miserable white on blue ’64 stripper, imbued with the vilest strain of the anti-love of driving. I’m still suffering PTSD from it. That said, it’s just uncanny how Aaron can write something this involving on subjects I have zero interest it. He’s the stickiest thing about this already very sticky site.
I love the 1966-1970 Falcons, as well as the 1967-1976 Valiants, 1978-1983 Fairmonts, and the K cars, but wasn’t car buying age when they were new.
Ironic that by the late ’60s, image cars were the thing with US makers while Toyota was exporting its ultimate appliance car, the Corolla, which gained worldwide fame as dull but reliable basic transportation.
Had three Falcons in my family. Mom and dad had a 1960 four-door, which they traded for a 1964 four-door station wagon, and two years after Mom traded that for a new 1970 Mercury Monterey, I bought my first car—a four-door 1966 Falcon four-door.
The ’60 had the 144 cubic inch six and a manual transmission, the ’64 wagon had the 170 and a manual and mine was a 200 with the automatic—the only automatic I ever owned, apart from the Suburban I bought for wife #1.
Good, reliable basic transportation—no more, no less.
I think the 66+ Falcon’s only real problem was the Mustang in the same showroom. It was every bit as competent as a Chevy II or Valiant, but because the Mustang was so easy to sell to so many people, there was no reason to steer anyone besides old folks who wanted a decent back seat into a Falcon after 1965.
If anything, the Falcon was a better value based on its larger dimensions. Chevy and Plymouth did not have the wildly successful Mustang, and therefore had to make their compacts more compelling to more people. Also, Ford really had no hardware available to make the Falcon a performer. Although a 390 Falcon might have been fun on a straight, dry road.
I spent some time in a late version of this car (an early 1970) and it was a much, much more pleasant piece of basic transportation than the Maverick was.
I think the Mustang was only half the issue. The 1966–1970 Falcon was really just a Fairlane with a shorter nose and tail (and not even that, in the case of the wagon). So, anything Ford might have done to make the Falcon more interesting would likely have come at the expense of the Fairlane, which was more expensive and more profitable. They kind of backed themselves into a corner where the only thing they had any commercial incentive to do with the Falcon was to keep it bland and cheap in hopes of steering buyers who wanted something else into a more profitable model.
I view this as more of a problem with the Fairlane than with the Falcon. The 1966+ Fairlane always came across as lighter/smaller/cheaper than the GM A body and Mopar B body cars. Add in the fact that Ford had no really good performance hardware for them, and it is plain to see why the Fairlane sold to Ford loyalists who wanted something smaller than a Galaxie but bigger/nicer than a Falcon. But back then, that was a good sized customer base and the Fairlane had pretty good sales numbers.
But yes, in hindsight Ford’s combining the Falcon and Fairlane into a single basic car was a bad move for both versions.
When Ford Australia released the Mustang bred ‘XR’ Falcon range in late 1966, my biggest disappointment was the fact that a 2 door pillarless hardtop was not offered as it had been in the previous 1964 ‘XM’ and 1965 ‘XP’ Falcons.
Mind you a 2 door pillarless ‘XR’ Falcon pillarless hardtop would have effectively been a Ford Mustang.
Early in 1967 I wrote a letter to Ford Australia asking them why the then recently released XR Falcon range did not include a pillarless hardtop body in either 2 or 4 door form. Their reply, (which I still have) was not surprising but interesting as by the early 1970s Australians were again offered the option of a 2 door pillarless Falcon in various trim levels.
Today, in 2025 ‘XM’ and ‘XP’ Falcon pillarless hardtops attract high prices on the collector car market.
As an old man I find these looks nice .
As one who drove Fords like this when new I understand they were not very inspiring daily drivers .
Glad to see some survived .
-Nate
I always thought it would be interesting if Inspector Lou Erskine (played by Efrem Zimbalist Jr) on the old 60’s FBI series, stepped out of FBI HQs at the end of the show and instead of getting in to a high-grade T-Bird, Mustang, or Cougar, got into a 66-70 Falcon….then I’d know my tax dollars were at work.
I actually do find these kind of handsome as 4 doors, it’s an interesting perspective situation, much like the Brazilian Maverick GTs that were/are held in high regard as muscle cars locally, this being effectively the standard Ford in Australia takes away the baggage of fairlanes bearing a striking resemblance with better equipment and Mustangs with their iconic styling. Ultimately Ford Australia did to these what were done to Fairlanes/Torinos but arguably they created a more appealing package, hitting its zenith with the XW and XY GTHOs that really were just these sedan body’s with a front and rear facelift and a slightly revised rear window design.
I think these are great looking cars. Make mine a 67, ( for the front fender indents) Sports Coupe, no vinyl roof, painted up and trimmed like an Aussie GS Pack, which gave the look of a GT without the heavy duty mechanical bits.
In 1967 my grandmother was doing volunteer work for the United Way in Camden, Arkansas and was given a 1967 base model Falcon as a company car. It had a heater, a radio, three on the tree, and that was it.
When she retired she was gifted the Falcon and she later gave it to my brother and he later sold it to me. I, in turn sold it in 1981, so that baby blue Falcon was a family owned car from 1967 to 1981.
I know a ’67 Falcon is not highly desirable, but if ever I came across one in good condition at a good price – I’m buying it.