posted by robadr
The backdrop for this Galaxie coupe is perfect: all straight lines with a few angles thrown in. I’m pressed to think of a car that eschewed curves more than this one.
Even the traditional Ford round taillights were mostly squared off.
At least the steering wheel wasn’t given that treatment, as Chrysler did just a couple of years earlier.
I’m sure if European style composite headlamps or the rectangular sealed ones had been available at the time, they would have been used here.
What’s of course most remarkable is that Ford and Chrysler embraced the rectilinear look the same year GM sprouted massive curves. 1965 may well be the most divergent stylistic year for the Big Three big cars. And we all know who won that stylistic war.
The divergence between the styling of the three 1965 full- sizers is on display in this Gulf No-Nox commercial, although they accentuate it by using a two-door Chevy hardtop. Kind of unfair!
I assume that is the Chesapeake Bay bridge and tunnel.
That’s one sweet ride! I like the thin gear selector lever, compared to the larger ones favored by GM.
That’s almost identical to one I saw 20 years ago when I was in Puerto Vallarta on my honeymoon! I found the vast flat square-ness very appealing then and I still do. My wife in the other hand, hated it on sight and still does.
I remember being a little bit disappointed, back when I was in High School, when the 1965 Fords were introduced. I thought that the 1964, with it’s side sculping, was an attractive looking car. The 1965 was sort of too simple looking. However, as the years have gone by, I now see the clean timeless lines of the 1965 Ford, especially the 2 dr hardtop in all white with tinted glass. It looks trim as compared to the 1965 Chevrolets, although they are very attractive as well, but it seems to me that the Ford looks less dated. Next to impossible to find one these days however.
Anyone remember the “Bent Front Straight Fenders” – I think a way of reducing the die costs.
I’ve wondered about the die stamping costs for concave sheetmetal, first adopted by Mercury in 1963, then later by Elwood Engel for the ’65-’68 Chryslers. I’m also curious about the longevity of those dies, as well. Did the concave dies have a shorter life and could the more conventional styling of the same era Fords and Plymouths been a way to recoup some of the presumed higher cost of the dies required for the concave sheetmetal?
The main motivation for the folded metal 1965 design has been attributed to the production engineering and manufacturing who had had to spiral the metal before stamping to achieve the soft rounded forms, informed Styling they would no longer be doing that. It may have been to reduce costs. For the Stylist to get the offset they wanted, they had to go with the straight, folded forms. This was detailed in the book: A Century of Automotive Style, 100 years of American Car Design by Michael Lamm and Dave Holls.
One further influence might have been the manufacturing experience Ford had already gained from the 1964 Falcons and Comets, both which are that folded metal theme. It may have been simply Accounting requiring the same manufacturing methods be applied to the next full-sized redesign to save manufacturing costs.
Everyone remembers the Corvette and Riviera as being the big things for 1963 but, to me, just as noteworthy was the introduction of the stacked-headlight Pontiac. By 1965, we see how both Ford and Plymouth stylists were embracing the look. Interestingly, while AMC and Cadillac had also jumped on the bandwagon, Chrysler, Buick and Oldsmobile never had them.
They were ditched just a few short years later (with AMC, Cadillac and the 1968 Fury keeping them for one more year), but for many, nothing says the sixties like round, stacked headlights.
What’s surprising is that AMC kept them just long enough to establish the distinction between the Ambassador which had them and the Classic/Rebel which didn’t.
The 1963 Pontiacs, featured more than once here, were regarded as the trendsetters that forced Ford’s hand in the new 1965 Ford design, but the Pontiacs were not really rectilinear. It is almost as though Ford based their copy on a blurry spy photo and did not notice how the Pontiac’s hips were rounded out in the beginning of the trend to voluptuousness…which actually could be said to have started in 1961. I was surprised at how straight the lines on the Ford were. But sure enough, Ford showed off its copy of the bulging hips in 1966, almost as though they realized that “We left something out.”
And then there’s the ’66 Fairlane that had the Pontiac hips, followed by the ’67 Galaxie. But 1967 would be the last year for Ford copying the ’63 Poncho.
The 65 and 66 Galaxies are my all time favorite Galaxies in that order. The 64, because five of us moved across country in it, has to be a sentimental favorite. Yet clearly I happen to be a somewhat angular type of guy.
The 65 Plymouth looks really angular – until it’s parked next to one of these.
I liked these when they were new and I still do. I used to like the 66 better, but now I prefer the cleaner look of the original.
This car appears to have gotten a wheelcover upgrade. I suppose these may have been optional across the line, but they were usually seen on either XLs or on LTDs. The originals probably all flew off – I remember how commonly those were found on the sides of roads when I was a kid who collected every roadside hubcap I could find. What I never understood was the wheelcover design that emulated a 4 lug wheel rather than the 5 lug wheel that was common.
The ‘TV Test Pattern” ’65 Ford wheel covers! Don’t worry, just reveal how old you are because you remember TV test patterns!
Great car,,, had a old beater upper in high school,, she over heated one nite, as we had been drinking a few beers and had no water to add to radiator, well lets just say we used the radiator as a bathroom,,, never missed a beat
I heard that same story on NPR’s Car Talk. Only I think it was college kids with a beat up Jeep Cherokee. One of the funniest stories I heard on that show!
It reminds me a kind of story of one car fleet manager. One driver deserve a revenge, so he used his windshield reservoir as a bathroom. You can imagine what happend in the middle of summer with all the bugs / insects out there.
Ford got it right with the refinements for 1966 – the overall shape, the concave rear window on the coupe, the grille, the taillights, even the wheel covers – such a beautiful car.
That was a lot of panel changes after one year, for not a whole lot of difference in appearance.
A buddy of mine had a blue 66 Galaxie four door sedan back in the day. A beautiful car he inherited from his grandpa. Unlike most inherited cars, he really treated it like it was his baby, keeping it until he was married and had literal babies to look after. I’m not into big cars and I’m not a Ford guy, but I wouldn’t kick one of these out of the garage.
My dad told me when I reached driving age I would be responsible for buying my own car if I didn’t want to drive one of his cars.
That lasted until he couldn’t resist paying $225 for a ’65 LTD, dark green with a light green top and interior, that one of the customers at his store had for sale. I think it had around 70,000 miles on it. It had the 352 V-8, automatic trans combination. And he gave it to me. This would have been around 1974 or so.
I chucked the wheel covers and put baby moon hub caps on. I ended up driving it for about 8 months, during which time it had TWO carburetor fires, and I found out how difficult it is to change the starter motor without the right ratchet extensions.
I traded it toward a ’72 Maverick. I think they gave me a couple hundred dollars in trade.
Hope those poxy decals are an easy off
+1.
I agree – lose the decals. Otherwise, a great ‘65 Galaxie. The full sized ‘65 and ‘66 Fords are among my favourite Sixties cars, and they’re definitely my favourite Fords of the time.
I’m usually not into Fords and large cars but I love the Galaxies of this type. A green 7 litre hardtop (2 or 4 door) would do nicely. Even a Country Squre wagon sans the faux wooden panelling.
If only they didn’t have that ghastly strip speedo dashboard typical of most cars of this type of the period.
Our family had a ’65 500 XL 2 door hardtop, metallic green with a black vinyl roof, so I’m definitely biased on this one.
But even though GM clearly won the styling battle of the ’60’s with its coke bottle motif – and modern car design continues to be much more molded than folded – I think the Galaxie design has aged well. It may not have been a trend setter, but IMO even in 2020 it’s a better looking car than its GM competitors.
I clearly like folded metal – some Cadillacs look quite good to my eye, grille aside, and I’m even keen on Cybertruck. And then of course, there’s the ultimate piece of folded metal art – Scirocco. 🙂
The 1965 full-size Fords were the best-looking non-luxury cars of the 60s.
Kind of a stripper. No radio and either the six or 289. And, those wheel covers are not stock.
The ‘65 was a major leap forward for Ford and the LTD version opened a whole new automotive genre. Ford finally integrated the factory A/C in the dash this year and moved the ignition to the right of the steering wheel. Styling was quite different from Chevy and Plymouth, but attractive in it’s own way. The subtle changes for ‘66 made it even better.
Ford began moving the ignition to the right of the steering wheel in the 1964 big Fords and the Thunderbirds. Our 1964 Fairlane still had the ignition on the left. Not sure but I think the Falcon’s ignition moved to the right in 1964, at least some pics on the internet suggest this is the case. Here is the big Ford’s arrangement for 1964.
The original reason Ford had the ignition on the left was because they had the manual choke knob on the right. Allowed using 2 hands to start the car – which was sometimes necessary with the old flatheads. When Ford finally adopted automatic chokes for all their engins, the left hand ignition switch became superfluous. Just took a bit longer to get it changed over. Some of us old Ford mechanics think they changed too soon given the tendency of the neutral safety switch on Ford automatics to prematurely fail up until the mid-70’s redesign of the part. Starting with a failing switch required the driver to use the left hand to pull the shift lever up towards park and hold it there while using the right hand to turn the key. Quite an awkward maneuver that would have been made easier had the left handed ignition switch stayed around a few more years. Of course, Ford could have just fixed the neutral safety switch design earlier, but that would have been too easy.
While I didn’t think this was perfect by any means, iMHO, it was the last really decent looking Ford car for many many years. The cars that followed this generation of Fords went off into bizarro land, with the Maverick/Comet being pretty much the dull exception to the weird Torino, ’71-73 Mustangs, EXP etc. The Ford strangeness continued until the early 2000’s, when it seemed like they suddenly regained their sanity at the design studio. I generally like the looks of their stuff now, at least on the outside. I can’t ever see myself buying a Ford product, the memories of my dad’s cars is still vivid in my mind. His ’63 T-Bird was the worst car of his lifetime, followed closely by the ’67 T- Bird that replaced it. The Imperial that followed less than year, even with it’s AC issues, always started, always ran great, and never left us on the side of the road, as the two T-Birds each did, waiting for AAA to come tow us to the dealer. He gave Ford it’s last shot in a ’69 Lincoln MKIII, which he hated so much he traded his brother straight up for a ’69 Sedan De Ville. which he famously wrecked in 1972 and knocked out power to the entire south end of Toledo. The Lincoln was only slightly less problem plagued than the ’67 Bird was.
Was out driving my 1965 Galaxie 500xl convertible yesterday…it was like I was in a parade thumbs up and waves 👋 from young and older generations
Beautiful car! The 65-66 full-size Fords are some of my all-time favorites — the 66 hardtop coupe with the concave rear window is the piece de resistance of this generation (ditto the full-size Mercury hardtop coupes). In my opinion, these were much more attractive than the full-size Chevys from the same years. I see a lot of these at car shows, and they also command a high price on the collectors’ market. If only we could get some of those angles and straight lines on cars today, instead of the sad lot of plastic-y jelly beans now offered by automakers.
I experienced the CC effect in reverse with this car. A week or so ago I was driving through an industrial area and heard a loud roar as I was passed by a Ford hardtop just like this one. It was jacked up in the rear with some primer spots. The young guy behind the wheel was definitely proud of his ride. These are one of my favorite Fords of the Sixties.