posted by Fred Oliver
Ok, the headline is a (rare) bit of click bait. But this aftermarket continental spare kit on this otherwise quite fine ’62 Sunliner does rather remind me of some of their worst 5 mile bumpers, like the back of the Pinto. Now if they removed the spare, it would make a great tailgating seat. It’s kind of like those platforms on the end of ski boats.
Let’s look at the rest of it and pretend it’s not there.
That’s better. Although the ’62’s thinly-disguised ’61 front end didn’t exactly set the world on fire.
But the quality of their vinyl at the time was top notch.
Ok, the conti spare is not Ford’s doing, but the exposed column shifter was, and egregious little sin. It never failed to draw my attention at the time: why does this column look like a ’49 Plymouth?
Uh oh; back to the point of the beginning. There’s a nice Vauxhall over there…
If these Fords didnt already have a heavy look compared to the GM and Mopar competition, this appendage sure helped.
Not a nice Vauxhall over there but a “how does it still exist !” Vauxhall over there .
there can’t be many.
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/cc-capsule/cohort-outtake-1960-vauxhall-victor-super-the-american-dream/
I’m not a fan of Continental kits, and in my opinion the ones that mount the entire rear bumper further back really spoil a car’s proportions.
The ones that use a chrome addition in the middle of the rear bumper are only slightly better.
Dont like those bumper turds but check out the 60-61 Vauxhall Victor a rare car anywhere nowdays they rusted like very little else ever constructed from ferrous metal and there arent many left
I think this is the worst Continental kit I have ever seen.
I don’t think the vinyl in that interior is original, either the seats or the door panels. But the vinyl materials Ford used at the time was tough stuff indeed.
That’s a truly ghastly continental kit. I don’t think I’ve ever seen one like it, and I was a kid when those things were popular.
I keep thinking that Ford was really held back for several years by both the Edsen debacle and by Robert McNamara. Case in point: those exposed shifter columns for years, even while Ford was trying to beat Chevy. But there were so many things that added up to a sense of visual cheapness in the big Fords, along with the content all too visibly shared with Mercury, thus pulling that brand down as well. The 1965 models finally seemed to break out of that cheap image.
Now: what is that blue-gray car in the background to the left of the Galaxie, and right of the Hudson? A Lincoln Cosmopolitan?
Sure looks like one. I reckon Paul must have wandered over and captured it for us. Maybe tomorrow?
The dealership name can be seen in the background … and their Facebook page reveals a bit more about these cars. As for the Continental kit on this Ford, it might serve a similar balancing purpose as the front bumper on the previously posted IH crane truck. However in this case it may help balance some of the Ford’s understeer.
Continental kits and swamp coolers are pieces of antique automobilia I wouldn’t mind being recycled into a pieces of a Kia, or in this case a whole one.
62s are kind of weird in that they’re my least favorite of 60-64 big Ford’s, but the only year they tie for me with Chevy, which is my least favorite of their 59-64 styles. I think the steering column is actually pretty cool, but I enjoy seeing mechanical action.
As the son of a Chevy dealer back then, and with some bias in my mind, I always amazed at the cheapness of the Ford product of that period. The exposed shift linkage is a starter (a three on the tree Chevy Biscayne hid the linkage just like Powerglide). Another point that usually isn’t mentioned that that the Chevrolet door handles were solid, your fingers touched solid, chromed metal. The Ford door handles were two-sided, the upper and lower parts of what you saw from the outside. When you gripped the door handles you felt the two edges and nothing in between.
Fords thru 1964 were downright cheap compared to their Chevrolet equivalent, both in design and execution. It feels so odd today talking about “quality Chevrolet interiors” when GM seems to have forgotten how to do them for a long time now.
This monstrosity makes my eyes hurt.
There were, and are, two schools of thought in the customizing game. One is “simplify” and integrate into a cohesive design. The other is “gild the lilly.” Gilding is still being done Today, primarily to full size trucks.
I would imagine that driving this car in a snowstorm would have left you with no taillights or rear turn signals visible.
I don’t understand how you are supposed to access the trunk.
I think the tire cover has a latch that allows it to pivot back.
For the whole bumper and spare tire swing out like some of the side hinged setups on modern SUVs, there would likely be some kind of visible hinge. Also, the weight of a tire is very difficult to support with a side hinged system unless you have 2 hinges separated by some vertical distance, More likely for it to fold down. More likely still for the user to have to just reach way over and around the spare tire to stick the key in and open the trunk lid. Then they would have to deal with the continental kit bring in the way while they loaded and unloaded the trunk. Does anyone know for sure?
Thanks again for using my photos, and educating me about a cool old car. The continental kit is a most unfortunate addition, in my opinion, though I like the rest of the car. I hadn’t thought about the effects of significant snow accretion on the rear deck, but that would seem to be a pain, and might also hinder access to snow removal equipment stored in the trunk. On the bright side, perhaps an outboard engine could be fitted to turn it into an amphibious vehicle.
At the end of this posting is a link to more information about this car, apparently by someone else who is or was trying to sell it. According to the information therein it was first sold in NJ, bought by someone in CT a few years ago.
This dealer has some interesting old cars for sale, all of which I have posted in the cohort; the Vauxhall, two Hudsons, the Cosmopolitan, and a VW Beetle. The Galaxie is the most recent arrival, and, as far as I can tell, is in the best condition of the bunch, with an asking price of $16,500.
http://www.autoarcheologist.com/1962-ford-galaxie-500–sunliner.html
A convertible with a 292 and a three-on-the-tree. Interesting.
I’ve never understood these sundecks on the back of a car. If you must have a continental kit, this one looks much better and is in the style I remember back in the day.
Old Bob MacNamara liked him some plain-lookin Fords. And the ’62 is proof.
Ford had a nice-looking coaxial column shift for Mercury and Lincoln, and later used it for Edsel after quickly losing the stupid Teletouch buttons. They could have used it on the Ford and Falcon, but didn’t. I can’t imagine that the labor and materials would have been much different.
It looks like a bowling lane, just draw a set of pins on the tire cover!
AAWWW, C’mon! No fair! Dis is cool stuff, man! Everybody needed a continental kit on the back. Baby Moons also had a sense of cool, too. Pompadour hairstyle. Cigarette dangling from lower lip. Thanks for the essay and the comments. Now, if oyu will excuse me, my ’51 Merc chopped top awaits…
1. The continental kits I remember had the ability to tip the tire back away from the trunk lid so the keyhole would be accessible, but it never made the use of the trunk convenient, since the movement probably wasn’t more than 20 degrees from vertical.
2. The “old fashioned, unsightly” column shift mechanism worked better when new (“crisper,” less effort) and didn’t seem to show the effects of age and wear nearly as quickly and as much as the concentric standard shift columns of that era, perhaps due to the use of some “pot metal” components. The number of unpainted replacement shift bowls seen on cars and pickups of that era testifies to that fact.
Those abominations just ruin any car they are tacked onto in my opinion. Comparing that to a diving platform is right! They were also not as common as people who weren’t alive back then might think.
If you only watch the car auctions on TV you would swear that every ’58 Impala came from the factory with one of these warts.
I remember 1956 Thunderbirds and MG TD’s with external spare tires back then. That was about it. Wait let me think. No, that was about it.
Need some curb feelers, dual swept antennas on the rear fenders, some spinners hub caps and some glass pack mufflers. These convertibles had an odd sound to them as there isn’t a crossover pipe or “H” pipe, Dual exhaust with cross over didn’t work bcause of the massive X-Brace that was used to stiffen the frame.
I despise Continental Kits. The extension of the bumper just looks ridiculous. I used to own a 1986 Honda Prelude. I once saw one, in my gray color, with a Continental Kit on the back. The vertical panel between the tail lights was not that tall on a Prelude. It couldn’t support the kit on its own. So they had an angular support beam going from the top of the wheel to the base of the back window. That abomination matched nicely with the fake convertible vinyl top.