It’s a frustrating experience to have to “waste” a three-day weekend being stuck indoors. The weekend of this writing, it was the Sunday before Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Monday, and thus many of us were granted that national holiday off from work. The weather wasn’t doing anything particularly objectionable outside of temperatures being below freezing, but that’s par for the course in the Midwest. So why, you ask, didn’t I leave my residence that weekend? Out of consideration for my fellow human beings, I stayed in voluntary self-quarantine due to a cold that had blossomed the Wednesday before. I had felt fine the preceding weekend. Then I showed up to work on Monday to sit across from a coworker who had a thick, mucus-y, throaty cough that he had seemed to have mostly under control. I think I can pinpoint his exact sneeze after which I said to myself, “Dude, brace yourself. You are so going to be sick now.”
I was immediately angry about this. In a modern culture where working from home is a process that for many had not only been mandated but perfected almost six years ago during the onset of COVID, it seems inexcusable for someone to knowingly bring a truckload of germs into the office when they can just as easily stay home. There’s a correlation between the lack of good sleep and a compromised immune system, and while it’s true that I had had a blast the weekend before with Michigan friends who were visiting Chicago, my temporary insomnia had nothing to do with any of the G- or PG-rated things any of us had done that weekend. Sometimes despite our best intentions, an early bedtime will not necessarily translate into more REM sleep depending on other things we may be thinking about. Such had been the case with me, as I remember having spent much of the preceding Sunday night just lying there with my eyes closed. That much was nobody’s fault.
My coworker / sickness-offender is a nice-enough guy in his twenties for whom going to the gym seems to be a semi-regular topic of conversation. I could only imagine that the reason he had decided to show up to the office that day was because he had fought his way through his workout that morning (a badge of manly honor!) and had felt that because he had gone to the gym, he would and should also then have to go into the office. There’s no other explanation that I can think of, and I can say this because I remember having been that guy before someone had explained to me that going to either place was absolutely wrong as long as I had obvious symptoms and had to keep blowing my nose every five minutes. They weren’t lying, and I subsequently changed my behavior.
All of this is leading to how I ended up spending a significant part of that three-day weekend: going willingly into the black hole vortex of watching a YouTube channel with a lineup of over four hundred classic car commercials from the 1960s. As I laid there sprawled out on my folded-out convertible sofa in my living room with my snacks, a cozy knit afghan, and popping Airborne supplements like SweeTARTs candy, I was transported to a dazzling fantasy world of jazz music scores, dramatic lighting, gleaming white teeth, cinematic angles, and sparkling chrome. In my medicine-induced haze (an activity to which some of us Gen-X’ers used to refer as “‘Tussing” back in the day), I was able to temporarily suspend my distaste for the disconcerting lack of minorities in the majority of these spots up through, say, the mid- to late-’60s.
That weekend, I was able to pretend that there were a bunch of thirty-second spots that catered to an America that was newly integrating with cautious optimism which simply hadn’t yet been uploaded to YouTube in 2026. With that mental task behind me and with each passing commercial often being more exciting than the last, it became harder and harder for me to turn off the TV, even as I knew I should try to fit in a nap somewhere. All of these period ads – not just from the Big Three, but also from the independents and foreign makes – were heavy on the sizzle regardless of what the steak actually looked like.
Maybe it had been the corporate invigoration brought about by the debut of the excitement-generator Mustang, but by the time our featured Galaxie 500 was new, Ford had shifted its efforts from using adorable, animated Peanuts characters to sell their new Falcon compact to advertisements that featured more dynamic, staccato, and adrenaline-triggering music and images. Over a month ago, I had put to words some of my thoughts around Ford’s having named their mainstream family sedan of the 1980s and ’90s after a constellation. With the Galaxie 500, Ford had named the car after all of the stars, collectively, and en Français, no less.
One of things I find humorous is that while all their other models were referred to by a proper name (i.e. Falcon, Fairlane, etc.), the big one was almost invariably referred to as just “Ford”, even if the ’64 could be had as a base-model, Custom 500, Galaxie 500, 500 XL, Country Sedan, or Country Squire, with the latter two, of course, being wagons. According to my Encyclopedia Of American Cars from the editors of Consumer Guide, our featured car was one of 207,000 Galaxie 500 hardtop coupes made for ’64, edging out the Galaxie 500 four-door sedan (198,800 units) as the single, most-popular big Ford that year. Including wagons, there were about 923,200 full-sized Fords manufactured that year. This wasn’t even close to the million and a half big Chevrolets made for ’64. The Ford figure was also about three times as many as the smaller full-sized Plymouths (297,300) that year, to round out the makes that comprised the traditional Low-Priced Three.
The ’64 Ford was the fifth and final year of this generation which had been introduced for 1960. Sixty-four was also the first year of Ford’s “Total Performance” campaign, in which the capabilities and engineering of their entire line of cars was extolled – from Ford’s successful participation in various motorsports, emphasis on aerodynamic design, powerful FE motors, and durable four-speed “Toploader” transmission. The standard engine in a Galaxie 500 like this one would have been a 195-horsepower 289 cubic-inch V8, even if a lesser Series 50 full-size Ford could be had with a 138-hp 223 c.i. six. (I wonder how many of those were sold.) This car weighed about 3,600 pounds before options, but I’m still positive that it had a reasonable amount of scoot.
I thought it was completely appropriate that I had originally spotted this car, almost a decade ago, in the parking lot of what had been an excellent and affordable vintage store in downtown Flint. The yellow brick building that had housed Carriagetown Antiques had originally been a Sears automotive service station and is now a church, but at the time of these photos, that former business had been the source of many great finds and purchases related to the history of Flint, its educational institutions, and the automotive industry.
A walk through the aisles of that great, long-closed business used to produce the same feelings of twinkling optimism and the possibilities of a space-racing future that a look at this Ajax cleaner-blue Galaxie 500 and watching classic Ford commercials still produces in me. There’s something comforting about the escapism that self-care during sickness brings with it. We never necessarily plan on getting sick, but if and when I do and if I can’t sleep, I know a YouTube channel that might be just the ticket to help me ride out my medicine-head to the sounds of exciting jazz music scores and seminal rock and roll.
Carriagetown, Flint, Michigan.
Saturday, August 6, 2016.
Brochure pages were sourced from www.oldcarbrochures.org.
1964 Ford Galaxies are my all time favourite Fords. My first choice would however not be a 2 door model. For me, the most appealing ‘64 Galaxie is a 500 dressed in Four Door Pillarless Hardtop body.
A ‘64 Galaxie 500 4 door hardtop with a black exterior and perhaps a red or black interior would be a stunner. Much better than a common place 2 door!
How about an XL version with bucket seats in the 4 door hardtop and a 390 Police Interceptor engine?
All of these variants sound appealing! Just writing my thoughts about this big ’64 had made me appreciate them that much more.
Great Musings as usual, Joe.
A few thoughts…
Sometimes, the young folks feel like they need to be the hero and come to work and “play through” a cold. To that, us older folks say, “Stay the hell home!” Like you say, we can all work from home now. Of course this is a double edged sword though… snow days and sick days almost become a thing of the past. Tradeoffs I guess…
Ajax Cleanser Blue – You win the internet for the day with that one. I wonder what our resident color whisperer JPC would have to say about that one. 😉
While I like the ‘64, especially in this body style, I think I prefer the ‘63 like the one Jason used to have.
And finally, car related entertainment when on a sick day: I was blessed as a kid (still am, actually) to have kick-butt immune system. I missed very few days as a result of colds, but I distinctly recall back in the seventies watching game shows when off sick. One of them was hosted by Tom Kennedy (IIRC) and was car related. It was a quiz show called “Split Second” wherein the contestants competed for a chance to start one of 5 cars, GM brands I think, but only one would start. Each day, if the contestant came back and won again, his chances would be improved by the elimination of one of the cars. I seem to recall a really bad case of Bronchitis that had me home from school all week and it took a guy the whole 5 days to finally win the Corvette he was trying to start.
Not all of us can work from home. I would be pretty hard to sell auto parts from my bedroom. But yes, if I’m sick, I stay home. No need to get my co-workers sick.
I do think about the differences between doing things at a desk vs. with my hands, and I respect it all. If I still worked as a golf course maintenance technician, I couldn’t do that from home, either. The difference there would be that I’d be outdoors, but I’d still be back at the maintenance building for lunch, to check in, etc. I digress. I do hear what you’re saying, and yours is a point well-made.
@ R&DMan: My apologies. No offense was intended to those who can’t work from home. Truth be told, even though I can work from home, I actually prefer coming into the office to be able to interact in person with other folks… It’s actually easier and better than an e-mail-or-Teams-fest….
Kudos to you for staying home when you’re sick. I wished more people would be this considerate.
You do recall correctly re. Split Second, hosted by Tom Kennedy! This came up in the comments a few weeks ago in relation to my post about (ostensibly) giving away cars on game shows.
My favorite episode was the guy who went through a whole week of competing for one of five Pontiacs, and eventually chose the 1975 LeMans Safari wagon.
Jeff (and Rick), thank you for putting “Split Second” on my radar. I may have to search out full episodes now on the Tube of You. And Tom Kennedy was a great host. He was the brother of Jack Narz, who hosted the *original* concentration in the ’70s, where the grand prize was a yellow or orange like ’77 Chevy Chevette!
Rick, you never disappoint with the things you reference. I haven’t seen but a handful of episodes of “Split Second”, and that was years ago, but I’m a BUZZR vintage game show network junkie and this is exactly the kind of show I have to pull myself away from to go do other things. “Classic Concentration” with Alex Trebek is another one where a bunch of different vehicles are the grand prize.
I think that I, like you had reference about yourself, have a decent immune system. I’ll get sick maybe once a year. I think that what had done it for me last month was the lack of sleep. Immediately after I had seen my symptoms start to accelerate, I Googled “immune system sleep” and understood.
Thanks, Joe. Although I sometimes drive my wife crazy with some of the obscure references that I make.
(Sorry if this is a duplicate comment. My first reply got lost.)
The 64 Ford holds a prime place for childhood memories. My Uncle Bob owned one from about 1967-72, a Vintage Burgundy4 door hardtop . In that time it went from being the nice family car to the rusty beater my older cousins drove as teens. I loved that car and spent as much time playing in it as I could. Those times and the many rides I got in it have etched that car’s sounds and tactile sensations deeply into my memory.
The one feature I noticed then and have never been able to overlook was the odd ridge around the perimeter of the rear deck. I have never understood why it was there, and find it the only awkward line on the car.
JP, thank you for this, and it’s the emotional connection with cars with personal meaning that often resonates the most with me when I’m on this site either as a writer or commenter. RE: the ridge on the back panel, I kind of like it, almost like it frames the lights and chrome trim.
When I discovered that the Peanuts gang had done commercials originally for the introduction of the Falcon, I was surprised. This was likely due to the fact that the TV I was watching when these commercials were in their heyday (that would be Romper Room and Captain Kangaroo) really wouldn’t have benefited much from Ford commercials, so I didn’t see them. But now having gone back and watched many of these from around 1960 – 1963, I can definitely understand Ford’s intent.
From our current vantage point, Peanuts is mostly about the Christmas and Halloween animated TV “specials” (a term that has also lost much of its original meaning)…so much so that it’s easy to forget that Peanuts originally was subtilely (and sometimes not so subtilely) transgressive. It was very appealing to young people – particularly those in their mid-to-late 20s and early 30s who were just starting out with families and careers in what was turning out to be a very different world politically and technologically than their parents. This is the generation that JFK spoke to, this is who MY parents were (which is why Peanuts was never terribly welcome in my childhood home due to the social/cultural chafing that both of my parents for different reasons felt around interaction with anything that could be considered “trendy”). But to me it’s illustrative that the Peanuts commercials focused mostly on an entry-level economy car…just the kind of car that a young, growing, “smart” (a term used often in the commercials), family could aspire to.
Thanks for a great morning-coffee read. And good on you for being a grown-up and staying home when sick!
The realization that the animated ‘Peanuts’ characters were established five years prior to “A Charlie Brown Christmas’ in Ford advertising blows my mind. Lee Mendelson and Bill Melendez were animators of television commercials and got permission from Charles Schulz to utilize his comic strip characters in the Ford Falcon ads for years, so the style and animation was already well established by 1965!
I like reading that it sounds like Mendelson and Melendez had taken some initiative when it comes to animating the Peanuts characters. Without that, we may not have had our beloved animated specials the way we had come to know and love them.
Jeff, thank you for this great and interesting perspective on “Peanuts”. Wow – it sounds almost like this strip was the antithesis of something like “The Family Circus”. Part of what appeals to me about “Peanuts” (besides the specials and Vince Guaraldi’s brilliant soundtracks) is that it had a truly human element, complete with life’s imperfections, that spoke / speaks to me. Charlie Brown’s depression. Lucy Van Pelt’s transgression and selfishness. Linus’ dependence on his blanket. All the wishy-washy friends who would (and did) sell out Charlie Brown on a dime. There’s a lot there. It isn’t all pleasantness and Dolly Madison snack cakes. That’s part of why I love it.
1963 and 1964 were the first years of the big Ford where Robert McNamara was no longer President of Ford when product development was taking place. The dealers got crank vent windows, like GM had had for years, and the steering column was now streamlined — a piece covered it all. And Lee Iacocca got involved more in marketing as he moved up that Ford corporate ladder. (Also, before I logged in to Curbside Classic, an ad for a cold remedy popped up on the screen as you related your sickness experience — I’ve not seen that before, usually it takes 2-3 web clicks before the ads are “personalized.”
Man, those advertisement algorithms are something, aren’t they? I like reading in your comment about what sounds like increased content during the post-McNamara era at Ford. I think the interior of the featured ’64 looks very jazzy in a way I don’t think I could ever get excited about a mid-’90s Taurus, for example. That may happen in another twenty years. Who knows?
Wow a weekend bingeing on vintage car commercials sounds like fun to me, even if not a 1st choice of pursuits. Great subject car too, the ’64 is my favorite post war Ford. We had a ’63 wagon and Dad had a ’64 Ford Custom 500. Eve thought a cut-rate model it did have air, our first, and I always much preferred the ’64’s more normal sized taillights to the giant ones on the ’63. I think they handled much flatter the the ’68 Squire we had. ’64 was Ford at it’s best
Honestly, I would binge on vintage car commercials again. I finished the ’70s and ’60s on the same channel and now I’m ready for more. I do actually like the huge round taillamps on the ’63, but I do like that they were more rightsized on the ’64. Both cars have merit.
A desk at work hints at the possibility of sitting down. So, soo, miss having a job where one could do that. ((even for brief, interludes))
Some teacher/staffer drove a “64” gold sedan. Recall seeing it in the lot. Could a been a “Custom” or “Galaxie”. Never was up close, observer. Would a been the early “70’s” @ the Junior High School.
That’s cool. I wonder the school staff’s gold ’64 had been well maintained, as I’m thinking about U.S. cars up to a certain point being prone to rust. I had a middle school teacher who, with her husband, were driving a then twenty-year-old Buick Skylark and Ford Mustang. They had gotten their money’s worth if they had purchased both cars new.
Our ’63 Country Sedan started to rust in the r quarters at only 3 yrs old. I was 16 and didn’t like driving Mom’s car around with rust on it as a brand new driver, so I got touch-up paint from Towson Ford and bondo at Taubman’s, an auto & hardware store, and “fixed” it, but actually I did a pretty terrible job, however at least the rust was covered up… for about 6 months. It became my 1st car when I went off to college 2 years later and I did a slightly better job then, but again it came back. That’s he I learned that rust never sleeps. Ford had a real problem with it.
Maybe, just because I am old, it disappoints me people seem to only think about themselves and not how their actions affect others. I still carry a mask with me when I go into enclosed spaces with lots of people (just in case). A young person coughing in my direction can put an old person in the hospital. Enough said.
The 1964 Ford Galaxie was nice but I have always been attracted to the 1963 Ford Galaxie 500 XL and a little disappointed with the 1964 restyle. I was age 12 when I went car shopping with my Dad in 1963. I remember he went to look at a new Chrysler, Olds Starfire, and last on the list was to check out a Galaxie 500 XL. In the Ford showroom I am sure they had many cars on display but I only remember two, a 500 XL fastback & a T-Bird. He bought the T-Bird but the 500 XL remains in my memory. A 500 XL fastback, red with red bucket seat interior, wire wheel spinner hubcaps, and lots of sparkle. I loved how Ford detailed silver trim into the upholstery in 1963. Even the T-Bird had silver cording in the upholstery. I saw a beautiful black 1963 Galaxie 500 XL at a car show last season and it looked so large in my adult eyes, whereas it didn’t seem too large when I was twelve years old. Check out the differences between 1963 & 1963: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVN2eb4tguc
Alfred, I always appreciate your memories of the featured cars and how they fit into your own picture. I can imagine it must have been a really exciting thing to go car shopping with the elders, especially given the jazzy looks of the cars at that time.
I found this ad to be quite delightful, as well as extolling the Ford’s extra “road hugging weight.”
I like that Ford really doubled down that “Road Hugging Weight” thing all the way through the late ’70s. That’s a really long time to stay with one basic idea where advertising a car line is concerned.
Joseph, always a good read with perfect insights I’ve been working from home (in my case looking for a job) since Jan 1 and still got sick! Toughing it out while sick at the office is complete B.S. Sitting across from my continually hacking co-worker used to drive me nuts – then get me sick and out for 3 days + the weekend. Ugh.
On the car side, a buddy’s sister had dull gold 64 Galaxie coupe with a 289 back in the mid 80’s. What a beast.
This is probably not on YouTube because there is no imagery, being a singing commercial
on the radio (CBS News, every morning):
Ford has changed….Ford has changed.
Whatever you ever knew before in Ford has changed.
You’ll never know this new Ford til you drive it,
You’ll never know the changes til you step inside it.
The look is new, the ride is, too,
this solid, silent Super Torque Ford is new* clear through!
Once you drive a ’64 Ford, you;ll agree,
Ford’s changed…..
Take the wheel and see!
*as a teenager, perhaps more car-aware than some, I knew the ’64 Ford was a facelift on the ’63 Ford,
in an age when that meant all-new sheet metal. But that singing commercial imprinted itself 62 years
ago and I have never forgotten it!
Yes. I typed that out from memory!
Father-in-law had a 1964 Ford Galaxie 500XL with a 390, but I never saw it. He sold it to a friend long
before I married into the family (some “friend,” he never paid for it). But I know it had a
metallic copper body with a white roof, since he built a 1/24 scale model of it, which
I now have.
Incredible – thank you for remembering and sharing this! There was a time when those who wrote copy and wrote jingles for commercials had imprinted their work on our memories in such a way that we still remember much of it, decades after the fact. It’s also great that you have that 1/24 scale model of one. I wouldn’t doubt it if our own Peter Wilding has also built a model of one. 🙂
A good looking if porky coupe .
I remember these new and racing the circle tracks in the early 1970’s .
For a Michigan car it looks rust free .
-Nate