Some older cars can just make you smile, by virtue of styling cues from a bygone era, flashy chrome, vibrant colors, endearing quirkiness, or maybe all of those things. Some cars just look happy. This is not such a car. This stripped-down, full-size Ford rolling slowly down a highway on a hot summer afternoon presents an expression of dour seriousness. No fluffy frivolity here; this car has a job to do, and it’s doing it, with as little fuss and fanfare as possible. Both full-size sedans and bare-bones cars have virtually disappeared from the car market in recent decades, which makes this sighting rather unexpected… still not happy, but certainly unexpected.
Stripped-down cars weren’t necessarily cheap cars. A Ford Custom like the one above wasn’t cheap in absolute terms (at $2,350 it cost 18% more than a base model Falcon), but it shined when measured in dollars-per-pound. The Custom was a full-sized car – identical in measurement to a Galaxie 500, but with absolutely no frills. For buyers needing a big vehicle at minimal cost, cars like the Custom were perfect. Or at least they were acceptable.
Ford’s Custom nameplate dated from 1949, but had somewhat of a sporadic history in the company’s 1950s lineup. After a brief hiatus, the Custom re-emerged in 1957, filling the role as Ford’s base trim model – a role it served for three years before another hiatus.
For 1964, Ford again reintroduced the Custom, filling a similar role as the ’57 model – a no-frills car offered as a 2-door or 4-door sedan. 1964 Fords featured a new design, and they were completely redesigned again for ’65, making this single model year instantly identifiable. On a dressed-up Galaxie, this design can seem somewhat busy, but with the Custom’s lack of ornamentation, one can see it’s a rather clean shape.
Ford Custom buyers fell into a few discrete categories. Many were sold to police departments or taxi companies, with Ford offering numerous police configurations in 2-doors, 4-doors and wagons with a 6-cyl. and several V-8 engine options. Taxi packages were offered only as 6-cyl. 4-doors.
Another significant market was that of business fleets. Companies that purchased fleet cars in the 1960s sought conservative, fuss-free, full-size sedans – cars that would imply that a good business decision was made in the vehicle’s purchase. And nothing too showy that would cause customers to wonder just how their money was really being spent.
A third group would also buy these cars: Cheapskates. Such people presumably needed a full-size car, but had no appetite for unnecessary superficialities that came along with buying a Galaxie for $160 more.
It’s unclear just what share of Ford Custom’s output was consumed by each of these three groups, but it is generally thought that police and taxi buyers made the bulk of the base Custom sales, while the slightly less austere Custom 500 (featuring additional chrome trim, upgraded interiors, carpet and armrests for instance) took the bulk of business and cheapskate sales.
Source of production figures: “Standard Catalog of Ford, 1903-1998” Note: Does not include wagons. Revised with updated 1974 data courtesy of CC reader MCT.
Regardless, Ford sold nearly 100,000 base Customs in 1964, and another 90,000 Custom 500s. While that pales to the 591,000 Galaxies produced that year, it still shows that stripped-down full-size cars had quite a following. This yielded enough of a market that Ford offered a bargain “Custom” version of its full-size cars for the next 14 years. After the mid-1960s, however, the concept of a stripped-down full-size sedan began to lose some appeal. Ford’s output of Customs diminished nearly every year from 1966 through 1978 (for the last four years, Custom was only offered to fleet customers).
It’s hard to tell just what this base Custom 2-door’s purpose was early in its life, though my guess is that this was a non-police vehicle (due to the dealer sticker on the trunk lid, which would have been rare for a police car, and the lack of a spotlight). Dual exhausts suggest a V-8 under the hood (4 different V-8s were available, in addition to the standard Six), though the current engine isn’t necessarily what came from the factory.
I spotted this car on Interstate 90 in eastern South Dakota, a stretch of highway whose speed limit is 80 miles per hour. The Ford, however, was traveling about 20 mph slower than most traffic. This difference in speed made it tough to take a full range of photos, but only one picture is necessary to take a mental journey back to the past. After all, stark austerity – the type of austerity as defined by this Ford – is awfully uncommon in modern times.
It’s a bit impressive to see someone keeping the faith of austerity alive. This side profile shows the Custom’s painted (instead of chromed) window frames and the lack of side trim brightwork. This isn’t exactly a happy face, but it gets the job done. And when it comes to stripped-down cars, that’s pretty much the purpose.
Photographed in Hanson County, South Dakota in July, 2018.
Related Reading:
Cohort Outtake: 1964 Ford Custom Two-Door Sedan – Change Is Not Always An Improvement Paul N
Note: a rerun of an older post.
A Ford oddity of this era was their continued production of a Galaxy 500 two door post sedan. They made them thru 1964, long after Chevy dropped their top series two door post. Ford seems to have done a good job of selling that type of full size car.
We forget that a lot of the standard features on cars today were extra cost items on older cars. I remember being in a new 58 Ford and the owner had a flashlight he used to backup at night. My dad had a 52 Ford he bought new that didn’t even have a radio. Today an automatic and AC and power windows are standard features.
In Canada, the Custom was also offered as a 2-door hardtop until the 1970s as shown in these pictures from the 1971 and 1973 Canadian full-size Ford brochures.
https://oldcarbrochures.org/Canada/Ford-Canada/Ford-Canada%20Cars/1971%20Ford%20Full%20Size%20-%20Canada/slides/1971%20Ford%20Full%20Size%20Brochure%20%28Cdn%29%2012-13.html
https://oldcarbrochures.org/Canada/Ford-Canada/Ford-Canada%20Cars/1973%20Ford%20Full%20Size%20-%20Canada/slides/1973%20Ford%20Full%20Size%20%28Cdn%29-16-17.html
The `64 Ford Custom 4 door sedan will forever immortalized as the Mayberry sheriff`s car on The Andy Griffith Show.
According to this site, Andy’s car started out as a Fairlane, then was a Galaxie for three seasons, then was a Custom for the next 4 seasons.
https://itrolls.wordpress.com/2017/06/07/the-cars-of-the-andy-griffith-show/
Ford Custom = Chevy Biscayne Custom 500 = Bel Air Galaxie 500 = Impala The pricing and features of these three pairs are extremely close.
The Custom may have been 18% more than a Falcon, about $350, and the Custom 500 another $100 but a company that had invested in training quality sales and service people and was interested in keeping them happy the extra $450 for the Custom 500 seems like a smart investment. And, by 1964 depending on what part of the country you were in a V-8 with air was almost a necessity.
And how much more the Custom was compared to the mid-size Fairlane?
My mother’s former 1967 Chevy Bel Air looks rather dour when photographed in black and white on a winter day, especially after my brother removed the then-unfashionable dog dish hub caps. (He also jacked up the rear end.)
Look at those skinny tires!
Sticker prices are meaningless for large fleet buys. I imagine fleet buyers were a significant portion of stripper sales. While taxi & police units are mentioned, another significant purchaser of such vehicles were the federal and state governments for administrative use motor pools. Lord knows I drove enough of this type of vehicle that were GSA purchases. Usually the only option on the older units was the base automatic transmission.
As to dealer stickers, even fleet cars hit the market eventually as used units. Federal GSA units were normally purchased by dealers and wholesalers after which they generally ended up on the retail market. The original GSA standard I remember was that a car would auctioned after 7 years OR 70k miles. As reliability improved, the GSA standard evolved to 7 years AND 70k miles.
This change resulted in some odd Military Police fleets. MP cars run a lot of miles. Many administrative use cars – especially VIP cars – aged out at very low miles. Since motor pools had limited authorization for VIP cars, they’d often give them to the MPs near the end of their age-out period to run up the miles. Once they hit the requisite mileage and age, they could be turned in and replaced with new units. In the motor pool, you could see stripper MP Fords next to the occasional deluxe VIP car. If it was a Ford it would be a loaded LTD or perhaps even a Mercury.
The original economics of stripper fleets was based on used cars not having much resale value after a few years. Stripper purchases made sense because the car was considered used up by the time it was rotated out of the fleet. As cars became both more expensive and more reliable, economics changed. Fleet buyers – even the GSA – started looking at resale value. Demand for strippers dropped off as fleet cost calculations began to favor purchase of better equipped cars that would provide better resale.
Being retired, my knowledge of current fleet practices is dated and may no longer be correct. However it does go a long way to explaining the drop in stripper sales without any corresponding drop in fleet sizes. If anything, government fleets have grown. The advent of Uber & Lyft may have shrunk the taxi market though.
Always good to hear from an insider who knows how things were really done!
Another rare car that may or may not have much value .
-Nate
I worked for the Corp. Of Engineers in the summer of 1970. We were issued 1963 Plymouth Savoy stripper 4 doors in army green. They were all 6 cylinder, 3 speed sticks. Some of my fellow employees had never driven a stick shift – made for some interesting trips!. The big shots were driving 69 AMC Ambassadors with automatic at the same time.
My 60 year old memories, which may not be very reliable, are that these were mostly police or fleet in my location, but not very popular with cheapskates in the Sixties. Those folks drove Falcons or Ramblers, and Dodge Darts. Or VW Beetles, or just 1950’s Customs or other low-trim domestics.
My grandfather (born 1877) was a State Farm insurance in rural Western Illinois when I was growing up. He always bought stripper Fords,he had a ’53, a ’57, and lastly a ’64 Custom four – door sedan; all these had a 6, radio, heater, and an automatic (being elderly, an automatice was one concession to “convenience”)…
He passed in 1965, and in 1968 his widow (a teacher) traded in the Custom on a stripper Plymouth Fury 1 sedan, with radio, heater, and Torqueflite…
Many others in this rural farming area had full – size strippers, when they died out the market for these strippers basically died out…
They all had the money to buy better – equipped cars, but they just were “frugal”…
One of the county’s wealthiest farmers bought a new ’66 Galaxie 500 sedan – but no power steering (or brakes), even though his wife had crippling arthritis in her hands that made it difficult for her to drive – go figure…
OTOH an Uncle I remember had a ’60 Falcon, a ’62 Fairlane, a ’66 Galaxie 500…. these were all decently – equipped for the time, and were not just the basic “strippers”…
In the early 1980’s a friend of mine was gifted a 1964 Chevy Biscayne from his Aunt who decided that she was just too old to drive in traffic anymore.
Chalky “Magic Mirror” white lacquer paint exterior, ice blue vinyl seats interior, no carpeting or sound insulation, a 6 cylinder engine, three on the tree, slow geared yet high effort manual steering, a huge Sears and Roebuck aftermarket below dash A/C unit that vibrated the interior when the compressor turned on.
A joyless car and a penalty box driver.
I don’t know how his tiny and elderly Aunt was able to maneuver this awkward monster around town for as long as she did.
So it seems heaters were optional in the late 50s on some models/trims? The Custom in the ad appears to be a 1957
When I met my wife in 1980, she was driving a 67 Custom that had been her Dad’s company car that he bought from them instead of turning it in. Strangely optioned. Had the 289 V-8, air conditioning, but no PS/PB. Not fun to parallel park.
That 1957 Ford Custom Tur Sedan in the advert (picture 2) is giving me strong Vauxhall Victor F Type vibes…not sure if that is a compliment…..
Cheapskate is too derogartory. While a few might actually be that I believe most would be better described as frugal or practical. While a millionaire buying such a car might be a cheapskate. However, someone with limited funds would be called practical as they live within their means.
These base-model, radio-delete, plain-Jane vehicles are rarer than most cars from those eras because they were never considered worth saving. Here’s another article celebrating these unicorns.
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/cc-cohort/cohort-classic-1965-chevrolet-biscayne-voluptuous-hips-for-cheapskates/
In the mid to late 1960s there were no fewer than six 1964 Ford Customs on our block, as many as five at one time but for most of the 1964 to 1969 time period there were four. All six of these cars were four doors and as I recall only one was a Custom 500. Their predecessors were a 1953 Ford Customline, a 1960 Ford Fairlane 500, a 1953 Meteor Customline, a 1962 Pontiac Strato Chief, a 1957 Ford Custom 300 and a 1958 Chevrolet Del Ray. Their replacements were a 1967 Ford Galaxie 500 XL, a 1969 Dodge Polara 500 (Canadian version), a 1969 Chevrolet Impala, a 1964 Dodge Polara, a 1970 Chevrolet Bel Air and a 1970 Plymouth Valiant. Its interesting to note that four of them replaced other Ford products while only one was replaced by a Ford.
I had one of those in 71-73. Black exterior, red vinyl interior, 3 on the tree, no extras, 223 engine.
That was one of the best. most reliable cars I have ever owned. Never let me down. Cheap to operate, easy to repair.