In late 1959, Ford introduced a new lightweight unit-body compact called Falcon. As Paul has previously chronicled, the Ford Falcon “platform” survived in the U.S. through 1980, and spawned some of Ford’s biggest domestic-market hits, including the original Mustang. This success has led to a popular misconception that these various Ford models were essentially just different lengths of the same unit-body sausage, but it wasn’t that simple. Let’s take a closer look at the Falcon, Comet, Fairlane, and the ways their body structures were — and weren’t — the same.
Early Ford Falcon
The point of unit-body construction is to save weight and free up some interior space by eliminating the heavy, bulky separate frame. Although the body of a unitized vehicle has to be beefed up to handle its additional load-bearing responsibilities, there’s usually a net weight savings, as well as improvements in structural rigidity.
If you’re reading this article, there’s a good chance you knew that already, but even some enthusiasts are surprised and puzzled to notice that the underbody of a unitized vehicle often has visible rails and crossmembers, which look much like the pieces of a separate frame, and perform some of the same functions.
As this Ford “underbody plan” diagram shows, the darker areas on the above illustration of the 1960 Ford Falcon indicate “pseudo-frame” members: two sets of longitudinal rails joined by four crossmembers, plus the side rails (sills), which formed the rocker panels as well as the sides of the cabin floor. Instead of a rear crossmember, the trailing ends of each rear rail were connected by the body’s back support panel, which was made especially deep so that it could do both jobs.
These members were all welded to the Falcon body shell, whose dashboard, roof pillars, and roof rails also contributed to its structural rigidity.
So did the transmission and driveshaft tunnel, which formed a central “backbone” for the floorpan.
If you look back at the underbody plan, you’ll notice that the rear rails were connected to the side members by “torque boxes.” Isolated torque boxes are an extremely important concept in unit body structural design (and perimeter frames), and they seem to be very poorly understood. This kind of torque box is a metal structure that connects two longitudinal rails; it’s welded or bonded to both, but isn’t an integral part of either. The torque box acts as a kind of shock absorber: When force is applied to one rail, the torque box twists a little, soaking up some of that force without transmitting it to the other rail. The 1962 brochure for the later Ford Fairlane (which I’ll discuss more below) described the function of the torque boxes like this:
these boxlike structures are strategically placed to intercept road noise, vibration and ride harshness transferred from road to wheels to car. By torsion (twisting) action … very slight, but enough … the torque boxes effectively absorb these annoyances before they can reach the passenger compartment.
The 1960 Falcon was not Ford’s first use of this concept: The 1958 Thunderbird used torque boxes where the narrower front rails connected to the side members. Their original rationale was to absorb enough vibration and harshness that Ford could get way with using bolt-on front fenders rather than welding them in place for strength. Bolt-on fenders were easier to fix after a collision, and they allowed greater flexibility for styling changes. The early Falcon also used bolt-on front fenders, for the same reasons.
Front suspension on the Falcon (and on the later Comet, Fairlane, Mustang, and Maverick) was double wishbone, but the coil spring was mounted on a pivoting spring seat atop the upper wishbone, acting against a suspension tower welded to the steel “apron” that formed the side of the engine bay. This was only new for Ford: Rambler had used a similar front suspension since 1950, because the high-mounted spring reduced unsprung weight and allowed a longer, softer coil spring for better ride quality. (The later Chevy II did the same thing.)
Ford used diagonal braces to connect each suspension tower to the cowl structure. These braces provided a lot of the front-end torsional rigidity (resistance to twisting forces) in these cars, although their design varied somewhat from model to model and year to year.
The top of each engine bay apron was folded over to form an upper ridge, and was welded at the front to a rectangular bracket, welded in turn to the front crossmember. In later years, enthusiasts would bemoan the restrictive engine bays of cars built on this platform, but the ability to accommodate larger engines hadn’t been a design priority for the original Falcon, and this structure gave the early Falcon additional front-end strength while reducing total weight. Also, as Chevrolet found out when they used a similar front suspension for the early Chevy II, the suspension towers had to be very sturdy to withstand braking forces, especially with the high degree of anti-dive geometry in the front suspension.
Each lower “wishbone” of the front suspension was formed by a stamped control arm and a diagonal radius rod that Ford called a “drag strut.” The leading end of each drag strut had a soft rubber bushing and acted against a bracket under the front crossmember.
Falcon rear suspension was Hotchkiss drive, meaning semi-elliptical leaf springs that did double duty as control arms to locate the live rear axle. On an early Falcon (or Comet), there were five leaf springs, separated by butyl rubber liners to reduce the friction you get when leaf springs rub together. The leading end of the spring was connected to the rear side rail by a 2-inch rubber bushing, and the trailing end had a 3.5-inch-long compression shackle with its own rubber bushings, which were supposed to cushion the spring motion if the rear suspension bottomed out.
The rear shock absorbers were splayed inward, “sea-leg” style, with the upper shock mounts attached to the bottom of the rear crossmember. Angling the shocks inward this much did reduce their effectiveness somewhat, but it helped to provide lateral location for the axle, so it was fairly common when these cars were designed. Rambler and Studebaker did the same thing.
Behind the rear axle, the gas tank (which was bolted in place) was used to strengthen the rear floor, and the top of the tank actually formed a section of the trunk floor.
Ford boasted that the early Falcon had greater torsional and bending stiffness than a 1960 full-size Ford, even though the Falcon “body in white” (body shell with no trim) weighed 547 lb less. The early Falcon wasn’t really a very small car: At 181.2 inches overall on a 109.5-inch wheelbase, it was similar in size to an early ’90s Honda Accord sedan. However, it was impressively light, with a shipping weight of only 2,259 lb for a basic Falcon “Tudor” sedan. (The “Fordor” sedan was 29 lb heavier.) There were no special materials or new technologies involved — Ford simplified everything it could and then ruthlessly optimized every single component for weight and cost.
The light weight of the early Falcon paid off in economy, but it also became a liability in ways the designers hadn’t anticipated: As I’m sure CC’s Australian and Kiwi readers will attest, the early models were too lightly built for the pounding they took from driving regularly on rough or unpaved roads. The Falcon also hadn’t been designed with any provision for hardtops, convertibles, or V-8 power, which would have to be added later.
Early Comet
The first Comet was introduced early in the 1960 calendar year. Comet was a deluxe version of the Falcon, and was originally intended as an Edsel.
(Comet wasn’t officially identified as a Mercury until the 1962 model year, but people usually call the early car a “Mercury Comet” anyway.)
Comet was initially available in sedan or wagon form, with two or four doors. A 1960 Comet station wagon was just a Falcon wagon with different front and rear styling. The Comet version was 2.8 inches longer overall than a Falcon wagon, but shared the same 109.5-inch wheelbase as its Ford sibling.
An early Comet sedan was 194.9 inches long, 2.9 inches longer than the Comet wagon and over a foot longer than a Falcon, and it rode a 114-inch wheelbase, 4.5 inches longer than the Falcon sedan.
All of the Comet sedan’s extra length was behind the rear seat — compare the space behind the rear door cutouts in the above photos — giving 7.9 inches more rear overhang than the Ford. This tail stretch added a little bit of rear luggage space, but no more passenger room. More importantly for Ford, this approach let the four-door Comet sedan use the same doors as the Falcon, modified with different window frames and the chrome trim strip.
Structurally, the early Comet was almost identical to the Falcon except that the side sills and rear side rails were a little longer and the rear axle and springs were shifted 4.5 inches towards the rear. Front and rear springs were somewhat softer, and the Comet sedan was 93 lb heavier than the equivalent Falcon.
The Comet had one significant structural difference: a new rear powertrain mount, which bolted onto the front rails.
In the earliest Falcons, the rear mount was attached to the bridge-like crossmember just ahead of the transmission tunnel. This had turned out to transmit too much powertrain vibration and harshness into the tunnel and floorpan.
The Comet approach was better, but still not adequate, so as a running change in mid-1961, both Falcon and Comet switched to a third design, this one again mounted on the crossmember, but with a cantilevered quarter-elliptical leaf spring attached through an insulator, which was supposed to absorb powertrain vibration before it was transmitted to the body structure. Both cars retained this new mount through 1965, but it was NVH problems like this that eventually led Ford to switch its bigger unit-body cars to perimeter frames, which were much easier to isolate.
Fairlane and Meteor
Both the early Falcon and the early Comet were quite successful, and for a while, they managed to lure a lot of domestic buyers away from small imports. For 1962, Ford followed up with the midsize Fairlane and Mercury Meteor, which were aimed less at imports than at the popular Rambler Classic. The Fairlane and Meteor would offer six-cylinder engines, but they would also be available with a new lightweight V-8 engine, which Ford called the “Challenger V-8.”
The Fairlane was not dramatically bigger than the Comet, with an overall length of 197.6 inches on a 115.5-inch wheelbase. However, the need for V-8 power (and to eventually offer a hardtop sports coupe) called for significant structural upgrades compared to the existing Falcon/Comet body.
Not only did the Fairlane have a beefed-up body structure with heavier-gauge panels and more reinforcement, Ford also gave it considerably stouter demi-frame members. Ford actually described the Fairlane as “integral frame-body” rather than fully unitized — the Fairlane underbody rails were still welded to the body, but they more closely resembled a separate ladder-type frame.
Unlike the early Falcon and Comet, the Fairlane added front torque boxes between the front rails and the sills. As with the rear torque boxes used on all three cars, the front torque boxes twisted slightly in response to forces on the front rails, preventing those forces from being transmitted to the body structure. Ford engineer Forrest K. Poling explained:
As the front wheels move across uneven surfaces, the upward suspension reaction forces tend to lift the front rails. However, the front rails are welded to their torque boxes, and the tendency is for the boxes to twist or rotate rather than transmit these forces back through the vehicle. … The gauge and links of the torque box itself can be so varied as to obtain the degree of compliance that is most compatible with the balance of the structure.
Fairlane also used the front torque boxes for a new type of rear powertrain mount (above). Instead of the spring-loaded mount on the 1962–1965 Falcon and Comet, the Fairlane rear mount had an insulator on a crossmember hung from the front torque boxes on two boomerang-shaped support brackets. This allowed the torque boxes to absorb some engine vibration before it was transmitted to the body.
At the rear, the Fairlane side rails were still tied together by the back support panel, but there was now a Z-shaped transverse member (which looks kind of like stairs from this angle) to provide additional strength.
In the engine compartment, the front suspension towers were still diagonally braced against the cowl, but the braces were now tubular and attached to hat-shaped mounts bolted to each spring tower.
Like the Falcon and Comet, the Fairlane used double wishbone front suspension with high-mounted coils and lower control arms located by drag struts. The drag struts bushings were now designed with enough compliance to let them move fore and aft in response to bumps, something Ford had also done with the big Lincoln Continental.
Fairlane rear suspension was similar to Falcon and Comet, although the rear springs were longer and a bit stiffer. The rear axle used spring-loaded, rubber-isolated “iso-clamps” between the axle and the springs. Lincoln-Mercury later used similar iso-clamps for the Cougar.
As on the Falcon, the spring shackles themselves also had rubber bushings, so Ford boasted that the Fairlane rear leaf springs were completely rubber-isolated for reduced harshness.
The Fairlane felt more solid than the Falcon, but it was also much heavier: around 500 lb heavier, even with a six-cylinder engine.
Nearly all of the above description also applied to the 1962 Mercury Meteor, which had different front and rear styling and a longer tail that gave it 4.7 inches more rear overhang than the Fairlane.
However, the Meteor front suspension had different lower control arms. Unlike the Fairlane and Falcon, the Meteor had A-shaped lower wishbones with unique spring-loaded front mounts. These allowed more fore-aft compliance than the Fairlane lower arms: up to a half-inch, measured at the wheel center.
The rear suspension shared the Fairlane springs and iso-clamps, but the Meteor had a different rubber-bushed front shackle design. Like the front lower control arm mounts, these “Cushion Link” shackles allowed the rear suspension to recess slightly in response to bumps.
The Cushion Link shackles also set the rear springs and rear axle assembly a little farther back than on the Fairlane, increasing the Meteor’s wheelbase by one inch, to 116.5 inches.
I think the Meteor rear shackles were likely the same as on the Fairlane, but with their pivots relocated a little farther back on the rear rails.
At 203.8 inches, the 1962 Meteor was about 6.2 inches longer than a Fairlane, and it weighed about 86 lb more. It was also 9 inches longer and over 400 lb heavier than a Comet sedan. Despite the availability of the V-8 engine, the Meteor never caught on: Comet buyers apparently didn’t think it was enough bigger or nicer to justify the higher price, and sales were slow. The Meteor was dropped after 1963.
Falcon and Comet Convertibles and V-8s
Although the structural illustrations Ford released for the early Falcon and Comet emphasized the demi-frame members attached to the floor, both cars also relied heavily on their roofs and roof pillars for structural rigidity. This made offering a convertible or even a pillarless hardtop body very troublesome: Without the added strength of the roof, the remaining structure wasn’t stiff enough without a lot of modifications.
The stouter Fairlane structure could be offered as a pillarless hardtop with no great weight penalty, but the hardtop versions of the Falcon Futura and Comet S-22, added for 1963, were over 100 lb heavier than an equivalent two-door sedans, reflecting the structural reinforcement needed to make up for the loss of the B-pillars.
Falcon and Comet convertibles were heavier still, gaining over 300 lb compared to a two-door sedan. Such weight penalties are common on unit-body cars that were not originally designed to be convertibles. If designers anticipate that a model will be available in open-top form, the body can be designed to put more of the structural loads through the floor and cowl; if that has to be done after the fact, it always weighs more than if it was part of the original design brief.
Even that reinforcement wasn’t enough to handle the added weight and torque of the 260-cid V-8, which became optional on the Falcon and Comet in mid-1963. The 260 would fit fine, that wasn’t the issue, but the heavier engine required yet more structural upgrades, plus modifications to the running gear. Since a lot of that mirrored the design process of the Fairlane and Meteor, enabling the Falcon and Comet to take the V-8 engine involved making them more like the Fairlane.
Ford offered the above illustration, whose dark areas indicate the major structural reinforcements, including heavier-gauge sheet metal, beefier sills, and incorporation of the Fairlane’s thicker front rails and front torque boxes (which the six-cylinder Falcon and Comet still didn’t have).
The V-8 Falcon and Comet also got bigger Fairlane wheel spindles, brakes, driveshaft, axle, radiator, and steering gear, plus stiffer three-leaf rear springs. The impact of all this beefing-up is best indicated by comparing the weight of the ragtop models — a 1963½ Falcon Sprint convertible was a further 300 lb heavier than a six-cylinder Falcon Sport Futura convertible.
For 1964 and 1965, Ford and Lincoln-Mercury commonized some Falcon and Fairlane parts, including some Fairlane front suspension components, but the V-8 Falcon and Comet (which could now have the Challenger 289 engine) still had substantial structural differences from the six-cylinder models. This made the V-8 cars more complicated and expensive to build. Falcon and Comet sales didn’t really justify so much complexity, especially since the V-8 versions weren’t terribly popular. Roughly half of 1964–1965 Comet buyers chose a V-8, but only 21.3 percent of 1964 Falcons and 18.3 percent of ’65s had an eight-cylinder engine.
Later Falcon and Midsize Comet
With compact sales losing ground to intermediates and the new Mustang, Ford apparently decided it was time to consolidate for 1966.
The Fairlane, Falcon, and Comet were all restyled and revamped for 1966. Rather than continuing to borrow pieces from the Fairlane, the 1966 Falcon and Comet now became variants of the latest Fairlane frame-integral body shell, differing more in sheet metal than in actual structure.
This was most obvious in the new station wagons: 1966 Falcon, Fairlane, and Comet wagons now shared a common 113-inch wheelbase and were almost the same size, with only slight differences in exterior dimensions due to their different styling.
In the Comet line, the pricier Comet Capri, Caliente, and Cyclone models were now Fairlane twins with different styling and trim, sharing their 116-inch wheelbase with Fairlane sedans, hardtops, and convertibles. The Comet had always straddled the line between compact and midsize, and the 1966 revamp made its midsize status official.
1966 Falcon sedans and coupes were now cut-down Fairlanes with a shorter nose and shorter tail. Wheelbase was reduced by 5 inches, which appears to have been achieved by shifting the rear axle and springs 5 inches forward, basically the reverse of the procedure used to create the original 1960 Comet. Look at the space ahead of the rear wheel cutout on the Falcon above and compare it to the same area of the Fairlane 500 sedan below:
Passenger space wasn’t meaningfully affected by this truncation — there were some fractional differences in headroom and hip room between the 1966 Falcon and Fairlane four-door sedans, but rear legroom was identical. A Falcon sedan was somewhat awkwardly proportioned compared to its bigger sibling, which was a foot longer, but the main practical difference was 2.9 cu. ft. less usable luggage space.
Since it was now a truncated Fairlane, the Falcon shared the heavier Fairlane structure, including its isolated rear powertrain mount and front torque boxes. (Australians had gotten front torque boxes a year earlier on the XP Falcon.) This added about 150 lb compared to the 1965 Falcon, although the lightest two-door Falcon was still 272 lb lighter than the lightest 1966 Fairlane sedan.
The Falcon Futura hardtop and convertible were both dropped for 1966. There was no structural reason Ford couldn’t have offered convertible or hardtop versions of the 1966 Falcon, since the Fairlane offered both, but Ford obviously preferred that buyers interested in those body styles step up to the pricier Fairlane 500 or 500XL (or the Mustang).
Often forgotten was the oddball Comet 202, which was almost as obvious a Fairlane-Falcon hybrid as the wagons. Unlike the Falcon, the Comet 202 rode the same 116-inch wheelbase as the Fairlane coupe or sedan, but with its own shorter tail, which made it 195.9 inches long overall, 7.1 inches shorter than a Comet Capri, Caliente, or Cyclone, but almost a foot longer than the Falcon sedan. This seems to have caused more confusion than actual interest, and the Comet 202 was dropped after only two years. (There was still a Comet in 1968 and 1969, but it was now a cheaper version of the Montego, offered only as a two-door hardtop sports coupe.)
All three cars now shared a common suspension, with various minor changes for greater isolation, although the basic layout remained the same. They also had thinner doors, using curved side glass.
Compared to the 1965 Fairlane, these cars were not meaningfully wider overall (Fairlane overall width was up by just 0.3 inches), but the front suspension towers were reshaped and the previous diagonal braces between the tops of the spring towers and the cowl were eliminated, probably to provide a bit more clearance for the FE-series 390-cid V-8 that was now optional on the Fairlane and Comet. Front track was now 58 inches, 1 inch greater than the 1965 Fairlane and 3 inches wider than a 1965 Falcon or Comet.
The Fairlane-based Falcon expired at the end of the 1969 calendar year, but the nameplate continued for the rest of the 1970 model year on a renamed base Fairlane.
Fairlane/Torino and their Mercury counterpart (now called Montego/Cyclone) survived with further restylings through 1971.
For 1972, the Torino and Montego switched from integral frame-body to perimeter frame construction, also abandoning the high-mounted front coils and rear leaf springs. One could argue that the original Falcon/Comet platform had effectively ended in 1965 — the 1966–1971 cars, even the Falcons, were more directly related to the 1962 Fairlane/Meteor than to the old Falcon — but the ’72 intermediates shifted decisively in a different direction. (The original Falcon continued for much longer in Australia and Argentina.)
“But what about the Mustang? What about the Maverick?” I hear you saying. Those are also part of the Falcon lineage, but for reasons of length, I’ve split those into a separate post.
Related Reading
CC Tech: How the Mustang, Cougar, And Maverick Differed From The Original Ford Falcon Platform Aaron Severson
Vintage Motor Life Review: 1960 Ford Falcon – The Resurrection of the Model A (by Paul N)
Curbside Classic: 1960 Comet – Orphan Looking For A Home (by Paul N)
Curbside Classic: 1963 Mercury Meteor Custom – It’s the Little Things That Count (by Jeff Sun)
Curbside Classic: 1963½ Ford Falcon Futura V8 – The Economy Compacts Enter The V8 Era (by Paul N)
That was really interesting to a techno-geek like me.
It perfectly demonstrates how mass and anti-rationalisation can run away with you once you start changing things.
And how the well-designed Falcon started off almost like a large, albeit rationalised European car before rapidly evolving into a behemoth.
I can see soo much Cortina in those early designs.
Great article! The Falcon was Robert McNamara’s baby. As one of the “whiz kids” he only understood cars as a means to get from point A to point B. In the Spring of 1968 my driver training car was a 1968 Mercury Montego — first car I ever drove.
Why would the spring on the upper control arm save un-sprung weight? Is there any advantage? Has anybody compared the three front suspension types in a CC somewhere? Not just the components but how/where they feed the loads into the body? A specific question, does Chrysler having the torsion bar mount to the body farther back place the forces closer to the cabin, letting the frame in front of it need less strength?
I’m excluding McPherson struts to start with because I remember bias tires and how important camber used to be. I would guess that with radials a Ford and a strut would load the body similarly except for the drive forces? Sorry if this is simple.
I guess most is in the text, sorry.
For starters, since the lower wishbone doesn’t have to handle spring loads, it can be much lighter: it still has to carry the lower ball joint and the spindle, and the anti-roll bar if there is one, but it doesn’t have to be nearly so beefy as if it were carrying the spring loads as well. Second, if the spring were on the lower arm, it would need either a tension joint or a compression joint, so that’s eliminated. Third, even though the upper wishbone IS carrying the spring, it doesn’t need as much extra metal because the bending loads are less. (Ford claimed that this produced a net weight savings for the upper arm even after adding the mass of the pivoted spring saddle.) All of that reduces the front unsprung weight.
Had to have much structural restored under my 63 s22 convertible when I got it. It had a restoration done probably 12 years prior but then sat in a Manhattan parking deck for 10 years after spending two years in the DC area.. She needed torque boxes, front floors and inner rockers done. It all helped to make it good and solid.. I was even hit and run on the left rear and it took the hit well.. Had to have the bumper straightened and rechromed and repaired the body damage myself. Was amazed that the bumper support did not even move, reattached the bumper and it was like it was never even hit. Very solid little car..
Without being an engineer, it’s been rather obvious to me that the spring above the upper control arm was a key structural element to allow unibodies to be simple and light. The upper spring mount takes a huge amount of stress; essentially all of the stress of hitting a bump, as well as just supporting the front end of the car. There’s really no easy or light way to have the upper spring mount incorporated in the lower control arm in a unibody car without the common expedient of a separate front subframe, as GM did with the ’67 Camaro and ’68 Nova.
The stiff front inner fender, essentially a rectangle with lots of torsional stiffness yet quite light, is welded to the cowl and makes by far the ideal place to mount the upper spring, transferring those loads to the cowl and the rest of the body structure. All modern unibodies do essentially the same thing with their high upper strut mounts. It’s just by far the obvious way to build a light but strong front body structure to take those punishing loads.
Chrysler bypassed that by using torsion bars, which transfers the load into the lower main body at the rear of the torsion bar. This was not really a significant factor when they first used them on their BOF ’57 full size cars, but it turned out to be very expedient on the 1960 unibody Valiant.
I’m not sure if Rambler was the very first to do this back in 1950, but it was a key developmental step in unibody design and function.
Thank for answering, and for mentioning GM 1967+. I guess I’m off-topic, I’m thinking Gen 2. I didn’t know Chevy IIs were different.
The front suspension is body type, I always thought it was money. The unibody front rails don’t have the clunky frame strength of the GM and the loads have to be spread around. No lower A-arms, that trailing strut to arm deal spreads the loads? Put the springs somewhere else. I didn’t realize how much frame/subframe the GM front end needs, seems obvious now. Thank you, lots to learn here.
I actually had the same query, Sammy, so thanks for that. From Aaron’s answer, the unsprung saving is in the lower wishbone and joint, which makes sense.
There was a savings in the upper wishbone as well. The amount of bending stress it had to endure was less than the bending stress a lower wishbone carrying the spring load would have dealt with, so even with the pivoting spring saddle, there was a weight savings in the upper arm.
Great article. While my first car was my parent’s old ’66 V8 Mustang, I’ve always wanted an early Falcon. I appreciate the engineering, not just the chassis but the thinwall 6. Maybe it’s because there was a lot of engineering and design innovation that went into it, but it’s hidden in comparison to something like the Corvair. Now I understand how the chassis evolved too.
I love the Futura Hardtop, but there is something appealing about the four door – with a 170 and the 4spd.
I think I’ve mentioned this before, but back in my college days, I was able to inspect an early Chevy II that didn’t have any fenders on it, and I was appalled that they basically copied the Falcon’s front suspension (I had already torn apart my ’65 Mustang a bunch of times, so I was intricately aware of how everything looked). It wasn’t until later that I realized that Ford had copied Rambler, as you mentioned, which made some sense. What other cars of that size were really being built? Why reinvent the wheel? They couldn’t have possibly known at the time how badly that would hamstring them a handful of years later when they were trying to shove a big block in there. The difference between Ford and GM is that GM did something about it with the ’67 Camaro, but it did come, as you mention, at the expense of weight. But it sounds like Ford wasn’t too far off since they had to beef up the structure so much to handle the extra power and subsequent loads.
There isn’t anything wrong with the front suspension design though, except it may not be properly scaled for larger and heavier vehicles. Building the lower arm from multiple members is perfectly valid, and even has some advantages.
Ford used the same basic front suspension layout for the 1964–1966 Thunderbird, which was a large and very heavy car.
There was no real alternative for a true unibody car. There’s no good way to build a unibody with the front springs on the more usual BOF location on the lower control arm: what would the spring attach to on its upper end, which is where all the load is? On a BOF car, the frame is there to do that. Not on a unibody. The stiff inner fender structure, rigidly attached to the cowl, is a critical design element to make a unibody work, and is used in just about every unibody since, although with struts now.
The only alternative would have to be a front subframe, which is what GM used in the Camaro and ’68-up Nova (and offshoots). And these hybrids with front subframes were never quite as light as a the full unibodies.
Of course Chrysler bypassed this problem with their torsion bars…
There is, though: You can mount the control arms on a front crossmember and kick up the sides of it to have the coil spring act against the underside of the crossmember. The Corvair and the Y-body senior compacts all did that, and the Ford Fox platform did the same thing with struts: In a Fairmont or other Fox-platform car, the No. 2 crossmember kicks up at its outer edges, creating a sort of raised shelf with the coil under it, which Ford did specifically so they wouldn’t have to put the spring loads into the fender apron. (The strut still acts as the upper arm, as in a conventional MacPherson strut, but the spring is separated from it.) The 1982 GM F-body cars did the same thing.
Of course. But those were rather the exceptions. In more recent decades the strut mounted to the inner fender has become essentially ubiquitous.
Well the Fox did have a sub-frame or K member, which adds complications to the assembly line and potentially weight.
Now its predecessor, well at least on the Mustang portion of the tree did use coils working on the lower control arm and of course spawned a revolution in IFS in the hot rodding world. Not unlike the Falcon story things got beefed up and heavier when the MII came on the Pinto platform again adding weight to allow interchangeability between the lighter 4cyl Pinto and the Heavier V8 MII.
Thank you for this detailed, in depth article, I found it fascinating .
-Nate
Thanks for this and the torque box post; lots of good details to fill in my existing knowledge.
The issue of how much the later Falcon hardtops and then V8s added is instructional. It explains why they still felt reasonably lively (up to about 60 or so) with the smaller sizes (and no power-sapping Fordomatic). Weight is the enemy.
Unlike the Falcon, the Comet 202 rode the same 116-inch wheelbase as the Fairlane coupe or sedan, but with its own shorter nose and tail,
I’m quite certain the 202 used the same front end as the other Comets; there’s no way they would have tooled up for a different one. The difference is undoubtedly all in the rear end.
I think it might have been helpful to explain just why the spring on the upper control arm was such a key essential structural element to make a light and economical true unibody work, but I’ve just done that in two comments now. To me, this was a brilliant breakthrough, one still used by virtually all unibody cars since with their high strut mounts on the inner fender. The additional spring length was just a bonus, but certainly not the key reason.
There was also a typographical error in the Comet 202 paragraph: It was 7.1 inches shorter than its Mercury sedan/coupe/convertible siblings, not 1.1 inches. A very oddly proportioned car.
Aaron, another fantastic article, first the torque box then the uni-body, well played. It clears up a lot of questions about the update of the platform for ’66. One question that I still have, at some point, wasn’t the whole front end widened in order to accept the big blocks that would be forthcoming? I thought that I had read that the front was widened during the’66 update, but I can’t recall where I read it.
Not according to the AMA specs. The Fairlane increased its front track width by an inch for 1966, but overall width was only 0.3 inches greater than in 1965.
Are you sure that wider front track wasn’t the result of the spring towers being wider too? I assume it did, in order to make more room for the FE in ’66 which did not fit before. The ’64 Fairlane Thunderbolt had its front suspension widened specifically to make room for the 427 FE. That doesn’t have to affect outside body width, and I assume he was referring to the engine compartment width, not outside dimensions.
If the question is, “Did Ford reshape the spring towers for 1966 to carve out a little more space between them?” then the answer is, “It appears so, yes.” The engine bay photos here are instructive, although I’d need to look at factory assembly manuals to be more specific:
https://www.mecum.com/lots/246594/1965-ford-fairlane/
https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1966-ford-fairlane-500-10/
(A related point is that the 1966 cars dispensed with the diagonal braces between the spring towers and the cowl, which I assume was probably done for space reasons and suggests some re-stressing of the skirt/spring tower/front rail agglomeration to make the braces unnecessary.)
However, Ray’s question was “wasn’t the whole front end widened in order to accept the big blocks,” and the answer to that is, “Not really, no.” Reshaping the spring towers may have been the reason for the increase in front track (which as I said was up precisely 1 inch over 1965), but the whole front end was not meaningfully widened.
The ’62 Fairlane already had a wider front end with 2″ more track. A curious detail is that the ’60 Comet also had a wider rear axle (56″ track) than the Falcon (54.5″), which would be the same as the rear tack of the ’62 Fairlane.
The ’66 Fairlane/Falcon/Comet all got a new wider front track (58″ track), as did the ’67 Mustang. This was the change that allowed the larger FE V8 to fit between the spring towers.
The early Comet had the same rear track as the Falcon, 54.5 inches.
https://oldcarbrochures.org/United%20States/Mercury/1960%20Mercury/1960-Mercury-Comet-Facts-Booklet/slides/1960_Mercury_Comet_Quick_Facts-26-27.html
I got that number from my Falcon Platform post, but obviously it’s not correct. Fixed now.
My 63 fairlane 500 was a lesson in integrated design. When the 260 v8 died in 1969 I dropped in a Boss 302 motor and had to replace the fordomatic with a modern 3 speed to handle the power. Proceded to blow up in sequence first the driveshaft, then the differential, rear springs and then had to scrap it when the front subframe tore loose. Falcon underpinnings were never meant to withstand that level of power inspite of factory upgrades
That does not surprise me.
Great article, and think you for clearing up a lot of questions I had about the differences between the Falcon/Comet/early Mustang and the Fairlane based cars. I worked on a lot of those cars years ago and remember how the large spring/shock towers and diagonal firewall braces really hindered engine accessability on V-8 cars. One all-to-common repair on those cars was fixing a torn-out upper control arm. This usually happened on V-8 cars particularly when the upper control arms were not lubricated frequently enough (if they were the threaded bushing type). The two bolts mounting the upper control arm shaft to the inner fender would pull out, and the only good way to fix it (after you got the engine out of the car) was to fabricate a gusset to weld to the inner fender and re-drill the holes. Fun! I generally preferred Chrysler A bodies, I thought while the front end design may have transmitted more NVH, torsion bar suspension with a hefty ‘K’ member subframe resulted in a more robust car. Speaking of Chryslers, I thought it was interesting how they designed the original Valiant/Lancer ‘A’ body and then scaled the design up for the intermediate ‘B’ body.
Judging by what Chevrolet experienced during the development of the Chevy II, I wonder if the mounting bolt issue was caused by braking torque. Both the Chevy II and the Falcon had the upper arm pivots angled to provide anti-dive. Chevrolet said the during development, they found that the force applied to the spring tower in a panic stop was much more severe than they’d anticipated and would work the bolts loose. (They said they had to do an additional restrike on the spring tower assembly to get the various layers of metal mashed together tightly enough to hold reliably under braking forces.) A V-8 Falcon or Comet had more front-end weight (whose tendency to dive had to be resisted) and bigger brakes, so maybe that put more stress on those bolts?
Good point. If braking torque was not the primary cause, I’ll wager it was certainly a contributing factor.
Sadly this site is almost unreadable on a cell phone. It’s a good thread and I’ve been trying to read through the comments but the endless page reloads and the full page adds that can’t be closed make it damned near impossible. It’s quite frustrating.
It’s often said that that famous Falcon front structure wasn’t up to Aussie conditions, but as best I can work out, that isn’t really true. In very short form, Ford Oz was going to build the MK111 Zephyr locally (and indeed, did, as a back-up), but found then that the Falc was the right size and cheaper (and more modern). So, in a rush, that is what they managed to do, to fully manufacture the thing here within about a year of that decision. Of course, that rush meant problems, presumably including just not enough testing.
What happened is that rural buyers smashed what were essentially these city/highway commuter cars all over their local dirt roads, as they had with their almost-comically high-set Holdens: the suspension travel wasn’t enough, they bottomed out, and the top balljoints gave way. (Larger Fairlane ones fixed this). On top of that, the aircooled autos failed in the heat, the clutches, for whatever reason, were weak and juddery, the RHD gear linkage was crappy, and the super low-geared steering was inadequate on dirt if the tail came round. If indeed any tales of those strut towers bending are true, that would only be because of an inadequate-travel front end hitting bumps you could barely walk over at 60mph!
The combined result was so dire for Ford Oz it nearly killed the entire enterprise, but it does need to be made clear that that front end design was not itself the real trouble. For sure, lots of later structural reinforcements came along in ’64 and then ’65 (including, I believe, the convertible’s structural undergirding on the ’65 XP), but it was the combination of other strife that caused the bad name. And it obviously could be made strong enough for power and abuse, as that self-same 1960 structure ended up supporting 350 bhp 5.8 litre V8’s at 145 mph by only 1971.
Another great article, Aaron. A lot I didn’t know.
Great article.
I usually prefer the Mercury Versions (or Comet, pre 62).
I don’t mind the early Falcons, but they look almost too ‘cute’.
The rear end (Baby melty Fins) Remind me of the little Puppy from Tom & Jerry, Spike’s son ‘Tyke’, with his Tiny baby ears.
See? Am I wrong?
Absolutely fascinating article Aaron, thank you.
I was surprised that the Comet 202 2 and 4-door sedans sedans, while sharing the same 116” wheelbase as the other Comet coupes, convertibles and sedans were shorter. When I went to confirm this by checking the sales brochures on oldcarbrochures.com I saw where they listed the overall length of the ’66 Comet 202 as being 195.9” long vs. 203” for the other Comet coupes, convertibles, and sedans. The ’66 brochure also states the Comet 202 only had 15 cubic feet of trunk space vs. 17 cubic feet for the other Comet coupes, convertible, and sedans.
Then things got strange. I looked at the 1967 sales brochure where it listed all of the 1967 Comet coupes, convertible, and sedans (202s, Capris, Calientes, and Cyclones) as being 203.5” long and having 17 cubic feet of trunk space. It appears that the shorter Comet 202s were only offered for 1966 and not 1967, unless they printed a little fib in the 1967 brochure. Things like that have been known to happen.
The Mercury Comet 202 wasn’t dropped. Mercury dropped the “202” suffix and the 1967 Comet 202 was replaced the the plain 1968 Mercury Comet (without the suffix) available only as a 2-door hardtop.
As Paul responded in the other post, the 1967 brochure page for the Comet 202 says, “The jaunty short-deck Comet 202 handles and maneuvers like a polo pony. Its 196.4″ overall length features full-size room … big car riding quality … remarkable value.” On the specifications page, the overall length listed in the table has a footnote at the bottom that says “(b) 196.4 for Comet 202 series.” This is not a “fib”; you’re not reading the table right. (It happens, I’ve been there!)
The 1968 Comet was not the Comet 202 with a different name, it was a de-contented Montego two-door hardtop. The 1968 brochure describes it as having “206 inches of overall length,” and the specifications table there DOES list it as being the same 206.1 inches as the Montego and Cyclone sedan and “formal” hardtop. I added a parenthetical note to the text of this post to emphasize that.