Before dinner this evening, walking around on Telegraph in the Temescal Neighborhood of Oakland, yet another member of the Falcon & Family flock was at the curb. But tonight it really hit me: “Wow, those early Comets really look like Baby Squarebirds!”
And then it stuck me one reason why cars equal art in my mind. One of the first paintings that I can remember was of the ’60 T-Bird done by Robert Bechtle, an early photo realist painter that did cars and landscapes of Suburban San Francisco and The Bay Area, starting in the 1960s. The Thunderbird “Blind” C-pillar used to dress up the Comet, in combination with those stubbly little fins, finally connected in my mind to the Squarebirds, and back to that Bechtle painting I saw in a Doctors office probably 25 years ago at this point.
In a way, I’m inspired to stop in these moments to capture what, at the end of the day are mundane cars from 50 years ago because of the inspiration to stop and look at the automobile as art, as a culturally significant consumer good that we all encounter, and momentarily be surprised/thrilled about what conclusions I come to about them.
For instance, tonight I’m thinking how clever it was for Ford to transfer a lot of token hand-me-down styling elements from their most popular prestige-mobile to the humble “Super Falcon.”
In the case of the Comet, it worked quite well. All of those random doo-dads make it look more than the humble extended Falcon that it is. The art of visual illusion, after all if this is an unmodified 1962 Comet, there’s the 170 Cube Inline 6 and a 2 Speed Merc-O-Matic moving this softly sprung boulevardier on a budget.
More fun is to be had with this ’63, which is equipped with a feisty little 260 feeding a Merc-O-Matic,
Or by dropping the top on this Comet Convertible. And it reminded me of other things in my life from 25 years ago: The drag of pretending to be a grown up, playing doctor and stomping around in my father’s Cowboy Boots. In a lot of ways these Baby Squarebirds were doing the same thing, little children cars, play dress up in more adult car “clothes.” Cars that eventually would soon grow up to intermediate size and out of dress up elements of their parents, sometimes.
From there I go off on some weird journey within my mind about illusion as art, and some weird comparison between Bechtle’s photo realism portrait style, my own photo editing style and the faux luxury aspirations of this compact Mercury that the 2 glasses of honey wine aren’t allowing to form. But, now I really want one of these Baby Squarebirds.
I am so with you on all this. Never noticed the Comet / Big Bird similarity but now it’s wonderfully obvious. Fine photography.
I never saw these as little children cars, they’re just smaller cars. It’s a successful style that looks right on smaller and larger cars.
You made me want to see more of Bechtle’s work. I’ve always been especially struck by photorealism. Here’s a page about an exhibit with several of his works, including “’60 T-Bird”. Eight feet long!
Thanks!
Honestly I’ve always been suprised that Ford didn’t apply more Thunderbird styling cues to its cars over the years. The car was such a segment defining car.
FWIW your photography reminds me of Playboy of the 1960s, slightly airbrushed/soft focused to hide the flaws. (I mean that in a good way.)
I think the oddity of the Thunderbird’s place in the market squashed that to an extent. It was a Ford, but a $4,000+ Ford (which was Ninety Eight/New Yorker Money). I can see why Ford would have been cautious about applying certain cues to comparably priced/slightly less expensive Mercury Park Lanes and Montclairs. It all ties back to the fact that standard Mercuries only had a distinct design language from 1957-60, and for the rest of their lives vacillated between being overchromed waterfall grilled Fords or more brutal/clumsy/watered down Lincolns.
One interesting alternate car universe thing is to think of a re-skinned 1962-63 Meteor with the Bullet-Bird design cues for 1964. Especially if it were just the coupe it would have been an interesting upscale alternative to the Mustang/precursor to the 1969 Pontiac Grand Prix.
When I was a kid, there were loads of these things in the road. Kind of makes me wonder where they all went. They were very popular with French-Canadians, who put all manner of “accessories” on them such is a bed on roses on the rear package shelf, “lightening bolts” in the aerial and anything else you could get at Crappy Tire. I vividly remember, as a small child, my dad pointing them out and laughing.
What ’62 really marked was the completion of the de-Edselfication of the Comet. The ’60 Comet was intended to be a baby Edsel up until just about the last minute. All Ford had time to do was remove the Edsel badging (and wasn’t it convenient that “COMET” had the same number of letters?) and replace the Edselesque grille with a junior ’60 Mercury motif. But Comets didn’t actually receive Mercury nameplates till ’62, when the cat-eye taillights were gone along with other subtle interior and exterior Edsel styling cues. The Squarebird resemblance is there but of course the Bird itself had moved on to the “Bullet Bird” design sharing some tooling with the new Continental.
And that’s what’s most interesting to me: The squared up downscale T-Bird Shape was there from the beginning, but as you say the “De-Edselfication” of the Comet by 1962 makes it look more “Squarebird-y” in a way. These Custom trim level models have a lot of strategically placed chrome that makes them look a lot more expensive than a comparable ’62 Falcon.
Plus the fin, reduced to the stub looks a lot less eccentric as the chrome trimmed doodad on the 1960-61 cars.
Terrific; and great follow-up to the conversation Laurence and I had over dinner last night about these cars. I didn’t know a post was coming too. Dessert!
Always had a soft-spot for these early Comets, and you’ve captured their appeal perfectly.
Count me in as a lover of the looks of the early Comets. It’s one of those vehicles I search for regularly on Craiglist, like I need another car. The one thing that keeps me from hesitating is that there isn’t an easy front disc brake conversion for the first gen Falcon/Comet. Once the Fairlane/Meteor showed up they upgraded a number of the front end pieces, in part due to lessons learned down under and in part so it could handle the extra weight and have a one size fits all front end, and it is that later suspension that the disc brake kits are for.
Very nice, my father’s first car was a 63 Comet. Straight 6, 4 door, pretty basic.
One of my favorite features of the Ford C pillar treatment of those years is the slight upward kink as the rear edge of the pillar transitions to the rear of the rooftop. I noticed that line on my 61 Tbird and I see it in the profile shot of the white Comet.
I had never considered the connections between the squarebird and this Comet, but now that you have pointed them out, the resemblance is unmistakeable.
I had a ’62 Comet (sold it this past September, 7 years to the *day* from when I bought it) and it was a nice little car for bopping around town in. They aren’t geared well for the highway though and always seemed to struggle.
Bought a ’64 falcon wagon to replace it.
Excellent article, Laurence – thank you. And thanks for pointing me towards a painter I’ve never heard of.
great article & pix, laurence. i appreciate the details that give me an insight as to what it means to be a californian. the robert bechtle reference was enlightening.
Interesting snippet. The Australian Ford Falcon changed to the Thunderbird roofline too at its first facelift, and was promoted as such.
My father had a 63 Comet Station Wagon with a 260 V-8. There were very few of them made this way, the 260 emblem was a badge through the grille. The front end parts were unique for this car as well