Between 1964 and 1966, Ford was so busy selling Mustangs that they scarcely seemed to notice that they were falling behind in other segments of the performance market. In 1966, Ford finally got around to installing a big-block 390 engine in the midsize Fairlane, but Car Life found the automatic Fairlane GTA didn’t earn its racy stripes.
Introduced for the 1966 model year, Ford’s Fairlane GT and GTA (the “A” stood for “Automatic”) followed the standard mid-’60s muscle car formula: Take one off-the-shelf intermediate in two-door hardtop or convertible form; install an engine in the 400 cu. in. class; stiffen up the suspension; and add the usual cosmetic details, including chrome engine dress-up, GT stripes, a blackout grille, and moderately tacky simulated hood louvers. The brochure asserted that it would “twist the tail of any tiger,” with obvious reference to Pontiac’s contemporary “GTO Tiger” advertising theme.
However, the editors of Car Life were not persuaded:
Had Ford produced the first, rather than the final, Supercar (by present definition), there would have been less cause for disappointment. But the GTA must be judged in the light of 1966, not 1963, and the timing identifies the problem: The GTA adequately matches the first GTO, but the 2-year headstart puts Pontiac farther down this particular dragstrip. When Pontiac started tweaking Tigers, Ford was busy breeding a Mustang. The wisdom of Ford’s course of action is perhaps the more enduring from a corporate balance sheet viewpoint, so this ultimate appearance of something seeming to protect that flank may be all that is required. But it does point up the difficulty, not often overcome, in simply catching up.
The GTA’s problem is, quite simply, not enough power. It just isn’t competitive in output, which is the primary justification for the cars in its category. The test car was unhampered by any smog-limiting Thermactor—a point which will be touched upon later—and still it wouldn’t go. As a high-performance strip-scorcher, this one had an inadequate torch.
The 390 cu. in. (6,381 cc) FE-series V-8 was found in countless Ford vehicles of this era, but in 1966, the 335 gross horsepower S-code version was exclusive to the Fairlane GT/GTA and the related Mercury Cyclone GT, sporting a slightly warmer camshaft — 270° duration, 40° overlap, 0.4809-inch lift — and a Holley four-barrel carburetor.
On paper, the S-code 390 was a close match for the 389 cu. in. (6,372 cc) engine that was standard on the Pontiac GTO, which rated the same 335 gross horsepower and slightly more torque (431 lb-ft to 427 lb-ft). In the real world, Car Life found the Ford engine a big disappointment:
Ford’s 390-cu. in. engine is enough known to need no elucidation. Tuned for 300 bhp, it has been the mainstay of the Thunderbird for several years, an environment where its docile delivery of torque was most esteemed. High rev capabilities have been neither needed nor desired in that service, although such are basic in a GTA context, and this is the engine’s Achilles heel. However you want to say it, it chokes up, flattens out, falls off so badly beyond 4400 rpm that real storming stripsmanship is out of the question. The contrast between GTO and GTA, moreover, is immediately apparent to the senses. Whereas the former thunders away from the line in a ride like that of a runaway steam locomotive, the latter is hard-pressed to exhibit any brutality, much less sufficient force.
Their GTA test car’s lackluster 3.6-second 0 to 30 mph and 8.6-second 0 to 60 times bore out the lack of muscle. The data panel alleges a best quarter-mile time of 15.4 seconds at 87 mph, but I suspect a typographical error: The trap speed is plausible, but given the 16.7-second 0 to 90 mph time they recorded, I’m 90 percent sure the ET was actually 16.4 seconds. Which meant the GTA was not actually a Supercar, at least by Car Life‘s contemporary definition.
The editors suggested that the S-code Fairlane might be a match for a base GTO, which they admitted Car Life had never tested. Motor Trend had, however, first in February 1965, then in May 1966, and their base engine GTO test cars, both with two-speed automatics and 3.23 axles, would have blown the doors off this Fairlane GTA. (Both those cars managed 0 to 60 mph in 7.5 seconds or less with two aboard.)
Car Life grumbled:
Ford engineers could learn something from their counterparts at Pontiac in relation to engine breathing. Particularly in valve train design are Pontiacs seldom afflicted with lethargy. Hydraulic lifters as a matter of course work at 6000 rpm. The standard 389 GTO engine’s camshaft is only remotely warmer (273/289 duration, 54° overlap) than the GTA, but the 3×2 ’shaft is substantially thawed out (288/302 and 63°). The differences in valve sizes (1.92 in. intakes, 1.65 exhausts) also say something about Pontiac’s approach to manifold and head design.
Any GTA buyer, of course, has recourse to the various and well-known means used by hot rodders to polish a rough diamond. Ford Parts Div. has marketed, in the past, a 3 x 2 manifold for this engine and the larger speed shops have had reworked cylinder heads and exhaust headers. By fitting drag slicks, good headers, and a 3.50:1 or higher axle, e.t.s in the 14s—possibly the high 13s—should be within reach of a good driver.
I think in this case calling the S-code 390 “a rough diamond” was being awfully generous. As the editors had noted earlier, this was 1966, not 1963, and having to delve into dealer parts counter or aftermarket DIY just to get competitive street performance was really missing the point of this whole genre. Also, there was plenty of speed equipment for the GTO as well, and the chances of a hopped-up 390 staying ahead of a hopped-up Pontiac 389 seem low.
Car Life thought performance would also be improved by ordering a Fairlane GT with the four-speed manual, having been none too impressed by the GTA’s “Sport Shift” (C6) Cruise-O-Matic, which was supposed to allow fully manual shifting if desired. CL remarked:
It is an admirable, if overdue, feature to manually control an automatic’s gear selection by placing the shifter at the desired detent. Borg-Warner automatics and those from Chrysler, of course, have been capable of this for some years now. The Ford attempt, however, has two distressing characteristics: A prolonged pause during gear changing, either up or down, and all-but-unusable action in downshifting into low. In the latter case, a downshift from second to low results in free-wheeling until road speed drops below 25 mph, when the shift occurs with a suddenness not unlike going into reverse.
Aside from the infirmities of the powertrain, the CL editors thought the Fairlane GTA might be a tad overbuilt:
Many miles in various new Fairlanes indicate that the new body shell is a tight, solid structure quite capable of rough usage. The altered torque box arrangement at both toeboard corners does exactly what Ford’s computers said it would: Reduce the noise and vibration in the passenger compartment. An unmistakable impression that the car is carved from a block of steel rather than bent into shape from sheet metal is achieved. The other side of that coin, however, is a heavier-than-desirable, for its size, vehicle.
I checked the 1966 Fairlane AMA specs, and the 3,500 lb curb weight Car Life listed in the data panel was off by about 80 lb as equipped. However, a curb weight of 3,580 lb was still a bit lighter than a 1966 GTO. At 206.4 inches overall, GTO was 8.4 inches longer than the Fairlane, but they were very similar in wheelbase and width — which are more closely correlated than length with vehicle weight — so it’s not surprising that they weighed roughly the same.
The caption of the top left photo reads, “WHEELSPIN POSES something of a problem on acceleration runs. [Firestone] Super Sport tires are good, but drag slicks would be a vital improvement.” The caption of the top right photo wrongly implies that the styled steel wheels were part of the GT/GTA dress-up package; they were an extra-cost option.
Like Road & Track, Car Life was based in Los Angeles, so most of their 1966 and later test cars were subject to California’s exhaust emissions standards. Ford initially met these requirements with the Thermactor system, which used an engine-driven pump to inject fresh air into the exhaust stream, reducing carbon monoxide and hydrocarbon emissions (while increasing oxides of nitrogen). However:
No sign of the dreaded Thermactor exhaust emission control device was visible on our fully licensed test model, giving our test drivers some pause. Didn’t California state law require all 1966 cars to be so equipped? Checking with Ford’s legal department revealed that there were loopholes, indeed, large enough to drive thundering herds of GTAs through. Among exemptions to the “all inclusive” law, it seems, are cars which can be called “high performance.” The GTA, though it might not fit an enthusiast’s definition of the term, qualifies because it is equipped with, among other things, a 4-barrel carburetor. Yet, the Galaxie 7-Litre tested last month doesn’t qualify as such, for some unexplainable reason. It begins to look as if California’s much vaunted anti-smog law may be honored only in the breach.
California’s early emissions standards were tied to the installation of suitable devices certified by the state’s Motor Vehicle Pollution Control Board, which had fairly broad authority to grant exemptions if suitable devices were not available. (The Legislature had gotten very testy about this, and had recently ordered that most such exemptions end by December 1, 1967.)
However, the AMA specifications for the Fairlane GT and GTA indicate that the S-code engine was supposed to have a Thermactor in California, as were the milder Y- and Z-code versions optional on other Fairlanes. That makes me think that Ford might actually have obtained an exemption on some other basis, such as not having enough Thermactor pumps to go around. Not having this device fitted from from the factory wasn’t great news for a California owner, since at this time, there was the risk that they might eventually be required to retrofit one after the fact.
Although the anemic performance likely crossed the Fairlane GT/GTA off the shopping lists of the enthusiast crowd, Car Life felt it wasn’t entirely without virtue:
If the GTA isn’t an earth-shaking Supercar, then, what can it be? Ironically, it comes closer to being a pretty fair utilitarian family sedan. Its major drawback for less than sporting service is fuel mileage. Even with careful driving, the test car was hard-pressed to return 12 mpg, and this on premium fuel only. [The overall test average was just 9.1 mpg.] An appetite of that nature is hardly one to mollify even a Walter Mitty, regardless of the dream-inspiring throatiness of the exhaust note. Realistic families would have cause to object to the fuel bill.
As family sedans go, performance is quite good. The Fairlane is, in our opinion, ideally sized for today’s traffic conditions. Three youngsters are no problem in back and trunk space is of 2-weeks-with-pay adequacy. Moreover, the GTA comes with a sturdier suspension which improves handling qualities without, we discovered, causing any deterioration in riding softness; at least we could detect no unpleasant harshness.
The GT/GTA suspension was actually quite stiff — the spring rates at the wheel were over 65 percent greater than a 289 Fairlane sedan — so it’s surprising that Car Life didn’t find it unpleasantly harsh. I guess the stoutness of the unit body paid off in that respect.
While the text makes no mention of braking, the data panel reveals a best deceleration rate of 24 ft/sec.² on the first stop from 80 mph, falling to 22.5 ft/sec.² on the second stop, which rated fair by contemporary domestic standards. For 1967, front disc brakes would become standard on the GT and GTA, a commendable upgrade.
CL concluded:
Living with the GTA for several weeks was not all disheartening; the experience made us more than anxious to try again in other Fairlanes with the 289-cu. in. engines. A little better balance, a little more honesty, and who knows? It may be quite an attractive package.
Total Fairlane GT/GTA production in 1966 was 37,342 cars, including 4,327 convertibles. That roughly equaled the combined total of the 1966 Oldsmobile 4-4-2 and Buick Skylark Gran Sport, but it was nowhere near the 96,946 GTOs Pontiac sold that year.
Personally, I like the looks of the Fairlane GT/GTA hardtop, and compared to the GM A-bodies, its shorter overhangs and stiff unit body have some appeal. As a performance car, though, it seemed like it just wasn’t trying very hard — lost, like so many ’60s Fords, in the wasteland between product planning and cost accounting.
The GTA was practical and it was cheap (in 1966, a sticker price of $3,499 with power steering, power brakes, automatic, radio, and styled wheels wasn’t bad at all), but when it came to the mixture of pizzazz and brawn that made cars like the GTO era-defining hits, the big-engine Fairlane just didn’t measure up.
Related Reading
Vintage M/T Road Test: 1964 Ford Fairlane 500 Sports Coupe – 289 V8, Four Speed And Good To Go (by Paul N)
Vintage Review: Olds 442, Pontiac GTO, Comet Cyclone GT, Chevelle SS396, Buick Skylark GS, Ford Fairlane GTA – Car and Driver Test Drives Six Super Cars (by GN)
Curbside Capsule: 1966 Ford Fairlane 500 Sedan – A Fresh New Face In The Neighborhood (by Paul N)
CC Capsule: 1966 Ford Fairlane 500 – Jet Age Generic (by Perry Shoar)
Automotive History: The Ford FE Series V8 Engine (by Jason Shafer)
My fraternity brother ran one of these. First thing he did was swap in a 3.90 differential and rear springs. I got the original to replace the failed rear end in my 63 fairlane. One thing about 66 fairlanes was terrible build quality. Failed electrical systems, brake lockup and general fit and finish. My father traded in his 66 wagon before payments were up, first and only time he did that.
I drove several of these since I worked in a gas station in 1966 next door to a Ford dealer and we washed and prepped their new ’66 Fords.
Ford had higher performance claimed 360 HP 352s. 406s, and tripower 390s earlier, so, yes, it is a puzzle why they didn’t offer more power in ’66 Fairlanes. Although they had limited numbers of racing versions available such as 427 Fairlanes and Mercury Comet Calientes.
I always assumed Ford considered the unibody Fairlane to be enough lighter that it didn’t need more power to compete. Or maybe a low priced car should quality for low priced insurance.
Also, I assumed Ford lied about HP prior to 1965 as their engines didn’t seem to deliver the numbers. But then after that they under rated and even way under rated HP.
I thought Stephane below was offering this other industrial ad wherein the torquey ’66 GTO destroys the ’66 Chevelle and both obliterate the ’66 Fairlane. Although by the end of the 1/4 and beyond, the lighter high strung Chevelle does get a fender ahead of the GTO… of course, most people don’t go to dragstrips so the GTO’s action street light to street light was most often seen.
The bad MPG of the Fairlane is puzzling, my tripower ’65 GTO with 3.55 rear averaged 17 MPG in normal driving with an occasional blip of power. Maybe the test car had a damaged engine, in which case Ford should have required some clarity in a later issue, at least.
A fair assessment on your part. These were nice around town cars however. And yes, if you were a good mechanic they could be made to run better and I feel the styling held up pretty well over time. The 389 Pontiac could be a bearing spinner if you got too aggressive.
I had a 67 Fairlane with the 390 engine. This was a stock 390 no 4bbl cause it was not a GT, it ran fine maybe not as quick to top end as a GTO but it got there. I added a 4bbl manifold with a Holly 650 ,long tube headers and a 9in.locker with 393 gears this combo left them all in my rear view mirrow.
The 1966-67 Fairlane GT/GTA and its sibling the Mercury Comet Cyclone seems to live under the shadows of the Mustang (and a bit later, the Cougar) and the supercars, I mean muscle cars from GM (GTO, 442, Buick GS, Chevelle SS) and Chrysler with the Dodge Coronet 500 and R/T and Plymouth Belvedere/Satellite/GTX with the 383ci, 440ci and Hemi V8s under the hood.
Interesting to note to see that 1966 Chevrolet Chevelle vintage training promo film who compares it to the Ford Fairlane and Pontiac GTO but not against the Coronet and Belvedere.
This car is the reason for the 428 Cobra Jet.
Even then, the CobraJet only appeared in mid-year 1968 after Tasca Ford did it as a dealer-installed option.
Setting aside the “sporty” Corvair (which a lot of people did) GM *had* to build high-performance A-bodies because they didn’t have a Mustang equivalent. I think you’re right in that Ford felt they didn’t need to build a hi-po intermediate because the Mustang existed.
But that ignored an entire social segment. In 1966 it was quite likely that a man in his early- to mid 20s was a family man with a couple of rapidly-growing kids. He still had a lust for power and speed, but the kiddos wouldn’t fit in the back of a Mustang.
“…the state’s controversial used car smog device program.” Not exactly. There were two retrofit programs, neither of which required HC/CO reduction. The first required closed crankcase ventilation for ’55 and later. The second was a NOx retrofit for ’66 and later, the controversial one.
I liked these Fairlane GT/GTA’s, along with their Mercury Comet Cyclone counterparts, but I believe this article is a fair assessment of how these cars performed compaired to the competition they faced in ’66. Though the 390 was a reliable engine it just wasn’t in the same league performance-wise as the Chevy 396 or Pontiac 389. The situation got even worse in following years for the 390 with the ’67 Pontiac 400 and ’68 Mopar 383 Magnum/Super Commando. Of course the Ford FE 427’s and 428’s were a lot more competitive, and maybe that’s why Ford let the 390 languish. Another issue potentially holding the Fairlane GTA back was the fact the the reliable and robust C6 transmission took more horsepower to operate than competitive transmissions (nearly a 60 h.p. loss by some estimates). It would be very interesting to see how the Fairlane GT compaired to the GTA.
The A in GTA being automatic is the most puzzlingly stupid automotive acronym ever. It’s pretty obvious they were trying to shoehorn in a extra letter on GT to say oh you have a GTO? Well we have the GTA!” But why differentiate automatic vs Manual names at all? (Were automatic 442s called 432s? No) And why give the more intriguing sounding name to the car that is most surely less fun to drive or quick?
The missteps are great with these cars. Personally I’m not even all that smitten by the styling, it sits too tall, it looks narrow the chrome trim is too chunky and overapplied and in this package it doesn’t look like much more than a regular Fairlane with a rocker stripe; there’s no grille blackout, and the “hood scoops” are simply tacked onto the normal Fairlane hood.
Obviously it was in a different and fading class of car with a higher price tag but if I was a Ford buyer in 1966 looking for a muscle car I’d be more interested in a 7liter Galaxie than a Fairlane GT/GTA.
Most of the musclecars had fake hood scoops. Open air scoops cost extra.
Still, how hard can it be to build a musclecar? In the case of Ford, real hard. I just don’t think Henry Ford II’s heart was really into the domestic street scene (his focus was LeMans) and he surely didn’t think it was worth the money to do it right. In effect, I suspect he just left it to his marketing guys to build a Fairlane musclecar on the cheap, and that’s exactly what he got.
Oh, sure there were the 427 side-oiler Fairlanes, but they were few and far between, and they were pricey, too, right up there with the Street Hemi.
I would venture to guess that Ford’s lackluster musclecar efforts were a big reason Hank the Deuce thought hiring Bunkie Knudson from Pontiac was a good idea. The only problem was it was way too late in the game by the time Ford got musclecars competitive with GM and Chrysler.
I very sincerely doubt that, or that anyone very high up the ladder at Ford (including Iacocca) cared a whit about the Supercar market. HFII had been trying for two decades to emulate GM, in hopes of regaining Ford’s prewar market dominance; Knudsen was a kind of Detroit royalty (his father had been a senior Ford man and later GM president), and he had led Pontiac and Chevrolet during some of their strongest years.
Looking at vintage buff books and the muscle car collector scene gives a really disproportionate sense of its importance and significance. The intermediate Supercars weren’t entirely without value or the automakers wouldn’t have bothered, but they were a minor niche market and essentially a product planning game. Most of the really focused hardcore performers that were built more or less the way the car magazines and hotrodder community thought they should be built were very marginal sellers and of minimal commercial significance.
That said, Ford product planners seemed to have taken a very dismissive attitude towards this segment. I get the impression Ford really did not grasp that there was a distinction between success in organized competition and street performance — they probably recognized that the GTO helped sell a lot of the regular Tempest/Le Mans intermediates, but I don’t know that they understood why.
Agreed 100%, Ford total performance was a marketing tactic taken to an extreme, if they could have claimed without any fact checking that they built engines worthy of winning international races they would have, but thankfully there were people in the company that actually tried to make that truthful. Few however actually made an effort to translate success from that into their mass production products. To anyone buying a Ford muscle car the Lemans 1-2-3 win may as well have just been the typical ad nonsense of their car in a pretty but implausible to access landscape.
My impression after all these years reading books online articles and old articles like this is Ford definitely wanted the reputation for performance with their efforts in this era but without spending the capital on translating research into mass production(like Ferrari, Porsche etc racing programs did) and also without upsetting their status quo; a lot through the decades even to now has been made about Ford being protectionist towards the mustang brand but I also think during the 60s Ford didn’t want the full size line to get overshadowed either. They already saw the cannibalization that happened with the Falcon so the idea of the less profitable Fairlane taking yet another chunk of their favored son’s market share probably didn’t seem worthy of deep investment.
I think Ford wanted their ‘family’ ‘performance’ cars mild enough to not have much in the way of warranty or lawsuit problems to keep selling prices down.
And their hotter racing level cars to be called ‘R’ and sold without warranties only to people claiming to be ‘Racers’…
Chrysler did something similar, their cars left the showrooms with ‘granny tunes’ and warranty busting ‘mods’ were required to make them produce rated HP and be competitive.
It’s all a bit mysterious. The K-Code 271 hp 289 was a brilliant engine, and made the early Mustangs superb performers. This engine was very much in top sbc territory for the times.
But when it came to the FE V8, Ford simply refused to create a popular hi-po version. Of course they hade the all-out racing-oriented versions, starting in 1960 with the 350 hp 352, which had the first genuine hi-po heads as well as beefier internals and such. This was the first in the line that included the ’61 390, the ’62 406 and then of course the 427. And as we all know, these were the real thing, but built in very small numbers.
What Ford could have done early on was what they finally did with the CJ428: put those hi-po heads on a mostly regular 390, or 428.
The simple reality is that hi-flowing heads are the key to performance, and the ones used on the regular 352, 390 and 428 were mediocre. This is the lesson that Chevy showed the world back in 1955, and Ford got it with the K 289 but didn’t until the CJ428. That was about 3-4 year too late. Hard to figure why.
The FE clearly was Ford’s response to the sbc, but they didn’t figure out the key element to make it a proper street performer by not offering better heads from the get-go.
I don’t know that it was even that deep. With the exception of Pontiac, very few automakers had any grasp of the street performance scene: Jim Wangers did, because he was close to the scene and had done some drag racing, but Wangers said repeatedly over the years that a lot of rank-and-file Pontiac execs didn’t get it or support it, since they didn’t want their brand associated with greasy hotrodder kids. That Pontiac offered the GTO at all was in large part because senior corporate management had put their foot down about the no-racing thing, so the under-the-table promotion of the Super Duty and aluminum lightweight cars had to stop, which obviously wasn’t the case at Ford.
Even when the GTO became a hit, the extent to which a lot of Detroit understood its popularity was limited to a vague sense of, “Uh, okay, you put big engine in intermediate, acronymic name, profit?” Chrysler stumbled all over the place for much the same reasons, even though they actually had some hot and medium-warm street engines — it really wasn’t until the Road Runner that they stumbled onto a formula for Performance plus Image, and there too, Chrysler-Plymouth management’s lukewarm attitude towards the project has been well-documented.
It doesn’t take any conspiracy theory about protecting the Mustang or avoiding warranty or insurance issues. Most of the decision-makers were middle-aged guys who hadn’t grown up with any of this shade-tree hot rod stuff, and who had a dealer body of middle-aged guys who were not enthusiastic about the connotations. (According to Wangers, Asa Wilson Sr., father of Royal Pontiac owner Ace Wilson and the one who’d bought the dealership for Wilson Jr., hated all the Royal performance stuff and found it distasteful.)
Fake hood scoops I’m ok with but a few punched holes in a standard fairlane hood to accommodate a few chintzy chrome pieces is cheap cheap cheap. Even Chevy used unique stampings for their fake scoops.
Ford’s engine issue is another animal, I mentioned it before but there shouldn’t have been these 427-428 variants, nor side oiler/topoiler variants of what was the same engine family. A great point was raised by someone regarding the bore centers and Siamesed cylinders of the 427 being too exotic for mainstream but standardizing a correction of an oiling system flaw should have simply been applied to all FEs across the board rather than treating the fix as some exotic race motor trait that costs a pretty penny, and that’s not even to mention heads(as remedied belatedly by the CJ428). Ford didn’t lack the engineering know how or finances but just seemed full of stubborn bean counters in every department to streamline in any logical solutions until the 335(Cleveland) and 385 series engines came online, where soon into the malaise era took hold they muddied the waters yet again with the “modified” 351s and 400s.
I kind of like the styling of these based on their own merits, until you park one next to a GM or Chrysler intermediate.
The yellow car is not helped by sitting way too high, especially at the rear.
And my eye keeps being drawn to the rocker stripe being at odds with the rising towards the front lower crease line.
The rocker stripe to body line relationship bothers me as well. Not just for the incongruity but did the GTO need a stripe to separate from the Tempest? Or the SS396 to separate itself from a standard Chevelle in 66?
I too don’t dislike the design,in fact taken outside of a muscle car package between it and a standard Chevelle or Belvedere/Satellite I don’t think it gets particularly outclassed design wise, but as a muscle car it just doesn’t work for me, the GT/GTA is too Junior Galaxie to take serious as a sporty design and too on the nose with Mustang GT details from a year prior to take seriously as anything unique in the sporty field either.
Crazy thought but if the Mercury Comet didn’t exist and the Fairlane GT/GTA got the Comet’s front and rear facias to differentiate itself as a unique muscle car like the GTO it might have had a better chance image wise.
The ’66 Fairlane was a reasonable facsimile of a ’65 GTO…
Just how much HP did the air injection pump draw? From some of the comments in the road tests of the era, you’d swear it took 50HP.
For a typical American car, probably something between 6 and 10 hp, depending on the size of the pump.
I had a GT after high school in 86′. The 390 was a good strong motor but made it’s power lower in the RPM range. It was no screamer and was probably perfect for the T bird. Big block offerings from GM were higher reving that’s for sure. I don’t know about Mopars of the era not a lot of guys I knew had them. The 390 did get worse gas mileage compared to the GMs too. It was no slouch and would blow away most small block cars. I liked the body style. The car looked less bloated and lazy with its short front overhang and clean lines compared to the GTO and most Mopars. It was a good driver and a true mid-sized car. Easy to park with good visibility with its high bubble roof which many hated.
Very clear memory from my teens, these things were an absolute joke to anyone running GM or Mopar, at least if you were talking at least 383 or 396. They had absolutely no street credibility whatsoever in my area back then, so were rarely seen. Anyone wanting Ford back in 66/67 went Mustang with the biggest engine possible.
Nice looking car. Imagine a “390” made the front end quite clumsy/heavy.
Yeah, I’ve driven a couple of Fords from that era with 390s and they were pretty much a yawn. Maybe not slow, but certainly not fast. Not even up to Chevy 327s, let alone 396s, or Poncho 389s or Mopar 383s, and I’m much closer to being a Ford fan than a Chevy or GM fan.
What was even worse IMO was the 360 they put in light trucks. The 390 was a borderline dog, but to then shorten the stroke and put it in a truck? More weight, less torque, my gawd, what were they thinking?
I had a 1966 Fairlane Gt fastback 3speed manual trans. Very rare for that time . purchased used from Tasca Ford, upon pick.up this vehicle had items stolen including wheels and tires.Tasca set me up with a Duel point distributor,wires,,and a full tune up! The car came with cast iron headers, I swapped to 650 Holley double pumper,walker glass packs ,and 11 3/4 ” rear tires! I had many great street races with this car! Lost to a illegal roadrunner , and to a new 1969 Mach.1 4 speed 390! Ate GTO, Chevelles , Corvettes, other vehicles for breakfast! Best times of My Life!!
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