That's true....most Americans were not going to pay extra for "safe" cars....Ford only charged a few dollars more for the padded dash, visors and for seat belts (yeah, you had to BUY them) but few Americans ponied up. Some historians blame Ford's safety campaign on their loss of sales in 1956. Hard to say. I rather doubt it.
It's always been fascinating to me that eventually, in the early 1970s, the NHTSA pretty much exonerated the Corvair as no more dangerous than comparable compacts, but on the other hand, in their memoirs, both John DeLorean and lee Iacocca thought Nader was right.
I do think the Corvair had handling problems, but not that it was inevitable that the car would harm you any more than any other compact of that day running around on spongy suspensions, weak headlights, bias-ply tires, and drum brakes.
I always remember GM touting their "side guard door beams", which looked like a guard rail inside the doors. They always said they had it and the others didn't.
Wasn't that just something that was going to be federally mandated anyway, so GM just decided to rush it out a year earlier? Wasn't it 1969 that everybody was required to have them, in cars at least?
A couple years ago, I pulled the door apart on my '85 Silverado in an attempt to get to the power window motor, which had failed. While I was in there, I noticed that the side door guard beam was conspicuously absent! :surprise:
I do think the Corvair had handling problems, but not that it was inevitable that the car would harm you any more than any other compact of that day running around on spongy suspensions, weak headlights, bias-ply tires, and drum brakes.
When it comes to automotive handling scandals in the making, I've heard that the 1961-63 Tempest actually made the Corvair look tame in comparison, but somehow Nader managed to overlook that little gem.
1964 saw an improvement in the car's swing axle rear suspension; a transverse leaf spring was added in an effort to diminish rear roll stiffness and foster more neutral handling attributes in addition to supporting a high proportion of the engine weight.
Interestingly, that first-year "326" actually had a displacement of 336 CID. I read somewhere that marketing was forced to advertise it as a 326 because they didn't want to let on that it was bigger than the Corvette's 327. For 1964 onward, it was adjusted so that it really WAS a 326.
That wasn't the first time Pontiac marketing juggled with their math. The Pontiac 350 actually displaces something like 353 cubic inches.
I would love to own a maroon '62 Tempest LeMans coupe--not a '63. I'd like one with the aluminum V8 though, and those are impossible to find in a Tempest (although was listed as an option). I like the subtle differences in the Tempest over the Buick that year.
About "playing loose with the numbers"--I seem to remember reading that the engine Chevy put in Chevelle SS396 models come '70 and '71 were actually 402's.
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About "playing loose with the numbers"--I seem to remember reading that the engine Chevy put in Chevelle SS396 models come '70 and '71 were actually 402's.
Yeah, I forget what the deal was with that. In the Chevelle they'd label the 402 as a 396, but in the big cars they called it a 400, which only added confusion because there was also the 400 smallblock. I think the smallblock was called "Turbo Fire" and the 402 was called "Turbo Jet"?
For some reason, it seems like just about every first-gen Tempest I ever see is a turquoise color with matching interior...kinda like this: Nice color though, so I don't mind!
I always liked the looks of those early Tempests - but not enough to actually buy one!
At least the displacement numbers are somewhere in the ballpark. HP numbers are mostly creative writing. And its worse for boats than cars. Ever wonder why there exists an outboard motor of 9.9 hp? Well, its because so many lakes had "under 10 hp" limits on them. So the manufacturers just put a very slightly smaller carb on their 15 and called it a 9.9 - so people could legally use them!
It was 1969 but I believe many of the safety requirements including side guard beams only applied to passenger cars and not pick ups. I may be wrong about this, but I think in '69 GM introduced the side guard beams guard beams only on their full size cars. Intermediate, compacts, like Cutlass, Nova were not included at that point. I was 10 at the time and dad bought a 69 Olds 98 Luxury Sedan. I remember him telling mom about the newest safety features her new car had.
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I don't know that much about VWs or the type 3 squarebacks in particular but sounds like you had a good experience with yours. All I know is the old man across the road loved his and drove it nearly every day. I didn't care for VWs but we both admired the GM Opel.
In the immediate post-Opec-America, I even thought Japanese imports would be blown out by any and every sturdy, reliable, "correct" German small car shipped over here. Oh, well...
That VW squareback in my other post may be a 71 to 73-ish US market variant. I chose that one because it was the same color as the old man's car. I've never seen a 4-door variant myself.
Here's a link to a well-kept '71 squareback posted a couple years ago by a Portland blogger. And here's a very similar looking '73 with front bumper guards.
I also found a link to an advert for a '69 squareback which is hilarious: The big one is on the left! :P
A time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing.
Neat links on the vw squarebacks. As soon as I posted that mine was 4d, I started to remember that it was a 2 door just like the 71 in your link - except the turn signals in 69 were small and round and not those wrap-around types.
The "type III" squareback and fastback had about a $300-400 premium over a Beetle back then.
Yes, I remember driving the cheaply made Japanese imports at the time and not being real impressed. I even drove one of the very first Honda Civics to arrive in the states and still preferred VWs. I was 18 and looking for something more practical than my 67 Mustang GT. My dad (and all the rest of my veteran relatives) was very anti-import, and laughed at the "foreign junk" I test drove (including a Simca new for $1595 sold at Chrysler dealers). But when I invited him to drive the VW, his surprising response was "If you don't buy this car, I might buy it myself". That was a strong endorsement from the old man and he was right about that car. He never could bring himself to buy a VW, but he'd often borrow mine when I stopped by because he "had to get some cigarettes and I was blocking his car..."
If VW ever returns to its roots and builds something simple, I'd go back and buy one again.
My son and I actually restored a 64 Corvair when he was in high school. One morning, while he and a friend were on their way to school in it, the car rolled on him. It happened at about 30 MPH, and, on a straight stretch of road. A local police officer happened to see the accident, and, told me what happened. Something happened to the car's rear suspension, the rear wheels actually steered the rear of the car sideways up a small enbankment, and rolled the car on its roof. After we got the wreck flatbeded to our garage, we discovered what happened to it. The rear engine mount had failed, the engine swung to one side, and, took the rear suspension with it. We pulled the drivetrain out of it so we could sell it, and, junked the car. Had this happened at interstate speeds.....he and his buddy wouldn't have walked away.
You're correct about the little Olds using the 215. My grandfather had one - an F-85 with the 4 bbl high compression 215. I requently got to drive it not long after I first got my license in 1962. I think his was a 1963 model. Its performance was impressive, but, with the floppy suspension, the car was a handful on the interstate - especially if there was much wind.
The GTO started the muscle car era but by 1970 it had become the butt of jokes-get tools out, etc. Mopar was unstoppable by then. Any Coronet R/T might have a mild 383 or a wild 440 magnum or even the 6 pack. Hemi cars were rare but they were out there.
So what could the Pontiac division offer any GTO fans who were still interested? Apparently it was called the VOE option, vacuum operated exhaust. It was a muffler bypass/cut out which increased the output of product liability lawyers at GM. It was also the inspiration for this Super Bowl TV commercial. "The Humbler" was a good looking '70 GTO driven by a complete loser who avoids eye contact with the women at the drive-in and then leaves alone. The background music really should be overdubbed with Beck.
Unfortunately this was only the beginning of more humbling developments for the GTO in the 70s. The commercial ends with a sadly prophetic taunt, "This is the way it's going to be baby."
A time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing.
The 215 V8 is in the Tempest brochure up through '62, but I read on some "expert" website once that only 1-2% of production ever got them. I saw one '61 4-door Tempest on eBay a couple years ago that had one...and that's all I've ever seen.
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You look at people that way today in a parking lot you're gonna get shot most likely. :surprise:
VW SQUAREBACK --- always liked that car---useful, economical, well-built. I wouldn't mind having one today for a grocery-getter. About the only drawback is that you had to have some rudimentary knowledge of the electronic fuel injection system and how to rectify a few faults (like bad grounds, pitted triggering points, dirty throttle module, etc).
I remember how John Muir, in his famous "How To Keep Your Volkswagen Alive" DIY manual (especially if you were a completely stoned-out hippie), denigrated VW fuel injection when it first came out----this created something of a backlash against him, and cast him as a bit of a Luddite, and he later recanted in later editions of his best-selling book.
The VW Squareback is a noteworthy milestone car in my book---ushering in electronic fuel injection for the masses, long before anyone in Detroit had the motivation to install such a system. GM had tried fuel injection earlier, but it was a mish-mash of 40s and 50s electro-mechanical tech and wasn't very good. Nice try, though. Benz of course startled the world with mechanical fuel injection as early as 1954 on the Gullwing---and it worked very well, too. (tended to run a bit rich at low speeds so you had to rev those Gullwings up---not that that was something the enthusiast didn't do anyhow....).
The Germans developed fuel injection for their fighter aircraft in WW II, to overcome the tendency of carburetor engines to stall during sharp maneuvers. I'm sure many a Spitfire went down because of this.
Who SEZ anymore "there is no substitute for cubic inches"?
The computer and the turbo have possibly put an end to that.
I came within *THIS* much of buying a used EVO instead of my MINI Cooper S, but I just could NOT bear the thought of that....that....WINGIE THING on the trunk, and removing it required a considerable investment in plugging holes, repainting, etc.
Also, an EVO is one pretty darn expensive Japanese 4-door sub-compact.
I think wings and spoilers should be delete items, as in no charge for them, on models where the manufacturer thinks they improve the styling, image, aerodynamics, or whatever, and no charge to delete them.
I once (co)-drove a VW squareback with 3 other college students from NY to Calif. around 1970 or '71, in 51 hours. So we didn't stop, except for spinning out on I-70 in Ohio, b/c a slight rain drizzle had frozen on the road.
Naturally I don't know now which variant it was--I'm almost certain it had 4 doors tho. Very useful car, held 4 people & their Stuff, got exc. mileage. My own late '60's Mopar American car was always breaking down, & got 10 mpg.
Sometime later I test-drove a new Fiat 124 sedan. Very nice car, I seem to remember it was around $2K new......I wanted it.
I know little about the 411, other than it was intended for Beetle and Type 3 owners, and VW admirers, who wanted to upgrade. Since it followed VW's time-tested, air-cooled, rear-engine architecture, what made it wretched?
The whole concept of the 411/412 was screwy I think. Antiquated from birth. Did America really want an upscale, rear-engined, air-cooled, 4 cylinder, 4-door sedan with an automatic in the 1970s? The 411/412 might have been more successful in 1965.
And then VW put out the Dasher, which made the 411/412 even more irrelevant.
This was no simple VW bug when it came to doing your own mechanics, either. That "pancake" 1.8L engine (same as the so-called "Porsche" 914) was a bear to remove and very tricky to rebuild, and expensive, too.
Every 411 or 412s engine failure totaled the car pretty much, and still does.
Having said all that, there were people who loved them and got a lot of use out of them---but it was more of a cult than a market.
Interesting. Didn't know those details about the 411, and had forgotten the 412. Haven't seen either one on the road, or even at a show, in ages.
From what I know the Dasher was unreliable. Good design, modern for its time, but lousy execution. Of course, this was the '70s, so poor reliability was common.
For those who liked the design of the Dasher, but were disappointed with the ownership experience, GM's soon-to-be-introduced X-cars offered hope. Well, no use rehashing the history of that disaster.
I thought at the time that the 411 was the start of VW's departure from good simple design and execution. I knew of a couple in grad school that were hand-me-downs from parents who must have given up on them. They looked practical but seemed to be broken down often in the parking lot and I would give my fellow students rides in my trusty 3-on-the-tree 65 Ford pickup and later, even more trusty 68 Dart (also 3 on-the-tree). They never had kind words for their 411's and complained about the cost of repairs.
I never drove a 411, but did test-drive a dreadful VW Fox wagon once, another 2 door wagon of the late 80's. I have no idea how anyone could have chosen a Fox over a Golf at the time.
I don't see why they wouldn't work on a 912---that's just a Porsche 616 engine as used in the earlier Porsche 356--same-o, same-o. What's their problem?
Some people will install souped-up 914 engines into their 912, which is what Porsche did when they built the 912E---maybe THAT'S the 912 that the shop won't work on? I could understand that. The 912E is a very funny duck--although it is gaining in value but not so much in respect.
In a way putting a 914 engine into a 912 makes sense, since you can get 150 reliable HP out of one, which would be extremely difficult in a 356/ 616 engine.
Bought a 2006 VW Jetta TDI with all the options thinking is was the car that would last for years....well, the top end of the engine has proven itself to be pure junk, the DSG transmission should have been called the Problomatic.
New ones (2009 to 10's) have had repair bills that ring in at $10,000 for complete new fuel supply systems when the High Pressure Fuel Pumps grind themselves into metal filings. :sick:
"when the High Pressure Fuel Pumps grind themselves into metal filings"
That's a worry I have with lots of the new cars - the direct injection systems requiring high pressure pumps. I think BMWs have a fair amount of problem with the pumps (and hasn't Porsche had some problems with the injectors?), and it seems that other makes are jumping on the DI bandwagon. So these cars might lose some respect over time, as the 'neat' new technology proves to be problematic.
"Elmer" was even quicker to ruin them! My Dad had a black 1962 VW Bug back in the day. He took his car to the corner repair shop where they didn't have metric tools, so they ground down the nuts and bolts so the SAE tools would fit! :surprise:
Bobby Strange Mcnamara loved it. Lido hated it. Jack picked Mac for his cabinet and the Falcon sprinted to win hearts and minds by '63. Another year later and bad boy Iacocca was on the covers of both Time and Newsweek unveiling the Mustang.
A time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing.
In my personal experience, the 60 Falcon was perhaps the cheesiest car I ever sat in, discounting vehicles from Communist Europe, kit cars you could order from a magazine, and cars and trucks used by the Postal Service. It *reeked* of cheap, it exuded humility, and it reminded one of the last remaining dog at the pound that didn't get picked for one reason or another. By 1963/64....better....
I don't know if I would call a 1960 Falcon a "sad" car. Ford sold over 400,000 of them in one year - easily whipping Corvair and Valiant in the sales race. If I recall correctly, the Falcon outsold both of them combined.
Add to that total another 116,000 Comets sold during the 1960 model year - even more impressive considering that the Comet didn't debut until March 1960 - and I'd say that lots of Ford and Lincoln Mercury dealers were anything but sad when contemplating the Falcon and Comet. If anything, they appreciated the business in what was not a great sales year - especially the Lincoln Mercury dealers, who were stuck selling the awful 1960 Lincoln and Continental.
The original version was underpowered, but it was still a better car for 95 percent of Americans seeking a smaller car in 1960 than any import. It was also a better car for them than the Corvair, the Ramblers or the Studebaker Lark (it's real competition at that time). The Valiant had a better drivetrain and suspension, but its build quality was bad (major leaks were a problem) and the Virgil Exner styling was just too "out there" for most Americans, even in 1960.
Ford introduced a larger engine for 1961, and then dropped its excellent thinwall V-8 in the Sprint versions for 1963 (which came in attractive hardtop and convertible body styles). It also introduced the better-trimmed Futura versions for 1961. At a local car show this past year, someone showed an all-original 1962 Falcon four-door sedan owned by his grandmother, and it struck me as an honest, cleanly styled car for someone who needed an economical, reasonably roomy car that was easy to drive and park.
It's interesting to read the old Popular Mechanics Owners Reports on various 1960s cars. The 1960s Falcons actually did a very good job of satisfying customers - many of whom were repeat customers. In the end, that is what concerned Ford the most.
Comments
It's always been fascinating to me that eventually, in the early 1970s, the NHTSA pretty much exonerated the Corvair as no more dangerous than comparable compacts, but on the other hand, in their memoirs, both John DeLorean and lee Iacocca thought Nader was right.
I do think the Corvair had handling problems, but not that it was inevitable that the car would harm you any more than any other compact of that day running around on spongy suspensions, weak headlights, bias-ply tires, and drum brakes.
Wasn't that just something that was going to be federally mandated anyway, so GM just decided to rush it out a year earlier? Wasn't it 1969 that everybody was required to have them, in cars at least?
A couple years ago, I pulled the door apart on my '85 Silverado in an attempt to get to the power window motor, which had failed. While I was in there, I noticed that the side door guard beam was conspicuously absent! :surprise:
When it comes to automotive handling scandals in the making, I've heard that the 1961-63 Tempest actually made the Corvair look tame in comparison, but somehow Nader managed to overlook that little gem.
Again, I think it was the spectacular, if infrequent, Corvair roll-overs that drew the attention. IIRC, GM even flipped one at their test track.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet_Corvair
A four cylinder that was basically a V-8 cut in half with the transmission in the rear.
Some 326's made their way into some of those.
They were called "rope drive" because of the long, skinny driveshafts they used.
Those driveshafts made the very best prybars known to man!
Then Pontiac came out with the Overhead Valve six that wasn't much good.
How weird. America could go to the moon but couldn't make a decent OHC engine for another couple decades.
That wasn't the first time Pontiac marketing juggled with their math. The Pontiac 350 actually displaces something like 353 cubic inches.
About "playing loose with the numbers"--I seem to remember reading that the engine Chevy put in Chevelle SS396 models come '70 and '71 were actually 402's.
Yeah, I forget what the deal was with that. In the Chevelle they'd label the 402 as a 396, but in the big cars they called it a 400, which only added confusion because there was also the 400 smallblock. I think the smallblock was called "Turbo Fire" and the 402 was called "Turbo Jet"?
For some reason, it seems like just about every first-gen Tempest I ever see is a turquoise color with matching interior...kinda like this:
At least the displacement numbers are somewhere in the ballpark. HP numbers are mostly creative writing. And its worse for boats than cars. Ever wonder why there exists an outboard motor of 9.9 hp? Well, its because so many lakes had "under 10 hp" limits on them. So the manufacturers just put a very slightly smaller carb on their 15 and called it a 9.9 - so people could legally use them!
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In the immediate post-Opec-America, I even thought Japanese imports would be blown out by any and every sturdy, reliable, "correct" German small car shipped over here. Oh, well...
That VW squareback in my other post may be a 71 to 73-ish US market variant. I chose that one because it was the same color as the old man's car. I've never seen a 4-door variant myself.
Here's a link to a well-kept '71 squareback posted a couple years ago by a Portland blogger. And here's a very similar looking '73 with front bumper guards.
I also found a link to an advert for a '69 squareback which is hilarious: The big one is on the left! :P
The "type III" squareback and fastback had about a $300-400 premium over a Beetle back then.
Yes, I remember driving the cheaply made Japanese imports at the time and not being real impressed. I even drove one of the very first Honda Civics to arrive in the states and still preferred VWs. I was 18 and looking for something more practical than my 67 Mustang GT. My dad (and all the rest of my veteran relatives) was very anti-import, and laughed at the "foreign junk" I test drove (including a Simca new for $1595 sold at Chrysler dealers). But when I invited him to drive the VW, his surprising response was "If you don't buy this car, I might buy it myself". That was a strong endorsement from the old man and he was right about that car. He never could bring himself to buy a VW, but he'd often borrow mine when I stopped by because he "had to get some cigarettes and I was blocking his car..."
If VW ever returns to its roots and builds something simple, I'd go back and buy one again.
Regards:
Oldengineer
Regards:
Oldengineer
So what could the Pontiac division offer any GTO fans who were still interested? Apparently it was called the VOE option, vacuum operated exhaust. It was a muffler bypass/cut out which increased the output of product liability lawyers at GM. It was also the inspiration for this Super Bowl TV commercial. "The Humbler" was a good looking '70 GTO driven by a complete loser who avoids eye contact with the women at the drive-in and then leaves alone. The background music really should be overdubbed with Beck.
Unfortunately this was only the beginning of more humbling developments for the GTO in the 70s. The commercial ends with a sadly prophetic taunt, "This is the way it's going to be baby."
VW SQUAREBACK --- always liked that car---useful, economical, well-built. I wouldn't mind having one today for a grocery-getter. About the only drawback is that you had to have some rudimentary knowledge of the electronic fuel injection system and how to rectify a few faults (like bad grounds, pitted triggering points, dirty throttle module, etc).
I remember how John Muir, in his famous "How To Keep Your Volkswagen Alive" DIY manual (especially if you were a completely stoned-out hippie), denigrated VW fuel injection when it first came out----this created something of a backlash against him, and cast him as a bit of a Luddite, and he later recanted in later editions of his best-selling book.
The VW Squareback is a noteworthy milestone car in my book---ushering in electronic fuel injection for the masses, long before anyone in Detroit had the motivation to install such a system. GM had tried fuel injection earlier, but it was a mish-mash of 40s and 50s electro-mechanical tech and wasn't very good. Nice try, though. Benz of course startled the world with mechanical fuel injection as early as 1954 on the Gullwing---and it worked very well, too. (tended to run a bit rich at low speeds so you had to rev those Gullwings up---not that that was something the enthusiast didn't do anyhow....).
The Germans developed fuel injection for their fighter aircraft in WW II, to overcome the tendency of carburetor engines to stall during sharp maneuvers. I'm sure many a Spitfire went down because of this.
http://www.topgear.com/uk/videos/evo-v-lambo-p1
Who SEZ anymore "there is no substitute for cubic inches"?
The computer and the turbo have possibly put an end to that.
I came within *THIS* much of buying a used EVO instead of my MINI Cooper S, but I just could NOT bear the thought of that....that....WINGIE THING on the trunk, and removing it required a considerable investment in plugging holes, repainting, etc.
Also, an EVO is one pretty darn expensive Japanese 4-door sub-compact.
Naturally I don't know now which variant it was--I'm almost certain it had 4 doors tho. Very useful car, held 4 people & their Stuff, got exc. mileage. My own late '60's Mopar American car was always breaking down, & got 10 mpg.
Sometime later I test-drove a new Fiat 124 sedan. Very nice car, I seem to remember it was around $2K new......I wanted it.
As the 411 flopped (in the U.S., at least), it belongs in the category of cars that disappointed.
2. handled like a hippo on ice skates
3. troublesome
And then VW put out the Dasher, which made the 411/412 even more irrelevant.
This was no simple VW bug when it came to doing your own mechanics, either. That "pancake" 1.8L engine (same as the so-called "Porsche" 914) was a bear to remove and very tricky to rebuild, and expensive, too.
Every 411 or 412s engine failure totaled the car pretty much, and still does.
Having said all that, there were people who loved them and got a lot of use out of them---but it was more of a cult than a market.
From what I know the Dasher was unreliable. Good design, modern for its time, but lousy execution. Of course, this was the '70s, so poor reliability was common.
For those who liked the design of the Dasher, but were disappointed with the ownership experience, GM's soon-to-be-introduced X-cars offered hope. Well, no use rehashing the history of that disaster.
I can't remember the last time I've seen one?
I knew a guy who had one and he used to tell everyone that it had a Porsche engine in it.
Actually, the 914's had a Volkswagen engine and not a very good one.
I know a lot of the snobby Porsche shops wouldn't work on a 914 or even a 912 for that matter and the VW guys just hated the 411/412's.
I never drove a 411, but did test-drive a dreadful VW Fox wagon once, another 2 door wagon of the late 80's. I have no idea how anyone could have chosen a Fox over a Golf at the time.
Price. The Golf was more expensive than the Fox.
Some people will install souped-up 914 engines into their 912, which is what Porsche did when they built the 912E---maybe THAT'S the 912 that the shop won't work on? I could understand that. The 912E is a very funny duck--although it is gaining in value but not so much in respect.
In a way putting a 914 engine into a 912 makes sense, since you can get 150 reliable HP out of one, which would be extremely difficult in a 356/ 616 engine.
New ones (2009 to 10's) have had repair bills that ring in at $10,000 for complete new fuel supply systems when the High Pressure Fuel Pumps grind themselves into metal filings. :sick:
That's a worry I have with lots of the new cars - the direct injection systems requiring high pressure pumps. I think BMWs have a fair amount of problem with the pumps (and hasn't Porsche had some problems with the injectors?), and it seems that other makes are jumping on the DI bandwagon. So these cars might lose some respect over time, as the 'neat' new technology proves to be problematic.
You would think they would want to since they aren't that hard to work on.
I think working on a lowly 912 was beneath them.
I've seen 912 E's but I had no idea they had the 914 engines in them.
I remember guys trying to work on 914,s through that small floppy door access panel. I remember thinking that door should be removable.
Maybe they just don't work on old Porsches, period.
Some Porsche shops won't work on 928s for instance, which are tough hombres to master.
A lot of shops just won't work on old cars period.
They fear having a bay tied up while they wait for hard to find parts and a lot of their Vo-Tech mechanics have no idea what they are even looking at.
I think our shop had, maybe two guys who could still do a carburator.
http://sfbay.craigslist.org/nby/cto/2059186793.html
Oh, I can just put a bug engine in it!! Gee....
Nah. Try $2000 for a long block without intake, carbs, accessories, clutch, any labor costs....
Someone should tell him.." OK, I'll buy it for 4000.00 after you have installed a Bug engine in it!"
Add to that total another 116,000 Comets sold during the 1960 model year - even more impressive considering that the Comet didn't debut until March 1960 - and I'd say that lots of Ford and Lincoln Mercury dealers were anything but sad when contemplating the Falcon and Comet. If anything, they appreciated the business in what was not a great sales year - especially the Lincoln Mercury dealers, who were stuck selling the awful 1960 Lincoln and Continental.
The original version was underpowered, but it was still a better car for 95 percent of Americans seeking a smaller car in 1960 than any import. It was also a better car for them than the Corvair, the Ramblers or the Studebaker Lark (it's real competition at that time). The Valiant had a better drivetrain and suspension, but its build quality was bad (major leaks were a problem) and the Virgil Exner styling was just too "out there" for most Americans, even in 1960.
Ford introduced a larger engine for 1961, and then dropped its excellent thinwall V-8 in the Sprint versions for 1963 (which came in attractive hardtop and convertible body styles). It also introduced the better-trimmed Futura versions for 1961. At a local car show this past year, someone showed an all-original 1962 Falcon four-door sedan owned by his grandmother, and it struck me as an honest, cleanly styled car for someone who needed an economical, reasonably roomy car that was easy to drive and park.
It's interesting to read the old Popular Mechanics Owners Reports on various 1960s cars. The 1960s Falcons actually did a very good job of satisfying customers - many of whom were repeat customers. In the end, that is what concerned Ford the most.