But that's just the "argument by aggregation".....which is to say that if X number of people do it, it must be good. Of course, history tells us time and time again that people have at times exercised very poor judgment.
One would have to actually drive a '60 Falcon to appreciate what a totally disappointing and incompetent car it is--gutless, cheap, rough idling, hard shifting and...did I say cheap? A man having a bad day could easily total it using nothing more than his bare hands and feet. It would be harder to mug a Valiant.
We hear of the "legendary" Slant Six, we hear of the "radical" Corvair, we hear of the "economical" Lark, we here of the Rambler "America's first compact car", and we hear nothing much about the '60 Falcon. There may be a reason for this.
I do admire you for attempting to defend the car---I wouldn't take on such a task myself.
There's simply no excuse for building a car that does *nothing* well.
do admire you for attempting to defend the car---I wouldn't take on such a task myself.
There's simply no excuse for building a car that does *nothing* well.
Well, it was cheap and reliable, so it had that going for it. I don't have my old car book handy right now, so I can't look up any pricing specs. I'd imagine a Falcon was priced lower than a Valiant or Corvair, though? And I'd imagine a Falcon would be more economical than a Valiant or Corvair, although you'd pay for that economy with the reduced performance.
The main thing that scares me about those original Falcons, and all Falcons, I guess, is that "drop in" gas tank that was like two inches from the fragile-looking rear bumper. Supposedly these things weren't much better than the Pinto when it came to fuel tank leaks. I've always wondered why the safety groups never swarmed down on Ford for the Falcon, like Nader did with the Corvair, or like Mother Jones and everybody did with the Pinto in the 1970's? I guess it was more fashionable in the 1960's to get doused in gasoline and potentially set ablaze?
I've heard it described as the "best selling" compact car, and most successful new car introduction ever (until the first Mustang debuted).
Considering that all three Big Three compacts were brand-new in 1960, and that people buying compacts were more likely to shop around instead of simply buying what they had always bought, the fact that it was far-and-away the best seller among compacts counts for something. Plus, we have to compare it to its competition in 1960, and, by those standards, I'm not seeing how they are better than a Falcon.
This is not a great argument, the one from aggregation. As many people can make mistakes in judgment in large numbers as in small numbers. Remember, there was no foreign competition in 1960 to speak of, and there was, prior to 1960, very little choice in compacts. So Ford people bought Fords, Chevy people bought Chevys, etc etc.
So let's line 'em up in 1960 and see what we got, okay?
Handling -- Game VALIANT. No contest here, clear winner
Braking -- Game Corvair. No contest here, Test drivers could get out a light a cigarette before the other cars stopped
Styling -- this is tough---by default, I'd say TIE GAME Falcon and Corvair.
Performance -- Tie Game Valiant and Corvair
Economy -- Tie Game Rambler and Lark
Reliability -- GAME Valiant. We all pretty much agree on this, do we not?
Technical Innovation-- TIE GAME Corvair/Valiant. The others are prehistoric.
Sales -- GAME Falcon.
Conclusion? You can build a very mediocre car and make money at it. Does white bread outsell organic whole wheat? Yes. does it taste better? No.
Really, there's not much difference technically between a 1960 Falcon and a 1936 Buick.
The Mustang took the Falcon bones and really improved almost everything about it.
Technical Innovation-- TIE GAME Corvair/Valiant. The others are prehistoric.
I'm just curious...why did you put the Corvair and Valiant at a tie on this one? I'd think the Corvair, with the rear-mounted, air-cooled, flat-six engine, and the independent rear suspension would edge out on the Valiant, which was more conventional with its torsion bar front, leaf spring rear. And the slant six might have been more modern than Ford's old big-car six, the Mopar flathead that pre-dated it, and even Chevy's Stovebolt (the slant was easily 200+ lb lighter). But, would it be more innovative than the Corvair engine? Now I'd say it was much longer lasting, as Mopar used it up through something like 1987, so it stood the test of time. And they did offer that hyper-pack on the 170 that boosted hp from 101 hp to 148. It was also offered on the 225, where it boosted the power from 145 to 197, but I don't think it was very popular.
One area where the Valiant definitely won out was in being an early adopter of the three-speed automatic. IIRC, the Torqueflite was the only automatic offered in the Valiant. Oddly, I think they were still offering Powerflites in the full-sized Plymouths and Dodges, although the Torqueflite accounted for most of the automatic sales. In contrast, I think Ford was still pushing 2-speed automatics well into the 1960's, and Chevy was still offering them in the early 1970's!
I got this from Wikipedia, so take it with a grain of salt...but according to the listing there, the 1960 Valiant used enough aluminum in various non-structural components that they saved an estimated 102 lb compared to conventional materials. The grille only weighed about 3 lb...if it had been made out of the more common die-cast zinc, it would have been around 13. So I guess there's some innovation there.
I agree with Shifty's ranking order. The Corvair's rear-mounted, air-cooled pancake 6 was uncommon and new for GM, but I don't think it was an entirely new concept. Countering that, as you pointed out, was Valiant's excellent Torqueflyte vs. the Corvair's marginal 2-speed Powerglide. The Valiant's torsion bar suspension design, while not new, yielded better results than the first generation Corvair's IRS.
My conclusion is that all the domestic compacts had some notable attributes. As for deficiencies, well, each had some of those too, but at least there was some fresh thinking and innovation. This hardly represented Detroit's, Kenosha's and South Bend's darkest hour.
I got this from Wikipedia, so take it with a grain of salt...
I really like Wiki although one may find some dubious entries like this: Ima Hogg (July 10, 1882 – August 19, 1975) "Although it was rumored that (Ima) Hogg had a sister named 'Ura Hogg,' she had only brothers."
And being from Klumbus, the Wiki entry for Johnny Marzetti is a hoot - especially the Panama Canal Zone reference which consumes half the article!
Re: "argument by aggregation" I don't think the booming Falcon sales figures and customer satisfaction reports constitute an aggregation of unrelated factoids or unorganized data. But let me clarify: 1960 compact car buyers yielded a consensus which is fair game for re-examination in hind sight. Consumer choices by the mass public are irresistible fodder and open for interpretation.
Japan Inc propagated a Falcon-like milquetoast product mix in the 80s which gobbled up market share and created brand loyalty as intended. Certainly the 80s technology was eons ahead of the 60s, but the philosophy seemed very much the same. Build cheap and cheerful appealing widgets and the public will feast on white bread and orange whip! GM should have such a bad management history to live down!
Some of those 80s widgets sold very well but left little to remember them by. Does anybody miss the Paseo or Starlet? Or the Stanza? Maybe the same folks with parents/grandparents who miss the Falcon and Valiant for very similar reasons.
Didn't Versa get heavily promoted last year as a cheap, crank window, non-A/C, $9990 base car? It probably stole more used car sales than new! :shades:
A time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing.
Basically, aside from the Corvair, these compacts were just big cars shrunk down--not small cars created from the ground up.
I put the Corvair/Valiant even up because I wasn't sure how to weight the various positive innovations on each car. Is for instance, use of lightweight materials as important as Corvair's 4-on-the-floor and bucket seats? (the Spyder started a big trend in American cars, you must admit).
On the other hand, an air-cooled engine on an American car is as old as a Franklin, and the rear-engine as old as a VW---but again, I can't offhand think of any other air cooled, rear engine American car in regular production, prior to the Corvair. The Tucker was a helicopter engine converted to water-cooling.
Most importantly (as a former Houston resident) that wiki entry on Ima Hogg is correct...that corny 'Ura Hogg' joke constantly made the rounds.
I put the 'Falcon-like' era for Japan, Inc. earlier than the 80s. I look at the first gen compacts, the first Corolla and B210, as the Falcon heirs, with cheap, small interiors and rust problems compensated for by reliable running gear and low price. By the 80s they were seriously good transportation devices.
I'm not sure early Falcons were particularly reliable, especially with that anemic 144 cid engine that they kept in it for 2 years. Once they got the 200 cid in there in 1964, they had a much better economy car.
True - especially when you say the Mustang improved on the Falcon. I had a 170 cid Mustang, it was a rusty mess of a car by '72, and it was better than a Falcon? Uh-oh....
Well you got the bigger 6 in the Mustang initially, and a nicer interior, and a V8 for not much more than the base 6, as an option. And of course it was 10X better looking.
You have to keep in mind that these 60s compacts were slammed together by men and women in a rush to get home from the monotonous torment of "the line". This was not the precision robotic assembly that we have today.
That's true but the 144's and 170's weren't "bad" engines.
When they did fail, they were as I recall about the cheapest to replace. I remember a 170 rebuilt short block was only a few hundred dollars in the mid-seventies and a breeze to replace.
Cheaper and easier than a VW Bug if I recall correctly.
And, you're right. The 200's were a much nicer engine.
From the pic and bio Ima Hogg must have been a lovely person. Unfortunate that the "sister" joke kept cropping up in the article repeatedly, although I did laugh at the ostrich and slingshot story. Brothers will be brothers after all - even though "nobody else better pick on my sister!"
Re: Falcon-like milquetoast product mix in the 80s That was a reference to the bland, appliance-like character of the imports during that era. Note that my very next sentence included praise that, "the 80s technology was eons ahead of the 60s..."
Until then I had never seen any previous crop of imports which could rival the reliability, parts, or warranty service available with Big 3 domestic products. My sister and a friend of mine each had new Mazda rotary cars in the 70s. My brother's Opel was saved only by Buick dealer parts/service. (For a while.)
A time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing.
And if you want to get nitpicky, the Falcon was unitized. Okay, so were the Corvair and the Valiant, so nothing new there. But, I imagine there weren't too many untized domestic cars running around in 1935! I'm sure the Falcon was more squeak and rattle-free than those older body-on-frame cars.
Nah, it's still there. In fact, I ran a check over to the mechanic yesterday. It's still up on the lift, stripped of just about everything underneath that wasn't welded down.
It's next to two other orphans, a 1959 or so Rambler American 2-door sedan, and a 1958 Edsel Corsair 4-door hardtop. Both of those look like they're going through frame-off restorations. Well, okay, so you can't exactly get "frame off" with a unitized Rambler, but it has just about everything removed from its body that could be taken off. Both of those cars must be true labors of love, and I'm sure either their owners are rich, or bankrupt. Or, formerly rich and slowly going bankrupt.
I just hope these restorers and these clients are in close touch and keeping tabs on costs. I have seen so many ugly scenes about this sort of thing.
I can understand spending way more on a car than it's worth under some circumstances. Like the couple who wanted to restore their honeymoon car, etc. True, a $40,000 1959 Rambler is borderline insanity, but if there's some emotional tug, what the hell, life is short, so celebrate it in your own way.
Just don't annoy me and tell me your 1959 Rambler is now worth $40,000. :P
I just hope these restorers and these clients are in close touch and keeping tabs on costs. I have seen so many ugly scenes about this sort of thing.
Well, at one point I heard that the guy with the '59 Edsel would have around $130,000 in it once it's done, but then my mechanic backpedaled and simply said "not quite that much". So, I don't know what, exactly, the truth is. He's had that Edsel around the shop for as long as I've known him though, about 3 years now.
As for the Rambler, well the interior's gutted, engine/tranny are out, and literally, everything that could be pulled off has been pulled off. It's just a shell sitting up on that lift. I saw the car a few months ago when it was mostly complete. Supposedly it came from California, and had a good body, but a bad engine. There was very little rust...just one area below the trunk opening, and oddly, another spot on the roof! And it had a few slight dents here and there. The car was originally an attractive metallic green color, but had been painted red. It's going back to its original color. I have no idea how much money this guy is going to sink into the car, but I'm sure it won't be cheap!
As for me, I'm sure I have more in the DeSoto than it's worth. But, I've also had the car for 20 years now, and plan on keeping it forever. So, while I'm not gonna say "money is no object", I'm also not TOO concerned about getting in over my head.
The thing that gets me though, is these people who spend big bucks on their car, way more than it's worth, and then turn around and sell it for a fraction of what they have in it. I just don't see the point of spending all that money, if you're going to just turn around and take a big loss. Wouldn't you just be better off simply selling the car, un-restored, and take a smaller loss?
You can't say that those 400,000+ buyers made the wrong choice without looking at those cars as they did at the time.
Both the Valiant and the Corvair had far more "bugs" than the Falcon did when they were new. Like it or not, how trouble-free and low maintenance a car was likely to be, not the level of technological advancement, drove a very big percentage of new-car purchases in 1960. (It still does - I hope nobody is buying a Camry or Corolla because they believe that the styling is sexy, or the performance is scintillating.)
Yes, the Slant Six turned out to be a very tough engine, but that was after Chrysler worked out the bugs. (But, in all fairness, by that time, you could get an improved engine in a Falcon, too.)
In 1960, Popular Mechanics surveyed people who bought the Corvair, Valiant and Falcon. The Falcon was the least troublesome - over 80 percent of all owners reported no problem with the engine, compared to only 64.5 percent for Corvair owners and 70 percent for Valiant owners. It also had the fewest number of people reporting what the magazine classified as "considerable trouble" with the engine.
Among Valiant owners, 19.6 percent complained of water leaks, and another 20 percent complained of poor workmanship. The Corvair's gas heater was initially somewhat troublesome and ineffective, with 15 percent of the people complaining about it, and its regular use seriously reduced the gas mileage. (And that's not even getting into the tricky handling of the Corvair.)
You are right about the lack of power - this was the biggest complaint of Falcon owners.
The Falcon also got better fuel economy than the Valiant and the Lark (according to Popular Mechanics test results), and the Corvair's economy advantage disappeared once you used the heater (which you would on a regular basis in much of the country, especially at that time, as more of the country's population was concentrated in New England, the Northeast and the Midwest.) The Rambler American did beat it in economy, but that is about the only way it beat a Falcon.
On automotive websites, enthusiasts can focus on things such as how advanced the engine is and compare 0-60 times. In the real world, people focus more on whether the car is likely to be in the shop for major problems, whether there will be pools of water on the floor or in the trunk after a rainstorm, and whether the heater will actually work when the temperature is below freezing. Based on those criteria, the Falcon comes off pretty well.
Sure, it intially wasn't exciting - but it wasn't built to be exciting. Ford improved it as the years went on - as the Valiant and Corvair improved, too. The bottom line is that it did very good business for Ford, had a lot of satisfied owners, and kept several customers from defecting to the Rambler or the Studebaker Lark. Ford upgraded the car over the years, and used its basic platform to launch the most successful new car in history.
From that standpoint, I wouldn't call the 1960 Falcon a "sad" car. I'd call it one with room for future improvement, but one that arrived at exactly the right time for Ford.
Didn't the Valiant also use an AC alternator versus a DC generator in the others?
That's right...I had forgotten about that. I think the Valiant had an alternator standard from the get-go, while the rest of the cars didn't get it until either 1961, or late in the 1960 model year.
I'm not sure a 1960 survey on the reliability of a 1960 car is very helpful, however.
If anything, your excellent comments reminded me about the main gripe against the 60 Falcon. It deteriorated rapidly. As young kids who were car nuts and went to all the shows, we always regarded the Falcon as a car that reeked cheapness. If you bought one, you were probably the same kind of buyer who went for the Yugo in the 1980s---short on cash and in need of a ride. $1900 could buy one. The only cheaper compact was the Rambler, which had a flathead engine and was designed in 1954-so that should tell you something. A Val or Lark or Corvair probably set you back another $150--$200 or so. That's when houses cost $30,000.
You can't say that those 400,000+ buyers made the wrong choice without looking at those cars as they did at the time.
If the 1960 Falcon was really that bad, my guess is that sales would have fallen off considerably after the first year or two, once word got out, and Ford would have either replaced it with a new car and a different name, or at least make substantial changes to it.
But, didn't the Falcon sell fairly well up through the late 1960's? Considering the Mustang, which no doubt cannibalized sales, and then the loss of the hardtop and convertible models once the car became basically a shortened Fairlane for 1966, and then finally the early introduction of the 1970 Maverick, it's amazing the nameplate lasted as long as it did!
On occasion, I'll see two different '64-65 Falcons still being used. One of them shows up in one of the parking lots at work occasionally, and I see the other out on the road every once in awhile. They're both white, but I can tell they're different cars as the rear quarters are in different stages of decay.
In contrast, I can't remember the last time I've seen a similar-vintage Valiant/Dart or Chevy II driving around, unless it was on a show field. A '68-72 Nova coupe recently showed up in my neighbor's back yard though, next to a shed, and it's obvious from the street that it's tagless. I guess I should stop off one day and warn him that he might want to try to hide it, so he doesn't go through the same hassle that I had to when the county thought my '79 New Yorker was un-tagged!
I'm not sure a 1960 survey on the reliability of a 1960 car is very helpful, however.
If anything, your excellent comments reminded me about the main gripe against the 60 Falcon. It deteriorated rapidly.
I think a lot of cars could fool you like that early on. For instance IIRC, Consumer Reports actually rated the Vega better than average its first year out! I think Consumer Reports did tend to rate the Falcon fairly highly, as well.
I think some cars tend to start acting up early on with the minor, nitpicky stuff that irritates you, while other cars start off fine, but a few years down the road the car that started off fine could be total junk, while the other one keeps rambling on. I've heard the old saying "GM cars run bad longer than most cars run at all", but I'm sure it can be applied to other cars as well!
But again, this is the " X million people can't be wrong" argument. But of course they can, or if not "wrong" then making uninformed decisions.
I mean, I bet a LOT of people order this meal in America every day, and ENJOY it---
Outback Steakhouse Aussie Cheese Fries with Ranch Dressing
2,900 calories
182 g fat
240 g carbs
That's the same as eating 14 Krispy Kreme donuts all at once. :sick:
Falcon sold a lot because Ford people bought Fords out of habit, and for those who weren't Ford people, I suspect a) price and b) decent looks tipped them over to Ford. There certainly was ZERO about the car to impress someone.
Remember, these are the same kind of people who bought lots of Edsels.
I liked the valiant the best because of its looks. Kind of Faux European for the time. I don't think any of them were particularly good cars. They primarily served the purpose of letting dealers advertise a good price to draw in customers and up sell them into an Impala, Fury or Galaxie - or at least a Bel Air or Biscayne.
Mom and Dad bought 2 Corvairs in the 60s but the first one was a company van for my dad's business.
The first gen Corvair was available as a 2-dr or 4-dr, convertible, station wagon (Lakewood), panel van (Corvan), window van (Greenbriar), and pickup (Loadside and later Rampside?).
I searched for an old Corvair ad showing all the body styles available but haven't located one yet. I'm sure they're out there though.
A time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing.
Yeah but the Lark was antiquated. Besides, V8 compacts never sold well, being a somewhat contradictory idea. It took the Mustang to get the formula right, and the muscle car to take it to stardom.
As for 4-doors, only the Corvair, 1965 and up, made a really attractive 4-door compact American car.
Corvairs: When I had a job in college, they used an old Corvair side-ramp pickup truck. Talk about variety. That was a handy item, that truck. You just lowered the ramp and rolled off your load.
If I could find a cheap one, I'd buy one tomorrow. But I'm not taking on some neglected, smelly, leaky, rusty, banged up, stove in, mildew-ridden, bald-tired, smoke-belching project.
So I guess I'm out of the old car business, huh? :P
I've never seen one, but someone in one of my Mopar clubs, a guy up in Canada, had one in a '63-era Canadian Valiant, which was really the larger Dart with a Valiant grille, rather than a Valiant proper. I'm not sure if the car came with that engine, or he put it in, although I heard he tried to rebuild it himself, and when he first started it up it leaked like a sieve, but I think he got the kinks worked out of it later.
Supposedly, about 45,000 of the aluminum slant six were built, and the majority of them went into late '61 and '62 Valiants and Lancers, where they were the 225 of choice. A few of them might have found their way into the full-sized cars, but the majority of them were the iron block. The aluminum slant six was also offered in 1963, and again, probably mostly in the compact Valiant and Dart, which replaced the Lancer, although some probably made it into the bigger cars.
I remember the easiest way to tell a 170 from a 225 was to look at the bypass hose. The 225's had about a 3" long hose while the 170's were much shorter.
People are paying top dollar for quality merchandise right now, but not for projects or lame cars. I just saw a car run 6 "so-so" old cars through an auction---he kept to his reserve and sold *nothing*. The cars simply weren't worth it. He wanted #2 money for #3 and #4 cars. Speaking of Falcons, one of his cars was a Falcon Sprint 4-speed. Big money, right? Except that his had an amateurish paint job, wrong wheels, chipped and scratched dashboard, split seat backs and tired chrome and trim. He wanted something like $15K, it bid up to $6800---which was market correct IMO.
wow...that's probably the best Corvair Rampside in the world. And now we know how much it would cost to build a "new" one. Red was the color of both my parent's Corvairs but actually prefer the original green/white on Leno's truck. I know the color change on a resto like his wouldn't be a negative, but did Leno say why he didn't keep the original seafoam green? If he did I missed it.
I'm all in favor of folks spending their money to suit themselves, but compared to a $100k plus Edsel, I'd go for this $50K Rampside instead. It just seems like it has a place in post war auto history beyond just styling to fit a niche market.
There have been so many pickup variations in size and utility since then and this one captures GM at a time when risk/reward didn't send them into a "Euro" copy cat retreat. Today I heard the news that Government Motors went public in the market. Did "we" get rich?
edited to add this "before" pic of the Leno Rampside
A time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing.
This is bugging me now. I don't know if it's the era of old cars/trucks we've been posting about or that Leno resto story in particular. But I remember another pickup with a radical front end/cab design which was made by Dodge. But I can't remember the name.
It doesn't have the look or profile of a typical front engine, rear drive truck. Was there a van-based Dodge pickup from that era? Anyone remember the name?
A time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing.
Comments
One would have to actually drive a '60 Falcon to appreciate what a totally disappointing and incompetent car it is--gutless, cheap, rough idling, hard shifting and...did I say cheap? A man having a bad day could easily total it using nothing more than his bare hands and feet. It would be harder to mug a Valiant.
We hear of the "legendary" Slant Six, we hear of the "radical" Corvair, we hear of the "economical" Lark, we here of the Rambler "America's first compact car", and we hear nothing much about the '60 Falcon. There may be a reason for this.
I do admire you for attempting to defend the car---I wouldn't take on such a task myself.
There's simply no excuse for building a car that does *nothing* well.
There's simply no excuse for building a car that does *nothing* well.
Well, it was cheap and reliable, so it had that going for it. I don't have my old car book handy right now, so I can't look up any pricing specs. I'd imagine a Falcon was priced lower than a Valiant or Corvair, though? And I'd imagine a Falcon would be more economical than a Valiant or Corvair, although you'd pay for that economy with the reduced performance.
The main thing that scares me about those original Falcons, and all Falcons, I guess, is that "drop in" gas tank that was like two inches from the fragile-looking rear bumper. Supposedly these things weren't much better than the Pinto when it came to fuel tank leaks. I've always wondered why the safety groups never swarmed down on Ford for the Falcon, like Nader did with the Corvair, or like Mother Jones and everybody did with the Pinto in the 1970's? I guess it was more fashionable in the 1960's to get doused in gasoline and potentially set ablaze?
Considering that all three Big Three compacts were brand-new in 1960, and that people buying compacts were more likely to shop around instead of simply buying what they had always bought, the fact that it was far-and-away the best seller among compacts counts for something. Plus, we have to compare it to its competition in 1960, and, by those standards, I'm not seeing how they are better than a Falcon.
I noticed him constantly over correcting when he drove it so I decided to jack it up and take a look.
The idler arm bushing was completly gone and the two outer tie rod ends werre ready to fall apart.
Together, we managed to fix those items but he had no money for the upper ball joints that were totally shot.
As I recall, that Falcon didn't have all that many miles on it at the time.
Of course, the Valients were very hard on front end parts too.
So let's line 'em up in 1960 and see what we got, okay?
Handling -- Game VALIANT. No contest here, clear winner
Braking -- Game Corvair. No contest here, Test drivers could get out a light a cigarette before the other cars stopped
Styling -- this is tough---by default, I'd say TIE GAME Falcon and Corvair.
Performance -- Tie Game Valiant and Corvair
Economy -- Tie Game Rambler and Lark
Reliability -- GAME Valiant. We all pretty much agree on this, do we not?
Technical Innovation-- TIE GAME Corvair/Valiant. The others are prehistoric.
Sales -- GAME Falcon.
Conclusion? You can build a very mediocre car and make money at it. Does white bread outsell organic whole wheat? Yes. does it taste better? No.
Really, there's not much difference technically between a 1960 Falcon and a 1936 Buick.
The Mustang took the Falcon bones and really improved almost everything about it.
I'm just curious...why did you put the Corvair and Valiant at a tie on this one? I'd think the Corvair, with the rear-mounted, air-cooled, flat-six engine, and the independent rear suspension would edge out on the Valiant, which was more conventional with its torsion bar front, leaf spring rear. And the slant six might have been more modern than Ford's old big-car six, the Mopar flathead that pre-dated it, and even Chevy's Stovebolt (the slant was easily 200+ lb lighter). But, would it be more innovative than the Corvair engine? Now I'd say it was much longer lasting, as Mopar used it up through something like 1987, so it stood the test of time. And they did offer that hyper-pack on the 170 that boosted hp from 101 hp to 148. It was also offered on the 225, where it boosted the power from 145 to 197, but I don't think it was very popular.
One area where the Valiant definitely won out was in being an early adopter of the three-speed automatic. IIRC, the Torqueflite was the only automatic offered in the Valiant. Oddly, I think they were still offering Powerflites in the full-sized Plymouths and Dodges, although the Torqueflite accounted for most of the automatic sales. In contrast, I think Ford was still pushing 2-speed automatics well into the 1960's, and Chevy was still offering them in the early 1970's!
I got this from Wikipedia, so take it with a grain of salt...but according to the listing there, the 1960 Valiant used enough aluminum in various non-structural components that they saved an estimated 102 lb compared to conventional materials. The grille only weighed about 3 lb...if it had been made out of the more common die-cast zinc, it would have been around 13. So I guess there's some innovation there.
My conclusion is that all the domestic compacts had some notable attributes. As for deficiencies, well, each had some of those too, but at least there was some fresh thinking and innovation. This hardly represented Detroit's, Kenosha's and South Bend's darkest hour.
I really like Wiki although one may find some dubious entries like this:
Ima Hogg (July 10, 1882 – August 19, 1975)
"Although it was rumored that (Ima) Hogg had a sister named 'Ura Hogg,' she had only brothers."
And being from Klumbus, the Wiki entry for Johnny Marzetti is a hoot - especially the Panama Canal Zone reference which consumes half the article!
Re: "argument by aggregation"
I don't think the booming Falcon sales figures and customer satisfaction reports constitute an aggregation of unrelated factoids or unorganized data. But let me clarify: 1960 compact car buyers yielded a consensus which is fair game for re-examination in hind sight. Consumer choices by the mass public are irresistible fodder and open for interpretation.
Japan Inc propagated a Falcon-like milquetoast product mix in the 80s which gobbled up market share and created brand loyalty as intended. Certainly the 80s technology was eons ahead of the 60s, but the philosophy seemed very much the same. Build cheap and cheerful appealing widgets and the public will feast on white bread and orange whip! GM should have such a bad management history to live down!
Some of those 80s widgets sold very well but left little to remember them by. Does anybody miss the Paseo or Starlet? Or the Stanza? Maybe the same folks with parents/grandparents who miss the Falcon and Valiant for very similar reasons.
Didn't Versa get heavily promoted last year as a cheap, crank window, non-A/C, $9990 base car? It probably stole more used car sales than new! :shades:
I put the Corvair/Valiant even up because I wasn't sure how to weight the various positive innovations on each car. Is for instance, use of lightweight materials as important as Corvair's 4-on-the-floor and bucket seats? (the Spyder started a big trend in American cars, you must admit).
On the other hand, an air-cooled engine on an American car is as old as a Franklin, and the rear-engine as old as a VW---but again, I can't offhand think of any other air cooled, rear engine American car in regular production, prior to the Corvair. The Tucker was a helicopter engine converted to water-cooling.
I put the 'Falcon-like' era for Japan, Inc. earlier than the 80s. I look at the first gen compacts, the first Corolla and B210, as the Falcon heirs, with cheap, small interiors and rust problems compensated for by reliable running gear and low price. By the 80s they were seriously good transportation devices.
You have to keep in mind that these 60s compacts were slammed together by men and women in a rush to get home from the monotonous torment of "the line". This was not the precision robotic assembly that we have today.
When they did fail, they were as I recall about the cheapest to replace. I remember a 170 rebuilt short block was only a few hundred dollars in the mid-seventies and a breeze to replace.
Cheaper and easier than a VW Bug if I recall correctly.
And, you're right. The 200's were a much nicer engine.
Re: Falcon-like milquetoast product mix in the 80s
That was a reference to the bland, appliance-like character of the imports during that era. Note that my very next sentence included praise that, "the 80s technology was eons ahead of the 60s..."
Until then I had never seen any previous crop of imports which could rival the reliability, parts, or warranty service available with Big 3 domestic products. My sister and a friend of mine each had new Mazda rotary cars in the 70s. My brother's Opel was saved only by Buick dealer parts/service. (For a while.)
It's next to two other orphans, a 1959 or so Rambler American 2-door sedan, and a 1958 Edsel Corsair 4-door hardtop. Both of those look like they're going through frame-off restorations. Well, okay, so you can't exactly get "frame off" with a unitized Rambler, but it has just about everything removed from its body that could be taken off. Both of those cars must be true labors of love, and I'm sure either their owners are rich, or bankrupt. Or, formerly rich and slowly going bankrupt.
Sorry, I do love my DeSoto, but not THAT much!
I can understand spending way more on a car than it's worth under some circumstances. Like the couple who wanted to restore their honeymoon car, etc. True, a $40,000 1959 Rambler is borderline insanity, but if there's some emotional tug, what the hell, life is short, so celebrate it in your own way.
Just don't annoy me and tell me your 1959 Rambler is now worth $40,000. :P
Well, at one point I heard that the guy with the '59 Edsel would have around $130,000 in it once it's done, but then my mechanic backpedaled and simply said "not quite that much". So, I don't know what, exactly, the truth is. He's had that Edsel around the shop for as long as I've known him though, about 3 years now.
As for the Rambler, well the interior's gutted, engine/tranny are out, and literally, everything that could be pulled off has been pulled off. It's just a shell sitting up on that lift. I saw the car a few months ago when it was mostly complete. Supposedly it came from California, and had a good body, but a bad engine. There was very little rust...just one area below the trunk opening, and oddly, another spot on the roof! And it had a few slight dents here and there. The car was originally an attractive metallic green color, but had been painted red. It's going back to its original color. I have no idea how much money this guy is going to sink into the car, but I'm sure it won't be cheap!
As for me, I'm sure I have more in the DeSoto than it's worth. But, I've also had the car for 20 years now, and plan on keeping it forever. So, while I'm not gonna say "money is no object", I'm also not TOO concerned about getting in over my head.
The thing that gets me though, is these people who spend big bucks on their car, way more than it's worth, and then turn around and sell it for a fraction of what they have in it. I just don't see the point of spending all that money, if you're going to just turn around and take a big loss. Wouldn't you just be better off simply selling the car, un-restored, and take a smaller loss?
I guess it really was! YEEEESHHH!!! :surprise:
Both the Valiant and the Corvair had far more "bugs" than the Falcon did when they were new. Like it or not, how trouble-free and low maintenance a car was likely to be, not the level of technological advancement, drove a very big percentage of new-car purchases in 1960. (It still does - I hope nobody is buying a Camry or Corolla because they believe that the styling is sexy, or the performance is scintillating.)
Yes, the Slant Six turned out to be a very tough engine, but that was after Chrysler worked out the bugs. (But, in all fairness, by that time, you could get an improved engine in a Falcon, too.)
In 1960, Popular Mechanics surveyed people who bought the Corvair, Valiant and Falcon. The Falcon was the least troublesome - over 80 percent of all owners reported no problem with the engine, compared to only 64.5 percent for Corvair owners and 70 percent for Valiant owners. It also had the fewest number of people reporting what the magazine classified as "considerable trouble" with the engine.
Among Valiant owners, 19.6 percent complained of water leaks, and another 20 percent complained of poor workmanship. The Corvair's gas heater was initially somewhat troublesome and ineffective, with 15 percent of the people complaining about it, and its regular use seriously reduced the gas mileage. (And that's not even getting into the tricky handling of the Corvair.)
You are right about the lack of power - this was the biggest complaint of Falcon owners.
The Falcon also got better fuel economy than the Valiant and the Lark (according to Popular Mechanics test results), and the Corvair's economy advantage disappeared once you used the heater (which you would on a regular basis in much of the country, especially at that time, as more of the country's population was concentrated in New England, the Northeast and the Midwest.) The Rambler American did beat it in economy, but that is about the only way it beat a Falcon.
On automotive websites, enthusiasts can focus on things such as how advanced the engine is and compare 0-60 times. In the real world, people focus more on whether the car is likely to be in the shop for major problems, whether there will be pools of water on the floor or in the trunk after a rainstorm, and whether the heater will actually work when the temperature is below freezing. Based on those criteria, the Falcon comes off pretty well.
Sure, it intially wasn't exciting - but it wasn't built to be exciting. Ford improved it as the years went on - as the Valiant and Corvair improved, too. The bottom line is that it did very good business for Ford, had a lot of satisfied owners, and kept several customers from defecting to the Rambler or the Studebaker Lark. Ford upgraded the car over the years, and used its basic platform to launch the most successful new car in history.
From that standpoint, I wouldn't call the 1960 Falcon a "sad" car. I'd call it one with room for future improvement, but one that arrived at exactly the right time for Ford.
That's right...I had forgotten about that. I think the Valiant had an alternator standard from the get-go, while the rest of the cars didn't get it until either 1961, or late in the 1960 model year.
If anything, your excellent comments reminded me about the main gripe against the 60 Falcon. It deteriorated rapidly. As young kids who were car nuts and went to all the shows, we always regarded the Falcon as a car that reeked cheapness. If you bought one, you were probably the same kind of buyer who went for the Yugo in the 1980s---short on cash and in need of a ride. $1900 could buy one. The only cheaper compact was the Rambler, which had a flathead engine and was designed in 1954-so that should tell you something. A Val or Lark or Corvair probably set you back another $150--$200 or so. That's when houses cost $30,000.
If the 1960 Falcon was really that bad, my guess is that sales would have fallen off considerably after the first year or two, once word got out, and Ford would have either replaced it with a new car and a different name, or at least make substantial changes to it.
But, didn't the Falcon sell fairly well up through the late 1960's? Considering the Mustang, which no doubt cannibalized sales, and then the loss of the hardtop and convertible models once the car became basically a shortened Fairlane for 1966, and then finally the early introduction of the 1970 Maverick, it's amazing the nameplate lasted as long as it did!
On occasion, I'll see two different '64-65 Falcons still being used. One of them shows up in one of the parking lots at work occasionally, and I see the other out on the road every once in awhile. They're both white, but I can tell they're different cars as the rear quarters are in different stages of decay.
In contrast, I can't remember the last time I've seen a similar-vintage Valiant/Dart or Chevy II driving around, unless it was on a show field. A '68-72 Nova coupe recently showed up in my neighbor's back yard though, next to a shed, and it's obvious from the street that it's tagless. I guess I should stop off one day and warn him that he might want to try to hide it, so he doesn't go through the same hassle that I had to when the county thought my '79 New Yorker was un-tagged!
If anything, your excellent comments reminded me about the main gripe against the 60 Falcon. It deteriorated rapidly.
I think a lot of cars could fool you like that early on. For instance IIRC, Consumer Reports actually rated the Vega better than average its first year out! I think Consumer Reports did tend to rate the Falcon fairly highly, as well.
I think some cars tend to start acting up early on with the minor, nitpicky stuff that irritates you, while other cars start off fine, but a few years down the road the car that started off fine could be total junk, while the other one keeps rambling on.
I've heard the old saying "GM cars run bad longer than most cars run at all", but I'm sure it can be applied to other cars as well!
I mean, I bet a LOT of people order this meal in America every day, and ENJOY it---
Outback Steakhouse Aussie Cheese Fries with Ranch Dressing
2,900 calories
182 g fat
240 g carbs
That's the same as eating 14 Krispy Kreme donuts all at once. :sick:
Falcon sold a lot because Ford people bought Fords out of habit, and for those who weren't Ford people, I suspect a) price and b) decent looks tipped them over to Ford. There certainly was ZERO about the car to impress someone.
Remember, these are the same kind of people who bought lots of Edsels.
I understand a few went into production.
The first gen Corvair was available as a 2-dr or 4-dr, convertible, station wagon (Lakewood), panel van (Corvan), window van (Greenbriar), and pickup (Loadside and later Rampside?).
I searched for an old Corvair ad showing all the body styles available but haven't located one yet. I'm sure they're out there though.
I was amazed at how many cars were there and the huge variety of cars.
My favorite was a 1962 Station Wagon that was like new with something like 30,000 original miles on it.
There were a few with factory air conditioning. I had forgotton how totally out of place the air conditioning components looked under the hood.
I can hear the conversations at GM now...
" Hey, some of our customers want air conditioning!"
" Huh...they do? Well, get the engineers on that right away"
Engineers..." WHAT? Where are we going to put the compressor and other parts...those puny air cooled engines won't run right with A/C"
" Just get it done!"
Oh, how the Chevy mechanics must have loved working on those!
As for 4-doors, only the Corvair, 1965 and up, made a really attractive 4-door compact American car.
Corvairs: When I had a job in college, they used an old Corvair side-ramp pickup truck. Talk about variety. That was a handy item, that truck. You just lowered the ramp and rolled off your load.
A beautiful green and white one was at the show I attended. Looked like a ground up restoration.
So I guess I'm out of the old car business, huh? :P
I've never seen one, but someone in one of my Mopar clubs, a guy up in Canada, had one in a '63-era Canadian Valiant, which was really the larger Dart with a Valiant grille, rather than a Valiant proper. I'm not sure if the car came with that engine, or he put it in, although I heard he tried to rebuild it himself, and when he first started it up it leaked like a sieve, but I think he got the kinks worked out of it later.
Supposedly, about 45,000 of the aluminum slant six were built, and the majority of them went into late '61 and '62 Valiants and Lancers, where they were the 225 of choice. A few of them might have found their way into the full-sized cars, but the majority of them were the iron block. The aluminum slant six was also offered in 1963, and again, probably mostly in the compact Valiant and Dart, which replaced the Lancer, although some probably made it into the bigger cars.
Here's the article I found the info from: http://www.slantsix.org/articles/dutra-blocks/alm-block-sl6.htm And looking at the author, I think that was the guy in my Mopar club who had the Canadian Valiant!
Very few were produced in the first place and the ones that were usually had hard lives. You would have loved the one I saw at that show!
I remember the easiest way to tell a 170 from a 225 was to look at the bypass hose. The 225's had about a 3" long hose while the 170's were much shorter.
Again, I think just finding one in ANY condition would be tough.
I'll start looking. You can buy it here and drive it home!
It's about a 10 minute video that I'll try to post a link for.
He bought a POS 1961 Rampside and spent about 50,000 dollars turning it into a pretty slick car.
http://www.jaylenosgarage.com/at-the-garage/trucks/1961-chevrolet-corvair-95-ram- pside/
hopefully it'll work.
I'm all in favor of folks spending their money to suit themselves, but compared to a $100k plus Edsel, I'd go for this $50K Rampside instead. It just seems like it has a place in post war auto history beyond just styling to fit a niche market.
There have been so many pickup variations in size and utility since then and this one captures GM at a time when risk/reward didn't send them into a "Euro" copy cat retreat. Today I heard the news that Government Motors went public in the market. Did "we" get rich?
edited to add this "before" pic of the Leno Rampside
It doesn't have the look or profile of a typical front engine, rear drive truck. Was there a van-based Dodge pickup from that era? Anyone remember the name?