Sure, most of us love Mustangs, but it’s disappointing that it destroyed at least one good car. Worse than that, this car was also a Ford.
No, I’m not talking about Cars and Coffee altercations; don’t be rude! I’m referring to a two-door sedan that gave its mechanical components to create this new Pony Car in 1964 and then saw itself made redundant within months. Even today, this car that ended up being totally eclipsed by the very car it begat remains rather forgotten by many enthusiasts.
That’s a shame, since as an all-around practical car, performance sleeper, and international rally racing star, the Falcon Sprint deserves more respect. At the very least, you should know that it exists.
Falcon? More Like A Pigeon
Nearly seventy years ago, try as they might, Ford and General Motors could no longer ignore smaller cars. From imports like Volkswagen to bit-player domestic competitors like Nash and Studebaker, the market for cheap and economical entry-level cars was exploding with young first-time buyers and those wanting a second car in the booming postwar economy.
Chevrolet gave us GM’s entry in the form of the 1960 Corvair, a rear-engined subcompact that matched the likes of the Beetle, Renault 4CV, and Fiat products with a very European layout and overseas flair.
Ford, on the other hand, decided to simply downscale a very traditional domestic sedan. Front-mounted straight six, three-on-the-tree transmission, rear drive on a live axle, and boxy styling that looked like a big sedan left in the dryer too long. Their 1960 Falcon, even by some Ford executives’ later admission, was possibly the most boring car ever to turn a wheel on an American street. It turns out that dull was good.
Sales for 1960 were a whopping 456,703 cars, increasing to over 489,000 for the following year. Ford pretty much ate up all of the market that the independents had made inroads in and ultimately killed brands like Studebaker and forced others to huddle together as American Motors.
The Corvair would turn out to be an overreaching move for GM; sales were around half the number of Falcons. Consumers seemed to prefer a radiator up front, a trunk in back, and a traditional heater, among other things. Even if buyers were to accept its rather unconventional specs, the Ralph Nader book Unsafe At Any Speed painted these Corvairs as oversteering deathtraps and ultimately made them market failures. Chevy eventually had to accept defeat and released a conventional Falcon clone with the 1962 Chevy II (Nova) to complement the now-slow-selling Corvair.
Notice that the Falcon below is being shown driven by the Mom, ostensibly as the family’s first-ever second car. Look at this thing: could you get more conventional and sleep-inducing?
Still, just because the standard Falcon was rather uninspiring didn’t mean that they couldn’t make it into something more fun. Chevy added a turbocharger to their Corvair to make a performance version of their entry-level car, but Ford took a more basic and arguably more effective approach.
The Answer Is Always V8
Midway through the 1963 model year, Ford introduced the Falcon Sprint as either a two-door hardtop coupe or convertible to counter the likes of Chevy’s hottest Corvair and the performance versions of the very last Studebaker Larks. With a 260 cubic inch V8 under the hood making 164 horsepower, the Sprint lived up to its name.
The “Sprint” package also added sporting goodies like a line-of-sight tachometer, bucket seats, and a “rallye type” steering wheel. A four-speed manual was optional but “would be the choice of most expert drivers,” according to the advertising.
All this “Sprint” and “like a sports car” talk was just advertising jargon for this early, heated-up econobox, right? Surprisingly, no. Ford took this thing racing, and it delivered.
Yes, Ford entered the Falcon Sprint in the Monte Carlo Rally, and it didn’t fall to bits. Far from it.
According to the advertisement, the Falcon was one of only a third of the 296 entries to survive that race. It finished first in class, first in every one of the six special sections, and first over every other sedan in a three-lap elimination.
These “elimination” competitions are like watching “Herbie Goes To Monte Carlo”, but they’re pretty punishing and amusing. This was after the 2500-mile rally was completed! They really beat the crap out of this little Falcon, and it just came back for more.
For the abbreviated 1963 1/2 model year, Ford was able to sell 10,479 of the race-proven hardtop Falcon Sprint and 4,602 convertibles. The second-generation Falcon premiered for the 1964 model year and saw a new body design that scrapped the curved, sort of dowdy look of the 1960-63 car for a more angular and aggressive style. This mini-Galaxie appearance even makes the car seem far larger than the first-generation, but in fact, it’s only half an inch longer.
Beaten By Horseplay
In April of 1964, showgoers at the World’s Fair in New York were stunned by a new kind of car on display at the Ford booth. With a long hood, short tail, and aggressive face, this so-called “Mustang” took the event and the American public by storm. Here was an affordable car with the looks of something far more sporting than its price would suggest.
What sort of magic existed under this new Mustang’s well-received sheet metal? It was none other than Ford Falcon bits, with an available V8; it was essentially a Falcon Sprint in a fresh new set of clothes. This meant that this new Mustang was going to be a rather reliable, easy-to-maintain, and deceptively quick piece of kit.
This also meant that the poor Falcon Sprint was now going to look like yesterday’s news overnight. Ford kept the Falcon Sprint alive for the 1965 model year, now with the 289 V8, but the sales numbers fell off a cliff. Only 2,806 hardtops and 300 convertible Sprints were sold against the 559,451 Mustangs that shared the Falcon’s underpinnings.
With such meager sales, the Sprint was dropped. It wasn’t the only one to suffer; the entire Falcon line actually struggled from the attack of Lee Iacocca’s “pony” car and never really recovered.
Prices Are Starting To Sprint
The rarity of the Falcon Sprint and its legitimate Pony Car-sized featherweight-class muscle machine credentials actually haven’t gone unnoticed by enthusiasts. It might have been a tough sell against the Mustang in its period, but today their prices are on par if not higher than similar-year and same body styles of Mustangs. Hardtop Sprints in good shape average around $25,000, but less-than-perfect drivers can be found for mid-teens. The even more rare convertibles will sell for anywhere from high thirties to over $80,000, significantly more than many drop top ‘Stangs, but still a reasonable price for something so thin on the ground.
What’s funny is that some modified examples will sell for more than the original ones if the work is done right. This rally car replica that sold last September for $78,000 is a fun example of that.
The price isn’t a bad deal when you consider the work that was done to transform it into a restomod that’s far more capable than the ones that ran the Monte Carlo Rally decades ago.
According to Bring A Trailer:
It started as a California black plate car and was fitted with a 331ci V8 equipped with Edelbrock aluminum cylinder heads, Mahle forged pistons, and an Eagle crankshaft and connecting rods. A Tremec TKO five-speed manual transmission, four-wheel disc brakes with Lincoln front calipers, red leather Cobra bucket seats, a dash-mounted Smiths tachometer, a MotoLita steering wheel, an exhaust system with cut-outs, and an upgraded clutch, flywheel, drive shaft, rear end, and suspension were also installed.
Obviously, you could get your own for a lot less and build it up any way you’d like. If you like Mustangs but think it’s a bit too Camry-ubiquitous, the Sprint is a rare, left-field classic choice.
Mustangs Run, But Falcons Fly
After 1965, Ford seemed content to let the Falcon go back to being a dull-as-Hell rival to other glamorous-as-turnips competitors like the Plymouth Valiant. The performance crown for more practical coupes than the Mustang fell onto the somewhat larger Torino chassis. If you wanted something like the Mustang but just a hair larger with a more family-friendly back seat and trunk, you were out of luck. The Falcon was left to slowly die out before being replaced by the Maverick in the early seventies.
This is a shame, and it makes you respect the Monte Carlo Rally-winning little Falcon even more. Sure, the Mustang might have gone on to be one of the most successful sport coupes of all time, but it’s important to remember that its legacy stands on the shoulders of a forgotten compact coupe that never really had a chance to get the recognition it deserved.
Top graphic image: RK Classics
Reminiscence time. My first car was a 1963 Falcon Tudor done up in a beautiful two-tone primer grey. I airbrushed (read: rattle can w/ stencil) graphics on the hood that read “La Bomba” with the “O” replaced with a bomb. I bought that car for $300 and it had a seized engine and a “welded” rear diff. We got the (inline 6, 144ci) engine busted free and in the process busted the rear diff, too. Opening up the pumpkin revealed that the “weld” was actually… JB weld.
I dumped a few hundred dollars into that car, including replacing the rear axle, new carburetor, and general work to get it drivable again. I drove it for a couple of years in high school, including a couple of road trips to visit colleges. It was surprisingly reliable, and it was fun as hell to load up with 5 teenage guys and pin it. I even took it drag racing one night during classic car night at the strip.
Sold the car when I went to college for $300. By then, I had also crashed it in the snow and bent up the driver’s side rear quarter panel. It left with a trunk full of bits and bobs, a good running engine and solid transmision. I look online for Falcons once in awhile and see that examples in similar condition are at or near five figures now.
I’m often not a fan of resto-mods, but that one looks to be done right.
I hate the big wheel/rubber band tire look on a classic.
That blue Falcon droptop w/ the bright red interior is giving me all kinds of feelings….
Since the Falcon Sprint was ~90 lbs. lighter than the equivalent ‘Stang, I suspect its performance was every bit as good, if not a tick better. And, of course, what fit the Mustang as performance/handling upgrades fit the Sprint as well. For those reasons, as well as rarity, I’d prefer the Falcon.
Also because I remember, as a wee lad, seeing one in action at several California Sports Car Club races we attended. Looked like a NASCAR ‘stock” car, and sounded like one, too. I don’t remember how well it did, but it sure sounded wonderful.
I think I actually prefer most of those V8 Falcons over the early Mustangs.
I’m one of those people who would also like a Falcon like the one in the first photo or even the picnic convertible even if they came with a straight-six and a three-on-the-tree.
Thanks for the informative article!
Beyond the mechanical connections (even to the extreme of if you pry off the steering wheel hub pony emblem on the original Mustangs, you’ll find a Falcon one underneath), there was a racing one too – the UK’s Alan Mann Racing campaigned both the Falcons at Monte Carlo and then, for their first race ever as a model, Mustangs at the Tour de France.
I have a ’65 Falcon that is a very “rare” and odd beast.
Base, base, base model white four door with blue interior. No side mirrors, no windshield washer, no real optional anything.
EXCEPT for the 289 and C4 automatic. Bought new by an Oklahoma school teacher in December of ’64. It’s quick, and I dream that she was some kind of Little Ol’ Lady from Pasadena dragging chumps on Friday nights with this thing. Most Mustang upgrades fit right on it without modification. It’s fun and didn’t cost what the Sprints do, but will still run with them.
Before your car — or the Sprint — ever existed, Henry Ford II commissioned the legendary Bill Stroppe to stuff a 406 c.i. V8 with automatic transmission in a poor, unsuspecting four-door Falcon. As you can imagine, it was about as tight a fit as it could be.
Many years later, I had a talk about it with Bill. Sadly, he didn’t know what became of it, but recalled it went through rear tires like crazy.
Proof positive that sex sells. The Falcon was roughly as sexy as your grandmother in a bra and panties, and the Mustang was only marginally less practical in an era when people really didn’t give the first shit how comfortable thier kids were in the back seat. They were lucky to be getting a ride in the first place.
“The Falcon was roughly as sexy as…”
You just had to go there – Ew.
What’s wrong with a gilf?