70 1/2 Falcon, The Ultimate Sleeper

[FoMoCo66]

  Im a bit of a ford falcon fanatic (American cars, those aussie ones still confuse me) and did some online searching on the 70 and 1/2 falcon. For those of you who are not familiar with some of Ford's weird decision making, the 70 and ½ falcon was based on the base model of the 70 torino. Basically bringing it from a compact car to a mid-sized one. This conversion was basically a rebadge of the base torino, literally nothing else changed. This brought some upsides with it, previously the biggest engine you could get in a falcon was the 302 windsor with the base being the 200 in-line 6. Now, you could get the whole engine lineup that was available in the torino. Those options included the 250 6, the 302 w, the 351 w, the 351 c, the 429, and finally the 429 cobra jet. This means you could get a 429 powered falcon in 1970. Being a base model car with no creature features and a big block high-po motor, I don't think you could get more sleeper than that.

 

[Falcon Ranchero]

I breifly read about the Falcon becoming essentially a Torino; gets extremely confusing since the Fairlane also morphed into the Torino.

[Carmak]

2 hours ago, Falcon Ranchero said:

I breifly read about the Falcon becoming essentially a Torino; gets extremely confusing since the Fairlane also morphed into the Torino.

From 1966 until it was discontinued the Falcon and Fairlane/Torino shared a platform with Falcon coupes having a 111" wheelbase and the Fairlane/Torino coupes having a 116".

This can be seen most clearly in the Falcon/Fairlane wagons/Rancheros which are the same wheelbase (113") and have the same sheet metal except for the front clip.

Also take a look at a 66/67 Fairlane 2dr sedan, the roof is the same as the Falcon and looks quite short on the longer Fairlane body.

[NOBLNG]

My first car was a 1967 Falcon with the six banger. THAT is no Falcon in my mind.🧐

[FoMoCo66]

I have shared this before but the reason I am so into falcons is that my dad's first car was a 66 falcon. The coolest part is he has never gotten rid of it. He swaped the 6 motor for a hopped up 289 windsor and painted the car 96 viper red. I also have a annual 66 falcon to replicate it. I dont concider my self an expert but I know quite a bit about the 3rd gen falcons.

Edited Monday at 10:05 PM by FoMoCo66

[The Junkman]

I was around when that was a current model.  Recall it also came out at the same time as the Maverick which I believe took over the Falcon's place in the lineup.  I figure its as much a Falcon as an electric SUV can be a Mustang.  Ford has had a long history of messing with nameplates.  The aforementioned Mustang being one.  Also my first vehicle handed down by my dad was a '65 Ford window van that was also tagged with a "Falcon" nameplate from the factory.  Recall the Ford Taurus was redesignated the "Ford 500" for no discernible reason and then magically returned to Taurus.  Likely because everyone knew what a Taurus was but 500 held no name recognition at all unless you recall the even older Galaxie 500.  AND note the current Ford Maverick which has nothing in common with a 2 or 4 door economy car.

Edited yesterday at 04:07 AM by The Junkman

[Robberbaron]

13 hours ago, FoMoCo66 said:

This conversion was basically a rebadge of the base torino, literally nothing else changed.

 

For the 2-doors, the main difference was the 70-1/2 Falcons were built as "post coupes"with full window frames/B-pillars.  The other Fairlane and Toronto coupes were only available as hardtops with no B-pillars.

It was a strange choice, since Ford had dropped the 2-door post body style for the previous 68-69 generation.  Hard to believe it was worth the money going through the trouble to deliberately try to make the Falcon versions more "downmarket".

 

[Mark]

Ford didn't sell those in big numbers with the big engine, as it was the "Thunderbird" 429 which took forever to catch on with the street machine/drag racing crowd.  The four-barrel 351 Cleveland was available, Ford would have been smarter to promote a 351 Falcon as a Roadrunner/GTO Judge kind of muscle car.