During the mid-1960s, the affordable full-size car was king in Detroit. Chevrolet alone has far exceeded one million Biscaynes, Bel Air AND Impala every year then, while Ford wasn’t far behind in sales of its line of big, comfortable rides. In 1966, the full-size Ford line in the United States had the small Custom and Custom 500 below, with the galaxy 500 one step higher e the elegant LTD sitting on top of the great Ford pyramid. The Galaxie 500 was the best-selling of the four, with sales nearly evenly split between them the exuberant two-door fastback AND the sensible four-door mail sedan. Here’s one of those sedans, spied recently a self-service courtyard just south of Denver.
This family-run yard has a off-limits public storage lot next to the pull-parts-yourself area, filled with interesting old cars. To make room for Moreover interesting stuff, sometimes auction off excess inventory from their private reserve area (which is often purchased from other landfills and put in They spare parts warehouse). Other times, they’ll just move some of the special cars into the regular jerk yard. A good dozen of them just showed up there, including the Mustang II and Mercury Montego MX Brougham you see alongside today’s one Gem of the junkyard pictured above, more a 1959 Studebaker Lark VIIIA 1965 Chevy Biscayne with six cylinders and three manuals on the shafta big ’71 Impala coupe and a few other cars I’ll share later.
The list price of this car started at $2,784, which amounts to something like $26,425 in 2023 dollars. This particular example is packed with expensive options, as you’ll see, so its open-air price was likely much higher.
First up, there’s this 352-cubic-inch (5.8-liter) big-block “Interceptor” V8 engine, rated at 250 horsepower. This engine is a member of the legendary FE familywhich included the better known 390, 427 and 428 engines that made it into the wildest Mustangs and muscle cars.
The 352 had been around since 1958 and was last used in 1967 F Series Truck. Yes, I bought this emblem for my garage wall.
The base engine in all but the most luxurious 1966 Fords was a 240-cubic-inch straight-six rated at 140 horsepower, but the Dearborn You had WELL covered if you wanted to pay for more horsepower that year. There were 289, 390, 427, and 428 cubic inch V8s available, with horsepower ratings going up to 425 horsepower (that twin 427 Cobra four-cylinder had insane 11.1:1 compression for the time and a drag-lumpy race and proved to be a nightmare of stalling and overheating in normal stop-and-go driving).
This car also has the optional three-speed automatic transmission, which added $184 to the cost ($1,746 today). The basic transmission in the lower trim levels of Galaxie 500 (for example this car) was a traditional manual with three-speed column gearbox. To get a manual four-wheel drive on a ’66 Galaxie, you had to buy the 315-horsepower 390 or better with it (although really, a friendly dealer probably could have arranged a special order with any engine/transmission combination made by Ford).
The factory A/C was $353 more ($3,351 after inflation), but this car appears to have been fitted with a Montgomery Ward Riverside “Supreme” A/C unit.
The build tag tells us that this machine has been assembled April Fool’s Day 1966 TO the Los Angeles Assembly plant in Pico Rivera, then sold through the Denver sales office. Color is Metallic medium sage gold and the inside is gold. Interestingly, Northrop bought Los Angeles Assembly in 1982 and (secretly) used it for development of the B-2 Spirit stealth bomber; today, the site is a shopping center.
Looks like it spent at least a couple decades sitting out in the elements of the High Plains. The interior is ruined, while the bodywork is dented but not irreparably rusty.
The problem with cars sitting outdoors for years around here is that the rodents get in and keep chewing through the nesting material coating and then deposit inch thick layers of their poop at risk of hantavirus. I have seen much worsebut this car is unpleasant inside.
The rat poison didn’t last long.
The creatures even chewed through the original owner’s manual.
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