Junkyard Find: 1966 Ford Falcon Club Wagon
Published: May 23rd, 2022
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During the 1960s and well into the 1980s, plenty of vehicle manufacturers decided that passenger trucks and vans could be called wagons ( I disagree with that idea), and so you got the Volkswagen Transporter, Toyota Land Cruiser, Corvair Greenbriar, Dodge A100, and many other trucks marketed as wagons. That was confusing enough, but then Ford took it one step further by taking the passenger version of the Econoline forward-control van and badging it as a Falcon Club Wagon. Here’s one of those vans wagons, found in a Denver-area yard last month.
As was the case with some other discarded vehicles I’ve documented recently, this van wagon was one of more than 250 vintage vehicles auctioned off near Denver last fall, and so we can see how much it sold for: 500 bucks.
It appears that some local Econoline owner with a rust problem sliced off a big chunk of the left-side body, once this Club Wagon made it into El Pulpo‘s regular inventory.
According to Wikipedia, the first-generation Econoline was based on the Falcon chassis, but there can’t be much Falcon left when you move the engine back a few feet and then swap out the independent front suspension for a solid kingpin front axle. In any case, 1962-1967 Econoline passenger vans were sold as Falcon Club Wagons and Falcon Station Buses ( alongside regular Falcon wagons).
The warranty data plate on this one tells us that it was built at the Lorain, Ohio plant in May of 1966 and was painted in Arcadian Blue with Medium Blue crush vinyl interior.
The original engine— which might even be this one— was a 170-cube straight-six rated at 105 horsepower. Remember the HSC four-cylinder engines in the Ford Tempo and super-cheapo early Tauruses? That was two-thirds of the early-1960s Ford six.
Further evidence of the thin wallet of this van’s wagon’s original purchaser can be seen in the type of transmission: the good old three-on-the-tree column-shift manual. I’ve heard legends of four-on-the-tree Econolines, but have yet to see one in person.
Is there rust? Sure is!
At some point, a junkyard bench seat out of who-knows-what truck made it into this Econoline Falcon.
I’ve spent a fair amount of time in these things, both behind the wheel and as a passenger, and they were bouncy, noisy, oil-canning, ill-handling beasts… but they could haul plenty of cargo for their size.
If you like simple instruments, you’ll love the panel here.
Towing must have been exciting with the 170 providing power.
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This commercial is for the stretched-wheelbase cargo version, but it’s worth watching it just to see 70-year-old Buster Keaton doing his thing.
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You’ll feel like you’ve ingested some Vitamin L when you watch these Falcon Wagon ads… which don’t even mention the Falconized Econoline.To see more than 2,200 additional Junkyard Finds, be sure to visit the Junkyard Home of the Murilee Martin Lifestyle Brand™.[Images courtesy of the author]
Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Autoblog, Hagerty, The Truth About Cars and Capital One.
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I clicked on the link to the Dodge A100. Did Murilee ever finish his A100 and if so that would make a good article as well.
The Wooden Shoe School in Denver Colorado used those vans to pick us up for Kindergarten. Miss Mary was our driver. I think the passenger seat was removed and the door could be opened by the driver like a large school bus. The bench seats were running lengthwise on each side of the isle if memory serves.