I Had No Idea Econolines Were Called Falcons Once: Cold Start

Cs Falconvan
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Here’s an important fact I didn’t realize until just now, and likely one that will help you immensely during your day today: the first-generation Ford Econoline, you know, the cool cabover one, was also sold, in passenger form, as a Falcon Club Wagon or Falcon Station Bus. Huh! And sure enough, look on the door on that one up there, right under the mirror, and there’s a Falcon badge! Who knew?

I mean, it makes sense, as mechanically these were based on the Falcon, but I never realized they were marketed as such at all. I kinda like it? I miss when car models had “families” where one model would spawn a related wagon and coupé and sedan and in this case, even a van. It generally doesn’t quite work like that now.

Also, what the hell is going on in this picture? They’re washing their van in the river, while camping? Who does that? Just wait and scrub your whitewalls when you get home, buddy, you’re out in the wilderness still, and not only are they just going to get dirty again as you drive out however the hell you got in there, who are you trying to impress? The squirrels? Some deer? Is there a bear there that’s a stickler for a clean car?

Relax, dude, and enjoy camping. Hose your Falcon van down when you get home.

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Mercedes Streeter

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41 thoughts on “I Had No Idea Econolines Were Called Falcons Once: Cold Start”

  1. A junkyard I frequent has one of these in what appears to be decent shape considering it’s surroundings. It’s an old place so I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s been there for 40-50 years. I think about getting it and fixing it up but knowing the owner he wants more than it’s worth. That and having sat in it the view from the driver’s seat is kind of terrifying. There’s some sheet metal and then there’s your legs. Maybe once my kid is grown.

  3. I ended up owning a 1962 Econoline panel van with a 144 6 cylinder engine in late 1973 that I had taken in lieu of return of a $400 deposit that I had rashly made on a 1967 GTO with a 396 Chev engine and four speed when I realized that I couldn’t come up with another $400 cash to finish the purchase. The van had good bones for an Ontario Canada rust belt truck, I replaced the tires, brakes, rear springs and stamped sheet metal engine mounts to pass a safety check and become the 1st vehicle that I had licensed in my name. The thing was light in the rear end, so if the font wheels were allowed to be sucked into a snow bank, the van would immediately swing 180°, imperiling traffic in both directions. I fixed this by loading my 1967 BSA 650 and my 1970 Yamaha snowmobile in the back and dragging them around with me during the snowy months. I also installed a love seat sideways just inside the rear barn doors so that I could back the van onto the berm at the drive in, and swing open the doors and watch the movie with my fiance for as long as we could stand the mosquitoes during the summer months. The longest trip that I ever took with the van was 80 miles, the engine humming along mounted right beside me at 50 miles per hour kept putting me to sleep, only my wife threatening to get out and walk kept me from crashing the thing. When my brother decided that the van was cool and offered to buy it from me I lept at the offer. He had it painted green and sold it a year later to a guy who wrecked it shortly after. I still think about it now and then.

  4. “I miss when car models had “families” where one model would spawn a related wagon and coupé and sedan and in this case, even a van. It generally doesn’t quite work like that now.”

    Yes, it definitely doesn’t work like that these days. But, it also rarely worked like that back in the 60s to. While you have this example of the Falcon name being applied to a 2 and 4 door sedan, station wagon and a van, there are many more examples where you had different names for essentially the same car.

    Biscayne, Belair, Impala, Caprice.
    Grand Ville, Bonneville, Catalina, Laurentian.

  6. My uncle had one and he and dad had to run an errand I would tag along and sit on the engine cover between the front seats. The engine vibration made me, um, tingle down there.

  8. This is the van that made me realize that safety is important. One of my uncles died, and his wife and daughter hospitalized for months when they had a traffic accident in one of these.

    Before that, I loved riding along to the grocery store in the front seat with him because his van was so different and therefore much cooler than any other car I’d rode in. The view was always awesome, and the odd feeling of being on top of the front wheels was a lot of fun for me as a child.

    That accident was the main reason I never bought any of the VW busses I was offered when I was much younger.

  10. Per Wikipedia, Ford of Australia had a Falcon panel van in production from 1960 up to 1999.
    While brake dust isn’t generally so bad with drum brakes one still cringes to think about all the 60s-era asbestos brake dust from those drum brakes getting into the environment, especially the water. Poor fishies.

  11. So they swiped the church van for a boyscout camping trip, and didn’t think they’d be caught, but after driving down those dirt roads, they needed to get rid of the evidence before they got back into town, the river was the only place out of site to wash it.

    I’ve seen several of these vans with the double doors on both sides, pretty cool.

  14. “Who does that?”
    I did-once. Parked my ‘82 Subaru GLF in the Blacksnake river to wash it (non-phosphate detergent).
    Bad idea: some 36 hours later the formerly submerged fuel-pump died on me around 1 am in a sketchy part of town.

    0/10: will not do again!

  15. Ford built a couple of these as support vehicles when they ran Falcons in the Monte Carlo Rallye. Aside from suspension beefups, I recall them having built 260 (or was it 289) V-8s. But no whitewalls.

    I’d put those up for Mercedes’ Holy Grail machines. Any day.

  16. Random-ish side tangent, things like this is why I love going to car shows with my dad. I never knew of this either until running across one at BTT50’s a number of years back. Even as an adult, I still love sitting there listening while my dad explains away the look of confusion on my face.

    Also had an 8 year old correct me when I got the year wrong on a Rolls at that show, so maybe I just don’t know the 50s-60s well enough…..

  18. Or, how about when a manufacturer slaps the same name on a bunch of unrelated models to improve reported sales figures (Camry, Cutlass, Corolla, Prius come to mind)?

  19. Washing one’s car in the local river was a real thing, at least when I was a kid back in the 70’s. And yes, that included dumping out the ash trays right into the river not to mention all the chemicals from the tire cleaners, etc. It was a golden age of indifference.

    2. “Golden age of indifference” is such a perfect line, down to the ambiguity of whether the speaker is praising it or condemning it. Bravo.

  20. Yep. There’s a really cool black and red Falcon Club Wagon I see around here from time to time. First time I saw it I did a double-take, and had to go look it up. Always cool to be surprised by a 60 year old car.

  21. Torch, check out the Ford HFX Aerostar Ghia concept from ’87. Great taillight content that rivals the Mustang with the LCD display in the back from the other day.

    1. Problem is, Ford no longer owns the Futura name. They let the trademark registration on the name lapse, and when they tried to register it for the model that eventually became the Five Hundred in 2005, they discovered Pep Boys snapped it up for it’s in-house brand of tires. Pep Boys did offer to license Futura to Ford for a nominal price, but ford turned down the offer.

      The same thing happened with Ford’s 2005 GT supercar revival. They had planned to use the GT40 name again, but South Africa-based kit car builder Safir Spares claimed that name and wanted payment from Ford to use the name. I’m not sure Safir has a license from Ford to use the original GT40 body style, since Ford still owns it.

  23. I was delighted to find out that I knew something about a vehicle that Torch didn’t. How rare is that.
    When I was a kid in the 1960s, the neighbor kids had a Falcon van pedal car, and I was enough of a car fan at 7 to make note of the markings on the pedal car.

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