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And a lot of people didn't realize that the 64-1/2 & 65 Mustangs were full of Falcon parts. Just look at their dashboards and engines!

A friend in school had a 2 door 64' Comet that was pretty nice. It lasted him a long time. I learned how to drive stick in my uncle's 61' Falcon. Black exterior with red interior and three speed on the column. It was actually a pretty neat car.
He traded it in later for a 64 Falcon Futura with automatic.
When he bought it I helped him wax it, we used the two step Blue Coral paint on it.
It took us an entire day to wash it, wax it, buff it, etc. I think we finished about 9pm that night. But that car (dark blue) sure did look good afterwards.
 
All Mustangs until the '71s were based on the Falcon platform. This is one reason Ford made two very different big block engines in '68 and '69. The old FE big block (introduced in '58 as a 332, later it went to 352, 390, 406, 410, 427 and 428 cubic inch capacities) would barely fit in a Falcon based Mustang, but starting in '67 Ford felt it was important to offer it in 390 and 428 cu. in. sizes. Not many people bought a Mustang or Cougar with a big block, but there were a few, and of course the Shelby KR 500 with the 428. Even changing the plugs on these is pretty hard due to the small engine bay. The 429 and 460 big block (initially the 429 was Ford and Mercury only, with the 460 reserved for Lincoln) is a physically larger engine and just wouldn't fit. So Ford kept the old FE around until the new much larger Mustang and Cougar debuted for '71; these used a lot of Torino bits and the 429 dropped in just fine.

 

The only exception to this is the '69 and '70 Boss 429. That is a very special car designed to use the hemi-head Boss 429 engine. All Ford wanted to do was homologate it for NASCAR, but the France family that controlled NASCAR was already reeling from accusations that the cars were going too fast for the tracks and refused to allow it. Ford made about 3000 Boss 429s, which had even wider heads than the regular 429! Somewhere I've seen a photo of the engine installation line for these cars, each car was under an overhead crane with a Boss engine ready to drop in, and lots of very clean men in white lab coats were gently persuading the engines into the cars by hand. No wonder the Boss 429 cost a bundle! No doubt any Ford engineer who worked on the original Falcon project was amazed at how much that poor little lightweight platform was stretched and pulled over the years, but it surely attests to the overall solidity of the design. 
 
The last of the smaller Comets was 67 and 69 for Falcon. The 68 Comet was a cheaper version of the new mid size Montego and the 70 Falcon was the same version for the Fairlane, which was the Falcon and Fairlane names last year. The Maverick debuted in late 69 and the upscale Mercury Comet version in 70. A good friend had a loaded 74 pea green 4 door Comet with a 302 V8. Boy, would that thing scream.
 
Seeing that Comet reminds me of the time my friend Terry's parents bought one like that in 1963. On a hot San Jose summer day we decided we would wax it for his mom. I still remember that gold-colored can of Vista Paste Wax. We put that wax on thick, almost like peanut butter...the entire car, then we let it dry. We finger-painted after that, crazy sayings and pictures, all in good taste of course. When we "peeled" the wax off you could still see all of our handywork...but it was nice and shiny. Needless to say his parents weren't all that happy but were very cool about it too. They were wonderful people. They re-waxed the car and used an electric buffer but you could always see the writing and make out the illustrations until the day they traded it in on a 1968 Mercury Marquis. We never waxed that although we could have used 4 or 5 cans of Vista with no problem.

I recently lost my friend Terry. We were best friends since kindergarten in 1955. I don't think I am ever going to get over it :-(
 
Representative Gary Ackerman's 1966 Valiant

There is a picture in today's (3/16/12) NYT taken last summer of Representative Ackerman standing in front of his 1966 Valiant in front of the Capitol. It accompanies the story about his retirement at 69 from the US House of Representatives.
 
Thanks everyone! I am so excited.

Just a few notes:

-cfz2882- FoMoCo did have an optional transistor radio in the '63 Comet (AM only), but mine is tube. The one that was in the car was broken, but I did get an identical one out of a '62 that works perfectly. Motorola made it, though Ford-Philco took over the next model year. I've got a RediRad hooked up to it and play my '60s era tunes though the radio (see link).

-Tim- I have the 170, straight 6. Good little engine. I've got an a/c out of another comet that I'm debating putting in, just for those hot summer days. We'll see.

-To everyone who mentioned the paint- I do love the Castillian Gold paint job with Sultana White top... I've not seen another one with that color scheme online. The reason I am considering repainting is the fact that their are rust spots in places poking through the paint. All are minor at the moment, but I don't want them to get worse. Living within a quarter mile of the beach makes for a very rust prone environment. Also, I realize it's hard to tell from the pictures, but the hood has been repainted in the car's life (fairly poorly)... It doesn't match the rest of the car. My thought is the only way it could match the rest would be to repaint the whole thing. I'm not doing this in the near future, but it is on my list of things to do eventually. If I do, I won't change the color.

 
170 cdi 6 is a good engine Will. My mothers 64 Falcon Futura had that and it was quite powerful for a little car. Problems we had was rust and the valve guides wearing out, so oil consumption was getting bad, but easy to replace. You could change the oil and filter from the top without getting under the car. My aunt had a 63 Futura and the cars were totally different looking but the same underneath. My great uncle owned the Ford/Mercury dealership and being a car nut I was always riding my bike there and bugging the salespeople as a kid. Naturally, my family drove Ford products or walked then. I am all GM now.
 
My mother's family was a Ford family, but my father's switched around (Chrysler products mostly, but there was a Chevy, 2 VWs, Austin Martin, and more). My first car was a Chevy Caprice (hense my sn). Ironically, I've turned into a Ford man apparently. I just sold the Caprice, so all I have left are Ford products!
 
I agree that is a great color combination, it looks like a much more expensive car, a color that you would have seen on the full size cars... a friend of mine has a 63 Comet S22 with the 260 V8... very quick! Do you go to the shows, locally or up at Carlisle? It's always great to see original preserved cars like yours at the shows. Valiants were my family's primary cars for many years (downright luxurious compared to the prior VW Beetles and Morris Minor) and the basic cars were indestructible, if rust prone...
 

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