Rocco B. is slamming it out of the ballpark again, tracking down this mind-blower of a 1969 Ford Fairlane 500 4-door sedan. This is one good-looking car, four doors or not, and if it really is all original, this is quite a find. The seller has it posted here on craigslist in Medford, Wisconsin, and they’re asking $4,900. Here is the original listing, and thanks again, Rocco!
The seller lists the mileage as being 27,874 miles, and if the body is original, it would be a heck of a find. We can’t really see the details, and if it’s a Wisconsin car, I’m always squeamish about rust. Not to pick on Wisconsin, but any upper-Midwest or Northeast vehicle. Even one with fewer than 28,000 miles, which presumably means it hasn’t seen many winter driving miles. They do say that it comes with snow tires, however.
Gorgeous, just gorgeous, right down to the perfect red-painted steel rims, white wall tires, and dog dish hub caps. Ford offered the sixth-generation Fairlane for only two model years in North America, 1968 and 1969. They came in a wide variety of body styles, so for once, I don’t have to spend a couple of hours tinkering with a weird modified version. Although, since it’s in Wisconsin, if they made one with a snowmobile track instead of rear wheels… (kidding)
The interior is somewhat hard to see, as there are only two photos and no detailed photos. From what we can see, it looks great. The seller says it’s original and is in perfect condition, so that’s good news. The seats sure look perfect in the other photo, showing both doors open. I wish we got to see inside the trunk compartment, and especially the underside. You already noticed the third pedal – yes, this car has a three-speed manual with a column shifter.
The engine is Ford’s 250-cu.in. OHV inline-six with 155 horsepower and 240 lb-ft of torque when new. That’s a decent amount of power, but most of us were probably hoping for a V8 of some sort. Backed by a Borg Warner T-150 three-speed manual (according to this page), it’s said to run well and has a new battery, and everything works as it should. This would be another popular car at any vintage car event after some underhood detailing. Would any of you consider a car like this Fairlane 500, despite it having four doors? I sure would.
To answer your question Scotty, I sure do like this Fairlane. I like muscle cars like every other person, but I find that I am also drawn to the more simple, common cars of their day. And nothing more mundane than a four-door low-option six-cylinder black interior Fairlane. About the only frill is the whitewall tires. Odd to say, but it would be even better if it was a more boring color. The icing, of course, is the three-on-the-tree.
I agree about the color, Bob. Make mine Medium Green or Lime Gold.
https://i.pinimg.com/736x/33/b0/f8/33b0f837b3a0cfa9c088ce34669416f7.jpg
Those colors would demand matching interiors though.
I’d love to see the snow tires it comes with. I’m curious if their Studded Bias Plys!!!! I wouldn’t run them, but I would sure keep them with the car. I just love this thing. Like Bob mentioned, simple every day cars we just don’t see any more. Can’t you just picture a Librarian or a 2nd grade teacher driving this car very proudly to work? From what I can see in these photos, that mileage claim sounds very realistic. And if this is original I sure hope it stays that way and gets preserved ( and no one uses those snow tires lol) great write up Scotty and a great car too.
Hi Dave, funny you should mention that, studded snow tires were available for only a short time in Wis. They enabled the most powerless cars to burn rubber. They were detrimental to the road surfaces,, and remember well, the “grooves in the road” they caused. Also stopping on dry pavement was increased, and Wis. banned them in 1975, except for emergency or postal use.
Thats so funny you mentioned that Howard. I absolutely remember winters in NJ. You could have studded snow tires on from I think Nov. To March or maybe April, but can’t remembernow. And I also remember how much easier it is to light the tires up with then, and yes, the poor streets absolutely took a beating . More memories!!!! Thanks Howard!!!
Dave
Stick is gonna kill it,,, there, got that out of the way, speaking of, that clutch pedal almost on the floor, shifty characters may want to put a clutch on the list. No the end of the world, I face that with the Jeep someday. There’s no question it’s original, but I just don’t see a sale happening. Why do you think so many of these clean older cars with sticks are showing up here? Nobody wants them. I realize denial is great, but at some point, and we are certainly there, we have to accept nobody in the future will want this. NOW, and hate to be redundant, IF this car was an automatic, it wouldn’t even be listed here, as someone local would have scarfed it up. You’ll see, that crabby old fart was right,,
Now, on to Medford Wis. About an hour north of Marshfield, and the last Walmart for miles. The last most industrious city in N.Wis., people commute a long distance for work. The biggest employer? That’s easy, you like pizza? Mmmmmmm, well, Tombstone has a plant in Medford, and make several kinds there. While production numbers for Medford aren’t available, the US consumes an astonishing 3 BILLION pizzas a year, and Tombstone is one of the biggest. They make Tombstone, of course, but also Jacks, DiGiorno, Cal. Kitchen, Palermos, and several others. And I’m proud to say, they are made in my home state. The cheese, mozzarella, aside from beer, is Wis. #1 product and no longer leads the country in milk, that went to California.
I honestly had no idea about N. Wisconsin and Tombstone pizzas Howard. I’m chuckling to myself reading this and the phrase…. ” What do you want on your Tombstone ” is going through my head!!! And now I’m hungry too. ( It’s your fault lol) Thanks for writing about that.
Dave
The wonky clutch pedal position may be due to worn bushings in the linkage. If this car uses the same arrangement as the earlier Falcons, a worn bushing on the cross shaft under the hood can allow the pedal to stick to the floor. The official cure is to install new bushings, which used to be made of hard white plastic. The cure I came up with (back when I was 16 years old and didn’t have two bits) was to use mechanics’ wire to support the shaft and keep it at an even keel. I looped the upper end of the wire around the accelerator linkage directly above it. I made that fix in 1971 and it was still holding when I sold the car in 1973.
Never seen one with 6 cylinder , 155hp is not too bad. Was it a fire department car? Really red with low miles and poverty caps, Howard’s great, info on Frozen pizza!
I’d buy it. No problem driving a 3-speed manual transmission. And a straight six under the hood, yes! Durable engine and so easy to work on. Good reliable transportation when gas was cheap and Rock N Roll ruled the airwaves.
I’d buy it.
No problem driving a 3-speed manual transmission. And a straight six under the hood, yes! Durable engine and so easy to work on. Good reliable transportation when gas was cheap and Rock N Roll ruled the airwaves.
i had almost the same car in a 2 door coupe. same roof line as this, no fastback. fairlane (not 500) with a 250 cid ONE barrel. Same transmission too, although i broke several of the shifter sleeves. dealership had them in stock, and i learned how to pull the steering wheel to replace it. and yes i got my butt torn up by my dad. i don’t remember details, but it got good gas mileage and ran just fine. mine was a light, almost sky blue, with a white top. i can’t buy this one but if it was closer to me i’d sure pay him just to drive it around a while. hopefully i wouldn’t break the sleeve this time.
I know it would be sacrilege but I’d put a floor shift in it. It just makes driving a stick much more fun.
Might as well make it a 4 speed then. That would wake up that 6 a bit.
Hi Howard! Marshfield you say? My MIL, SIL, and neice lived there in the early 2000s. They said that the people there were
very friendly and that it was a really nice place to live. They also said that the only thing there was to do during winter was to go to one of many bars there and get totally smashed!
They also said that a bar room brawl was nothing more than a face slapping contest! They also told me that they were swarmed by guys that wanted to meet and talk to Florida women! Maybe I should go there and try to date someone there. Maybe I can impress the ladies by being a Florida man
LAMO! As for this car, what a basic beauty she is. Just add a radio and enjoy. Like I said before, the girls may not like it,
but I certainly do. This is a car that an average person might’ve driven back then. My Aunt looked at one of these before choosing a brand new Maverick sedan that year. And original too?! I’ll bet it would still make a trip to Old Town every so often too. Very nice!
Hi Kenneth, Marshfield is kind of the gateway to the Nort’woods. Actually that’s a misnomer about getting “smashed”. The tavern in N.Wis. was more of a social/eating AND drinking place. As horrific as it sounds, people in Wis. are “professional” drinkers, they generally know their limits. Years ago, there was no cable or TV and the tavern was the place to be with family and friends, some of those taverns had the absolute best food.
Re: going there for women,,,eeehhhnnn( buzzer sounding), all the women left Wis. to come out here and want nothing to do with a man, I’ve found,, just the facts,,,
And what else put Marshfield on the map, as it is the birthplace of the “tenwyde” mobile home in 1954. Prior to this mobile homes were 8 ft wide trailers that could be pulled by cars ( think Lucille Ball and the Long Long Trailer) but the Marshfield company introduced the ten foot wide mobile home that required trucks and permits to transport but really opened up mobile home living. The ten wides evolved to 12, 14 and double wides giving much needed affordable housing.
Funny you say that, Ken. A friend of mine who lived in Florida when he was young(many years ago), told me that Florida women were VERY friendly!
Thank for the heads up Howard. In Bloomington, the diner was where you went to catch up on the news and latest gossip. And yeah, it was like “Cheers” where everybody knew your name too. And before my Mom landed a job at Eureka Williams in 1960, she worked at Fat’s Diner as a waitress. She knew her regular customers and they knew her. Our town seemed to be full of these Mom and Pop diners back in the day before the big chains came in and squeezed most of them out. When I went home for a visit 20 years ago, the Federal Cafe was the only one left in operation. Very sad too as these places had the best food around. And as for the ladies, it’s the same way here in Florida. There’s a lady friend of mine who lives in our complex that I visit from time to time
and she’s the same way. The closest thing to a date with her
would be going down to Subway for a foot long nachos. Other than that, no dice. Too bad the folks here at BF won’t open a bar and grill, you would more than likely find me there
either sipping a very large iced tea or a Mountain Dew and swapping stories with the rest of you. Angel would be holding court as usual and we all would be having a really good time. So how ’bout it guys? Even a vertual place would be awesome. And yeah, those of us who play music could have a place to play on weekends. Hmmm. I can almost see what it would look like too!
My mom had one of these. Used 60 Custom , 2 door, light blue, 6, 3spd, used studded tires in winter ( NW Colorado ). Don’t believe even a radio. She wheeled it for many years til the old man got a deal on a used 67? Sheriff car. Black, 4door Custom, 428? Big block, 4 on the floor. Good times, good wheels.
This car is really cool, just for the fact, as mentioned above, you never see them. Hopefully the road to Cars & Coffee doesn’t have too many curves; without power steering might be a little tough! Could be something to add in along with power brakes. nice, simple car, never stolen by kids. LOL!
Hey, Scotty, were you in Mn. when they outlawed studded tires here? About 1971 or ’72. I spent a lot of time at the service station I worked at pulling them out with an ice pick.
They are probably rarer than any other version of this car. Imagine how many of these were crushed and their metal recycled 20 times over by now.
I believe this is a basic Fairlane, not a Fairlane 500. It’s missing the Fairlane 500 lower body trim, and in every photo I’ve seen, the “500” is next to the “Fairlane” emblem, not beneath it. Grandpa must have wanted to feel special, so he added the “500” emblems to his basic Fairlane.
Oh boy, you are absolutely right, CCFisher! I can’t believe I missed that. I’ve edited the post. Both were easy to see (the 500 below rather than next to Fairlane, and the bottom trim), and yet I missed both, ugh. Thanks for catching that!
looks like a fire chief car
Yep I’d turn it into one in a hot minute. Paint the doors white maybe.
Perfect with my 85 Hahn Pumper
It looks just like a smaller version of the full-size 1969 Ford, especially from the rear. This car should get up and go pretty well with 155 h.p. and 3-speed stick. I like it just the way it is.
Sweetheart of a car!
Those are the seats and door panels of a regular 1969 Fairlane, not a Fairlane 500. My dad had a plain Fairlane and I drove it till it died. The Fairlane 500 interior was a tiny bit nicer.
Thanks for catching that, Bruce. That was a miss on my part for sure. My brain saw those 500 badges, even though they were in the wrong locations, and I just went with it.
I drove a 1969 four-door Fairlane with the same venerable inline-six as this red gem has. The car cost me just $100 in 1980. It was an ex-state of Oregon fleet vehicle so it was already pretty tired. A light shade of green was its color and it had an automatic that went from first to third as the band for the second year was broken. I managed to fix that problem crawling around under the thing on a gravel driveway. I used to outfit it with recapped tires from Tire King seemingly every six months as the front end components were shot and the thing was hard to keep in its lane on the troughed lanes of then asphalt I-5 in the Portland Oregon area. Recapped snow tires would go on for ski season at Mount Hood and for cutting firewood accessed by muddy logging roads. The thing was a bomb and seemingly indestructible!
They were back then Wamedo. But these days, not so much.
As a young musician, I just couldn’t wait for our manager to tell us that we were doing a 3 month tour of the South. Like you, I’d heard all those stories too and couldn’t wait to see if it was true. And boy was it ever! If you had a 2 nighter, you had time for some feminine company and these ladies were more than willing to oblige. My favorites were the ladies in their late 20s to mid 30s. Being a shy young man, I felt I could trust them more than women and girls my own age. And they did not disappoint. They could dish it out, lay it on thick,
and make this young man happy in just one night! And if I woke up early enough the next morning, they sometimes gave me seconds. Then, it was back to work and on the road to the next town. Sometimes they’d meet you at your motel
room for an evening of fun before you went to bed that night.
And no, they weren’t hookers either. They were nice,, older ladies that wanted to meet a band member and have fun with them. And they gave you someone warm to hold on a lonely night. Sometimes that’s what made it all worthwhile. Oops…
Uhhh sorry folks, I got a bit carried away answering Wademo’s question. These days, the ladies are only into guys with good looks, fancy cars, and bank accounts as big as their houses. If you don’t have any of that stuff, you don’t rate. That’s why a lot of nice guys like me don’t even date
anymore. Hope that helps. Had a great time back then too.
And if they ever get that chat room thingy done, I can tell you guys some stories about this and a lot of other aspects of life on the road.
Yes! 6 3 on the tree I would love to but this one. Years ago a friend of mine had one just like this only light ivy green didn’t have a straight panel on it. He passed away his mom gave me the car I drove it a bit but the frame was quite rotted, I recall the strut bar where it mounted to the front of the frame rotted it just moved back and forth in the rust hole. I ended up junking it as it was way too unsafe to continue to drive and I sure wasn’t going to let someone else risk there life driving it.