UPDATE 12/06/2023: We’ve recently seen a few classics appear at Barn Finds where a seller hasn’t tasted success at their first attempt. That leaves them with three choices. They can throw in the towel and keep their pride and joy parked in their garage. Alternatively, they can relist it and hope for a better result. This seller has opted for a third approach: listing it on a different online site, hoping for wider buyer exposure. They didn’t strike gold on Craigslist, so this stunning 1966 Ford Galaxie 500 is listed here on eBay with a BIN of $22,500 and the option to make an offer. There have been no further changes to a car that is sure to turn heads.
11/09/2023: In the 1960s, Ford and Chevrolet’s rivalry may have been at its peak. They tended to match each other model-for-model in the war for market share. As Chevy had the popular Impala, Ford had the Galaxie 500. This example of Ford’s big seller from 1966 may be as nice a copy as you’ll find with only 20,000 miles on the clock due to it being in a dealer’s collection. Located in Milford, Massachusetts, this beautiful 2-door hardtop is available here on Craigslist.
Both Chevy and Ford redesigned their full-size cars in 1965. The Chevies would sell exceptionally well, while Ford got a leg up by introducing the LTD, a luxury edition of the Galaxie 500. Chevrolet would soon follow up with the Caprice to keep the playing field level. These cars were little changed in 1966, and the LTD and Caprice each siphoned off sales from their foundation cars. Chevy continued to win the battle, but not by much, selling 655,000 Impalas vs. Ford’s 597,000 Galaxies (that’s only a 9% variance).
As the story goes, a Ford dealer took this ’66 Galaxie in on trade in the 1990s and tucked it away for safekeeping. As a result, its low mileage stayed that way, and this could be one of the least-used Fords from that period. When it was ordered new, the car came with the Spring Special option package, which added the following to the Galaxie 500: the 7-Liter’s fancy wheel covers, a hood spear, and chrome moldings on the lower quarter panels.
The body and silver/blue paint are nearly perfect, and the original interior looks like it’s been hardly used. When you fire up the 289 cubic inch V8 and automatic transmission, they’re said to run smoothly. We’re told this Ford is one of those “drive it anywhere” kinds of automobiles, though I’d be inclined to use it sparingly and continue to keep the odometer reading on the low side.
Great looking Ford. Now if the mileage is correct the engine compartment should look a lot better. The bright paint on the engine looks new. How come the air filter assembly looks like 120,000 miles. I seen cars from the 60’s with low mileage brought from Estate etc. And the engine compartment looks great the air filter assembly looks brand new. I know I am nit picking but it’s what I see. And this is a big car and heavy with such a small engine. 352,390 or 427 would be nice. And if that mileage is correct I would keep it in the garage and take out only for shows and cruise to ice cream shop. Well good luck to the seller and next owner. 🇺🇸🐻🇺🇸
Not only new, but incorrect blue hue as well. That’s not 66 dark blue. The air cleaner is still correct. 66 was the first year of dark blue. A shame this isn’t a 428, or 427 or even a 390 which were all available in 66
I had a 67 Galaxie that color.
My brother had a 66 exact same color. Had a 240 3 on the tree. Held it’s own against 8’s.
Brings back memories . . . First new car my wife & I bought after we got married . . 66 Galaxie 500 , dark blue metallic , Light blue vinyl , spring sales package , 390 2 bbl. Automatic , 7 Litre wheel covers . . Loved the body style . . Still Do . .
I agree with you, this car had more miles on itl, or if it was restored on the paint and interior. The engine compartment looks too weathered. The mention of 7 liter badges doesn’t fit with a 289 engine. That is a small engine used in small cars like the Falcon and Mustang. Galaxies usually had 351or larger engines. Most common was the 390.
No mention of 7 liter badges, it says 7 liter wheel covers…
Looks almost like what David Vincent (Roy Thinnes) was driving when he first spotted the aliens in the 1960s TV show “The Invaders”.
https://thoroughlythapson.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Ford-Galaxie-500-The-Invaders-6.jpg
Yes, but ’67’s. I hit report comment by mistake. Sorry.
Wow! Been 40+ years since I’ve even heard someone mention that show! I just noticed it’s available on YouTube!
Thanks!
Beautiful car, I’d preserve it and enjoy it immensely. I hope it finds an owner who’ll do just that.
Is documentation that this actually is the nicest one left?!!!
Very nice Ford. The silver blue/white combination looks great. The whitewalls with the 7-Liter wheel covers really set of the looks. Would be a great cruiser.
The standard 7-Litre wheel covers were optional on all full size Fords in 66. My mom’s 2nd cousin had a 390 convertible with those wheel covers. I always liked the style and asked him to save them for me if he ever junked the car. He did and I put them on my 65 Custom. They were great for a 16 year old that couldn’t afford proper custom rims.
Nicest one left for sure!!
There’s a lot of character and soul recently.
Must be something in the water…
It was the summer of 1981 and I had just bought my first car, a 1970 Challenger. I was so excited to finally have my dream car, but my excitement quickly turned to disappointment.
The car was a hunk of junk. The engine overheated, the transmission slipped, and the brakes squealed. I took it back to the dealership where I bought it, but they refused to fix it.
“You bought it as-is,” the salesman sneered. “There’s nothing we can do.”
I was furious. I had been scammed. I decided to get revenge.
I called my friend Mark, a mechanic, and told him what had happened. He agreed to help me.
We found a 1967 Ford Galaxy in a junkyard. It was in terrible condition, with rust holes all over the body and a barely running engine. We bought it for a few hundred dollars and towed it back to Mark’s garage.
Over the next few weeks, Mark and I worked on fixing up the Galaxy. We patched up the holes holes with cardboard and random sheet scraps, put on a 2 barrel carrb from a chevette, and gave it a 20 foot spray can paint job. It was lip stick on a pig.
When it was finally finished, we took it to the used car dealership. The salesman was surprised to see us.
“What do you want now?” he asked.
“We want to sell you this car,” Mark said.
The salesman laughed. “You’re kidding, right? That car is a piece of junk.”
“We know,” I said. “But you’re the one who sold us a piece of junk Challenger. So now it’s your turn to buy a piece of junk Galaxy.”
The salesman’s face turned red with anger. “I’m not buying that car,” he shouted.
“That’s up to you,” Mark said. “But if you don’t, we’re going to tell everyone about how you sell junk cars and refuse to fix them.”
The salesman hesitated for a moment, then sighed. “Fine,” he said. “I’ll buy your car.”
We sold him the Galaxy for a good profit. As we drove away, we looked back at the salesman and laughed. He had gotten what he deserved.
Thanks for the good memories, this car is a lot nicer than my galaxy.
And for those wondering, my next car was a 72 Duster. Much better than that forsaken challenger.
A 2barrel carb from a chevette? Lol I don’t think so
Good for you, memories! Most folks who get taken to the cleaners with a used car snafu don’t get the opportunity to get back at the crooked snake who sold it to them.. we just have to hope that old man karma pays them a visit!
Even as a creative writing exercise, which your story obviously is, this recollection is absurd. Perhaps you bought a POS from some small time used car dealer, but the revenge aspect smacks of ludicrous ideas of what you wished you had done. What sort of “good profit” could one ever get, at wholesale (which is what dealers pay), on a 14-year old beater that you paid “a few hundred dollars” for in 1981?
The older you get, the better you were …
Sorry, not smelling what you’re cooking.
Too much money for this one.
Tired engine bay tells a much different story than 20k miles.
Small block a
big disappointment here and newly painted water pump highlights the dirty engine bay and no power assist on the brakes.
In ’77 I owned a ’67 Ford Custom (PI) and loved that big Ford!
Good Luck here.
Needs a bigger motor. And a 4spd.
Love the hubcaps.
That interior is not a standard Galaxie 500 interior. It’s either part of the “Spring Special Package” or something else.
The first car that I drove was a ’66 Galaxie 500 (351 automatic). It had that same interior only in red.
The 351 (it was a small block) wasn’t introduced until 1969. The 352 (FE big block) was available in 1966. Two very different engines with nearly identical displacement.
This is a nice big Ford but this story is off, I agree this isn’t a low mileage engine bay. And who orders a yacht with a trolling motor?
Since it’s obviously not original, drop a 390 and 4 speed and at least make it fun. But that price needs to drop at least $5K for me to even consider. Good luck to next owner, again a beautiful car!
Where’s the beef? Just a paper weight without the 427. Beautiful sitting still.
No different than a 283 Impala
Engine compt too dirty for a 20K mile car.
A nice car for sure. However, I saw the wheelcovers and was disappointed to find a 289, bench seat rig, instead of an actual 7Liter car. 289 will get you down the road, 428 will give you wings!
The engine has obviously been repainted. So, catastrophic failure before 20k miles? Possible, but doubtful. Nice car? Yes. Nicest one left? No.
Beautiful, well kept Galaxie. Too bad it is about as basic of a model you could get, sans the “Spring Special” additions. Trim and vinyl top. No AC. No PB. Hardtop, not the fastback model, etc. Almost suprised it has carpeting. Glad it at least has PS! I believe the interior is original. Very basic without the pressed vinyl cross seat back insert seen on many in ’66. Thank goodness it has an optioned 289, as the standard engine was a 240 straight-six! But, I agree the 390 would have been a better choice! The “Cruis-o-matic” referenced could be a C4, MX or FX tranny and I wouldn’t expect to find an optionable Trac-Lok rearend. The “SS” trim is mostly lifted from the LTD/XL as are the wheel covers from the XL. The red inserts in the center wheel cover towers always fade. The big miss for me is the much more attractive front grill on the LTD, XL and Country Squire. I agree with the other opinions that the engine comparment reflects a 120K car, maybe it was used for the owners annual winter trip and months in Florida. The biggest problem with these mid-sixties big Fords was the frames, reportedly made with recycled steel, combined with poor drainage design leading to rust-through. Check the frame box behind the front wheels and the back end of the side rails and continuing up the curve in front of the rear axle. I had a ’66 Country Squire, ’67 XL ‘vert, ’67 LTD FB and ’67 Country Squire back in the day. Wish I still did. GLWTA
All you naysayers, doubting the mileage on this car, there is one irrefutable fact to the mileage claim. Look at the speaker grill in the dash pad. Over the 40 years I’ve been looking for parts for my 7 Litre, I’ve found two that were in this condition. I once bought a pad from a vendor in southern Indiana that turned out to be from a Custom, no radio, base model with no provision for a radio speaker. I complained to the vendor, his response was just drill out the holes yourself. There’s something like THIRTEEN HUNDRED HOLES in the pad for the radio speaker! As far as the 289, like my 500 hardtop has, with an Edelbrock manifold and four barrel, a transplanted SROD overdrive four speed and a 3.00:1 axle, it’s livable as a daily driver. My favorite memory of that car is, after winning its class at the Carlisle Ford show, running home on I-68 through Maryland (beautiful road), running 80-85mph, and knocking down 20mpg. I came up on an Infiniti G35 sports car, and he pulled over to let my boat sail by!
I had a 66 Galaxie 4 door in college. Paid $37 for it! I had to put a radiator, grill and a few other odds/ends as he had somehow taken a 2×4 through the grill. It was previously a one family car and had been ordered by the guy’s granddad with the 289/auto and dog dish caps. It really didn’t do too bad in the mountains of Colorado and got about 16mpg to boot.
When 16 and my buddy 15 we took the liberty of taking his brother’s 66 galaxy that looked like this but a red version of it with same caps and trim. He decided to floor it on a snow packed road and end result was the galaxy hitting a tree exactly dead center, that was difficult to explain.
If it’s truly a 20,000 mile car….. please explain the absolutely neglected engine compartment! C’mon, you have a dealer stored car because he knew it would be worth money, but he couldn’t afford to clean up the engine compartment….. not buying it. Nice looking car, but smells like a scam. You could easily roll back the odometer on these older cars. Right?
not easy but “Yes”.
Y do it? its fraud. Loose the money made in the sale.
I can appreciate all the skeptics here however when my friend pulled this car out of the dealers barn in 2021 with 18110 miles it still wore its dealer installed plastic seat covers, and full size matching front and rear floor covers, had brand new 1980 steel belted Montgomery Ward road hugger tires,(dry rotted from sitting) and a Blessed Virgin Mary figurine on the dash. In the trunk was an original used spare tire with two mounted studded snow tires(looked brand new) from a Mobil service station. The undercarriage is completely undercoated from the factory and still looks new as well as the frame. Prior to me selling it to the current owner I replaced the cap and rotor that were both stamped FOMOCO and the wires appeared to be original as well. All four headlights are the original FOMOCO stamped lights. This car was a driver in its first life but never accumulated many miles in its 28 years of ownership. The second 28 years it remained in storage. This car runs and drives like a brand new 66. It truly pained me to have the odometer tick over to the 20k range. (i have a video of that)Like most of you I like to tinker with my cars and add wheels, stereos and what not, but I could not get myself to do anything to this original time capsule, so I had to sell. I do not know the current owner but I wish him well with the sale.
Wwwow! Gorgeous. A lot has already been written, I’m sure there’s not much more I could add. 289 though? A little undersized for this car. Sure looks great tho!
My 66 was an XL with a center console and buckets. A 390 and a whole lot of miles. It was unfortunate. I took the word of the seller and bought it without really looking at it. One morning I was walking around it and I noticed a dent that wasn’t there before and I also noticed if I lifted the rear bumper on the right side of the car, the dent magically disappeared. Ended up the frame was rusted almost through at the top the wheel well. Ended up A LOT worse when I finally looked. And like Donald Sutherland said in the Italian job, I trust everyone. It’s the devil inside them I don’t trust. It’s unfortunate to learn the hard way. $5,000 for a car that basically needed a frame and floorboard and rear quarters which I knew but also many other things that were wrong with the car that I didn’t know , which added up to it wasn’t worth putting back together. It was a shame could have been a nice one.
We had a 67 Custom 500 4 door with a 289 when I was growing up, learned to drive in that boat. Don’t dis the 289, they were rock solid engines with plenty of power for these cars. Not NASCAR fast like a 390 or 427, but well suited for highway travel. Ours got around 16-18 mpg IIRC, not bad for a 4000 lb boat.
This one looks good in blue, would be nice to have buckets and console, but it is what it is.
I really liked the new look of the 65 Fords, and the new LTD option. When the 66 was announced, it built largely on the 65 looks. The front vertically stacked headlights were surrounded by a softer, rounded look and the grill had a center dividing line. The taillights were now squared off than the 65, but I liked it just as much as I did the 65s. I could sense a high quality in those Fords that was different from other brands which at the time was the 5 brands from GM, and the 3 from the Chrysler Corporation. The materials used in the interior seemed a lot nicer. I had an uncle who bought a new 67 Galaxie it was a 2 door fastback in a much darker blue metallic with the same light blue vinyl interior. I’m not sure why but I seemed to really like the Fords of the late 60s, although each model year was a lot different than the year before. My uncle’s 67 had the 289 cubic inch engine, and so did my oldest brother’s 66 Mustang, and I remember thinking that the 67 Galaxie must be very under powered, but my uncle didn’t seem to think so. Most of the full-size Fords I was framilure with had at least the 390 under the hood, and that seemed to make more sense. It was the entire Ford line up of the late 60s are the reason why I’m the Ford man I am today. I only drive Ford Motor Company products, I always have and always will. The one featured here is very good-looking, I’m not sure how original it is, and I question the 289 under hood would be strong enough, but it is what it is. It was great for the Mustangs.
Blue paint on engine?
The steering wheel looks like it has been beaten on.
How do you explain this on a 20,000 mile car?
Man, you Ford guys are power hungry, lol. You don’t buy a ’66 Galaxy to race it. Without getting into the milage discussion, this car is a nice quiet ride, but you’d want something very different for muscling around. My family had several full size ’63 Chevy’s, including an SS and a wagon each with 283s, and that was plenty for drivers. My dad’s first new car was a ’65 Ford Custom with the standard six, vinyl seats, and no power anything. It hauled the bunch of us wherever we needed to go.
Even with only 20,365 miles on it the road salt is pretty obvious. This is a nice Ford and I would drive it.
Not a 7 litre, refers to engine size which would be the 428. No badge on the sail panel.
Something fishy
I don’t think it’s over priced. Good to see that from a seller.
Value of $3,500 from 1966 to 2023
$3,500 in 1966 is equivalent in purchasing power to about $33,236.06 today, an increase of $29,736.06 over 57 years.
I agree with the miles aren’t right. Check out the film of oil on the underside of hood. It appears the hoods been over a tired motor. Notice the seats: some of the fabric looks new and some doesn’t. Check out the back bumper. The right end has a pretty heavy twist in it, which is probably because it got hot when they buffed it to replate, and they didn’t have a bumper bar to take the twist out after it was back on the car.
It’s a nice car, but could be lots nicer, and I don’t believe the miles.
Not sure if this paint code link will work for 66 Ford. Could not copy and paste the card.. May have to copy the link and paste it in the web address.
It shows all the paint colors..
https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/2918481611622386/
really nice: the straight lines after the ’50s bulge-m0biles, before the ‘humps over the wheels’ late 60s muscle, stamped 1 piece grill, bench seat, & esp the stacked hd lghts. Deserves a 351M or the 400 (still a ‘small block’), no? (450# v 700# for the 390)? Si`!
A vert, 5 speed, lowered, bigger wheel, discs, R&P, 8.8 inch, etc… Mmm mmm mmmm…