My apologies if i've posted this to the wrong section! some really newbie questions: further in my search for 66 ford falcon futura wagon.... i've been looking for a black exterior/red interior... and aside from dannydoo's terrific example i haven't seen anything yet. (to be fair i haven't been looking long yet) i do have a line on one possibility though...i don't know how much they're asking yet but it should be under $500. i have seen pics. the body looks in great shape and so does the interior. don't know about the engine/inner guts yet. but at <$500 i don't think i should expect perfection. the problem is that this car is exactly the opposite of what i've been looking at. ie it has a red exterior and black interior. how important is all this in the greater scheme of things. is it important to keep the original colour scheme that the car came in? i've seen things go both ways where a car is rebuilt to the original and others where the car is done the way the new owner wants... whether that's hot rod, new engine, gaudy purple/orange paint etc.... it would certainly be easy to repaint and redo the interior during rebuilding what about have a 'numbers matched' car with the assumption that this is important. what does this mean and is it important? any car i do get is destined to be a very nicely done daily driver. No more; no less. no concours stuff or anything like that.
You kind of answered your own question. Let's do it this way. Any garden-variety 1957 Chevy wagon in pristine, restored condition, not numbers-matched will fetch $15K to $33K. Any Chevy Nomad of the same vintage would be up there too. But a 1955 or 56 Pontiac 'Nomad' (can't recall the model name), would hit lottery figures! So would the earlier Falcon converts and maybe the odd wagon. 40 years from now, who knows? I'd build it Sinatra's way - AKA yours. Vancouver's got some great people in Body and Upholstery to put the fine points on. The one guy you might PM is Ford Fellow. He does collector work for Californians, from his shop in Prince George, BC. Here's some of his fine work: http://www.stationwagonforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4318
I agree with Norman - do it however you want. I certainly wouldn't recommend that anyone severely modify an all-original, low mile Chevy Nomad, but a '66 Ford Falcon wagon is never going to be in that value range. That being said, I wouldn't necessarily recommend a complete color change. Doing it correctly involves complete disassembly of the vehicle, down to the bare shell, and is quite labor-intensive. I think you are going to have a hard time finding an original black '66 Falcon wagon. I'd take the red wagon with the black interior, and call it 'close enough'.
+1 on doing it your way....I have two '65 2 dr falcon wagons....one is a custom hot rod that is pushing 400 hp and the other I want to keep as an original 289....the wagons are getting very hard to find and need saving...the one I recently got for $800 includes the original rearend and a/c....also it is an original 289 car but I am going to give it the original upholstery/exterior color....the rule of thumb is this in my view if it has alot of the original parts including engine and tranny then keep it original....if you go on www.falconregistry.com you can find out the production #'s on your '66 falcon wagon...if I know I am not going to see any other falcon wagons at car shows then just think what you have
It appears that ford produced 13574 wagons in '66 assuming you have the 4 dr futura wagon....so obviously you can see it is a rare car with probably less than 1500 roadworthy in the world.....check the vin # and see the options as well....if it is highly optioned I would go original with the interior AND IF NOT YOU WILL GET JUST AS MUCH NOTICE AT CAR SHOWS WITH THE INTERIOR COLOR OF YOUR CHOICE
