1965 Ford Fairlane 500 Custom Ranch Wagon

1965 Ford Fairlane 500 Custom Ranch Wagon 289 for sale on BaT Auctions - ending October 11 (Lot #214,438) | Bring a Trailer

 

I always thought the grille/headlight combination on these looked odd in some way.

 

looks like a Rambler a bit, or also, a generic toy front end.

 

Right. Almost two dimensional as opposed to three dimensional. Like the front of a pedal car stamped in steel.

 

Ford kind of dropped the ball on styling on these in '65 in my opinion.

 

I've noticed that from '63 to around '65 Ford made an effort to 'match' the styling of the mid-sized Fairlane as much as possible to the big Ford of the same year, mostly evident in the front grill/headlamp appearance..... I think '63 was a success, to a lesser degree for '64 and '65. Big Ford first, then Fairlane....
1963:


1964:


1965: (new body on the big cars, but not on the Fairlanes...)



I DO see a sort of similarity in the headlamp bezels on the '65 cars.......just oriented differently. The Fairlane would get the stacked headlamps the next year, when it's body was all new.

 

You've made a good point Marshall. I think there was certainly a design philosophy at work there. It just didn't work for 65 in my opinion. Literally came out flat.

 

Sold for USD $9,000 on 10/11/25