Wayne - my dad had never had a new car until '63, he and Mom bought a bright red '63 Falcon stripper, base everything, IIRC didn't even have a radio. That lasted about 6 months until the 63 1/2's came out, they traded for a Falcon 4 door Station Wagon - with a 260 and three on the tree!! My first cruising car and boy did I have fun, a lot of people didn't see the 260 emblems. I also bunged up the column shift just about every time they let me take it (by that time, I had my first car, a '31 Model A pickup, but they'd take mercy on me - or maybe my girl friend). They had that little long roof until '65, bought a Honey Gold '65 SW with a 289 Cruisomatic. Dad had left garage work (Ford garage, naturally) in '62 and was doing pretty good after going back to work as a toolmaker. In early '66, Mom died and Dad wanted to get a different car, hence the Galaxy. By mid '67, he'd gone from the Galaxy to a '67 F100, with 352, back to a stick shift. He trade that for a '70 Ranger XLT with a dog 360 in it - the thing about that truck was the buckets and really nice interior w/factory air, and it was as expensive as my uncle's Cadillac.
Didn't mean to run on, hadn't thought about his trading up so often, but do think about him, especially just before Father's Day. Really miss him..
