FUN WITH BIG FORDS: 1960-’67
THE 1958 MODEL YEAR was a rough one for performance enthusiasts. At the behest of the Automobile Manufacturers Association, the Big Three had agreed to abandon the horsepower wars. In Dearborn, the Ford Y-block went from being a powerhouse, available with a supercharger or dual quads and up to 300 horsepower, to being a humdrum 205-hp second-rank engine. Its successor as top dog, the new FE-series big-block V-8, came in 265-hp, 332-cu.in. and 300-hp, 352-cu.in. flavors, but neither was world-shaking in its performance.
Although the 1957-’58 recession is typically blamed, it feels significant to the muscle enthusiast that only quotidian Rambler gained market share in the 1958 model year. The hot 1957 Rebel wasn’t so key to its image that doing away with it hurt anything, and the practical appeal of the remaining lineup drew in a different set of buyers than the chrome-bedecked luxury barges from Detroit or the now-gone factory hot rods.
While sales improved for 1959, it seems some at Ford knew the company had to get back into the performance game, AMA ban notwithstanding. Partway through the 1960 model year, when the small and inexpensive new Falcon compact was selling like hotcakes, but the restyled big Fords were not, the company took its first steps back and played its part
