DESERT FLOWER
WHEN THE FIRST shots in the fusillade that became the Total Performance program at the Ford Motor Company were squeezed off in the early 1960s, the Galaxie line was the focus of most Ford muscle-building in the immediate pre-Mustang years. Grown into slab-sided elegance by 1963, its barrel-themed taillamp treatment was borrowed from the Ford Quicksilver design concept, created in part by the estimable Jack Telnack, under the overall styling leadership of Elwood Engel. The Galaxies were big cars, riding on a 119-inch wheelbase, and making them credible performers required big engines, which was also addressed in 1963.
Until then, Ford had relied on its . big-block with either single or tri-power carburetion as its maximum motivator. All that flew out of a Dearborn suite’s window in 1963 when Ford enlarged its FE-series OHV V-8 to a full ., matching the displacement that had not-so-secretly been engineered at Chevrolet. Replacing the 406 in all applications were two new 427s: The Q-code, fed by a single Holley 780-cfm
