Falcon

I owned one of the most gutless cars ever. I did say, "one of", didn't I. I know the case can be made that other cars had even less power than my 1960 Ford Falcon. That was the first year of the Falcon. The only engine option was the in-line six cylinder, 144 cubic inch version. The automatic transmission made things even worse. It had only two speeds slow and medium slow.

It did have some positives though. For instance, you could not spin the tires. I don't think you could spin the tires under any circumstance. I could go up any icy hill in Portland. As I said, it would not spin a tire.

Because the transmission only had two speeds, the engine was turning pretty fast at highway speeds. Consequently, it only got 19 miles to the gallon. It got that mileage whether you were driving wide open or puttin along looking for quail.

Speaking of highway speeds, my Falcon would go about 70 tops. Well unless you count coming downhill off of Mt Hood with the wind behind me. I think I managed to get to 85 for a half mile or so.

I should not say all these bad things about my first car. I managed to install a four track in it. Oh, and I also intalled a Franz Oil Filter too. This oil filter used a roll of toilet paper. The idea was to simply open the cannister, remove the old roll and replace the soggy, messy filter with a new one every thousand miles. Admittedly it worked well.

I had a bumper sticker that read "PAULSON FOR PRESIDENT - - - We Cannot Stand Pat". Do ya get it? Pat Paulson, the comedian, for president. hah hah.

Oh, and I installed after market back up lights. Imagine whenever you put that lousy transmission into reverse, the backup lights would come on. Not very many cars had such technology, but my Falcon did!

Well all things come to an end. My falcon blew the top out of one of those midget pistons as I passed the Portland Zoo, headed to work. It had to get towed home. Ahh, the memories.

Kayak Bandit '(*!*)'