My sporty "garage find" 65 Galaxie 500XL conv

[tom406]

A very nice lady allowed me to buy her late husband's '65 Galaxie that he bought in '67 and was his "baby" until he died in '02. It has less than 70k miles on it, and 12k of those where on it in '67. She's had it under a car cover in the garage ever since. You don't see many of these with a 4 speed-they came standard with 289/auto. So what is interesting is that while there was an upcharge to the 300hp 390cid "Thunderbird" V8, there was no charge for the 4 speed (see window sticker). Nicely optioned, though I wish it had power brakes. Looking forward to getting this one running and driving again

[mockingbird812]

Very nice. Love all the chrome in the interior. Keep us posted on your progress!

[Charley Lillard]

Cousins !!!!

[Mr70]

Very nice.
Exactly what makes it a Safety Convenience Control panel,and what's the Visibility group?

[tom406]

Well apparently its convenient to have all of these at your fingertips between the dash and console. 1,3, and 5 (door lock, seat belts, flasher) are buttons, 2 and 4 (low fuel and door ajar) are just lights. Not sure why seat belts is a button-maybe you can defeat buzzer if you prefer to be "thrown clear" to safety in this convertible. (I guess that's where the power brake money went-Power brakes were a $43 option while that convenience control panel was $51.50. I'd prefer the "convenience" of not using both feet to stop after banging through the gears....)

I'm pretty sure Visibility Group was a package that had the remote mirror in the door, day/night rearview, and maybe multispeed wipers?

[427TJ]

Tom, shouldn't yours have an engine badge on the fenders since it's a 390? 352 cars didn't get them or?

[tom406]

Yes Bill it should have a 390 emblem on that fender - there's one on the driver's side. I think that fender was replaced early on, since it's not damaged but the long Galaxie500XL emblem has mounting issues as well.

[442w30]

Initially, I thought the standard tranny was a 3-speed. But then I saw this:

http://www.lov2xlr8.no/brochures/ford/65ford/5.html

[tom406]

To clarify to others reading-we are talking about Galaxie 500XL's here with standard 289 V8/ automatic. Galaxie 500 convertibles were also available and had 240 6-cylinder /3-speed manual drivetrain standard.

[442w30]

Yep