Saturday, July 11, 2009

San Francisco Street Sighting - 1968 Ford Galaxie XL

Owners of old cars sometimes hide them from the prying eyes of the public. My strategy for finding interesting old iron is pretty simple: walk around looking for chrome bumpers. Usually I end up finding a generic pickup truck and continue on my way, but sometimes I snag something like this 1968 Ford Galaxie XL fastback. This big beast was parked in an dead-end alley in a space way too small to get out of without constant jockeying or perhaps an "accidental" nudge. Judging by the sheer mass of it, I doubt it would be very difficult to push a Corolla or Civic out of the way. Well, it might scratch the chrome on the bumpers.

The 1968 full-size Ford lineup was big but sporty-looking with hideaway headlights on some models and a rakish fastback coupe body style available. The lineup consisted of the base model Custom, midrange Galaxie, and upper-crust LTD. This car is an XL, the top trim of the Galaxie, and is not badged as a Galaxie. "XL" may or may not mean "Extra Luxury", but the car is certainly Extra Large. It is equipped with the popular 390 cubic inch V8 good for roughly 300 horsepower.

I never saw this Galaxie again to find out whether the left quarter panel was eventually painted, but I hope it was. This is too nice a car to leave looking patchy. It could use some fresh paint and the trim could stand to be rechromed, but as it is, it looks like a solid driver. And the local gas stations probably love it.

No comments:

Post a Comment