The first Ford Econoline pickup was introduced in September 1960 as a 1961 model along with a cargo van and a passenger van.
Ford, along with GM and Chrysler, had taken note of the Volkswagen midengine bus of the mid-1950s and started to develop “cab forward” vehicles. To keep costs down, Ford used the drivetrain from their Falcon sedan then created a unibody pickup and van using Ford’s heavily promoted F-100 “I” beam front end. It was relatively inexpensive to build and had a 7-foot bed, which made for a lot of loading space.
The short 90-inch wheelbase truck came standard with a Falcon 85 horsepower in-line-six engine that was placed just behind the front axle. By 1964, three transmissions were offered, a three and four-speed manual column shift and a three-speed Cruse-O-Matic automatic transmission.
The Econoline pickup was a very inexpensive vehicle, probably the cheapest new Ford product offered at the time. It was also very basic, with not even a standard heater, but the engine between the two front seats generally provided enough heat in the cab.
There were two cab options for this truck, the standard three-window and the five-window model. The five-window model had a wraparound window behind the doors to give better side and rear visibility.
An important discovery was made during testing. Since most of the vehicle’s weight was at the front, when a panic stop occurred, the rear wheels would come off the ground. Solution: Put a 165-pound weight in the rear under the truck’s bed.
The first year, 1961, was the best sales year for the Econoline pickup at almost 15,000 sold. Ford promoted their low prices, gas economy up to 30 mpg and that they weighted 1,050 pounds less than a standard half-ton pickup but could still carry more than three-quarter-ton payloads. It had more cargo room but still was 3 feet shorter.
Sales kept falling, though, until their last year of 1967, when Ford sold less than 3,000 units. Why? A big reason was the Japanese small trucks landing in California and the rest of America.
Danville’s Ken Mozek bought this issue’s Ford Econoline pickup just before the pandemic in October 2019 from a Southern California classic Mustang restoration shop in Ventura. When new, it had a straight-six engine, but when purchased in 2019 it had a 289-cubic-inch Ford V8 engine that looked pretty good.
“So it was my pandemic project from then on. It ran but didn’t run great,” Mozek said. “They had done all the painting in Wimbledon White and re-gasketed the windows. It was their shop truck, but they hadn’t done anything with the drivetrain. Once I got it, I slowly tried to upgrade, trying to get a little more horsepower out of it.”
With about a half-inch on each side, the owner pulled the engine out through the passenger side door — no easy task. Mozek took it to a shop to have the engine worked on but actually did most of the mechanical work himself.
“I’m really never done,” he said.
Mozek recently built the side rails out of walnut and mahogany wood. He purchased his Econoline for $13,500 and estimates he has put another $7,000 to $8,000 in it. No one knows exactly what this truck is worth today, but Mozek guesses that it’s in the neighborhood of $30,000 to $35,000. He drives it almost every day and has no interest in selling it.
“It’s too much fun.”
After the success Mozek has had with his Econoline, the retired mechanical engineer says he thought he could build a car. So he has started building and assembling a 427-cubic-inch V8 Cobra kit car in his garage. It’s a lot more difficult than buying something from Ikea, as virtually everything came in a separate box.
Mozek has been working on it about two years and says he is pretty close to having it run. He showed it to me, and I’m impressed. Stay tuned, as I see a future classic car column about it coming.
Have an interesting vehicle? Email Dave at MOBopoly@yahoo.com. To read more of his columns or see more photos of this and other issues’ vehicles, visit mercurynews.com/author/david-krumboltz.