Those of the right vintage will remember the '80s soap opera
Falcon Crest. Set in a California Vineyard, it involved actors like Jane Wyman and Lorenzo Lamas strutting around with big hair and having dramatic discussions about harrowing internal family conflicts and various power struggles. In other words, it was quite a sleeper.
Jeff Goodwin's '66 Falcon on the other hand is quite the opposite. With its Sapphire Blue paintjob and Canary Yellow scallops, it's definitely no sleeper. And while there are power struggles involved here, they're mostly between the driveshaft and the Ford 9-inch rearend, or the '89 Mustang motor and the Tremec TKO five-speed transmission.
But we're getting ahead of ourselves. Jeff didn't just buy this Futura sport coupe and hand it to a shop to do all the work in a couple of months. He built it himself over an extended period of time. Jeff has been a true Blue Oval man since day one, and has been interested in this car in particular for more than a decade. At the time, he was working in a salvage yard.
"I had a friend in high school who bought the car and drove it for six months," said Jeff. "Then, he sold it to my brother in 1993 for $700. My brother drove it for about two years in its original shape." After a while, Jeff's brother sold it to their father, and it sat on the side of the house for about three years. But before it could languish into obscurity, Jeff came to the rescue.
"I bought it from my dad and started working on it a little bit at a time," recalled Jeff. "For the most part, I just drove it and saved up money to put into it, but working at a salvage yard definitely helped."
Like a conniving villain from an old Flash Gordon movie, Goodwin plotted the resurrection of the tiring Falcon, rubbing his hands together with glee as he envisioned the power and dominance that would rein over Denver's racetracks.
"One of the best times I had was when some friends and I took the car to Phoenix. We trailered it to a drag race and drove it all over town and raced it all weekend." But getting the car race-ready didn't happen overnight.
"When I got the car, it had about 75,000 original miles," Jeff noted. "It was in decent shape and there wasn't a lot of rust, except for a little in the panels."
The first thing he did when he got the car was to get a set of wheels and tires on it. The 16x7 American Racing Torq-Thrust II rims wrapped with Kelly Springfield Road Huggers up front and 16x8 rims with Goodyear Eagles out back get the torque to the tarmac when the time arrives. They also nestle right up into the fenders.
That perfect tuck under the fenders was achieved by modifying the stock front suspension, and by adding a set of spindles from a Granada. This somewhat obscure Ford also contributed a proportioning valve and a set of front disc brakes.
At this point, Jeff had become fairly skilled at paint and bodywork. In fact, he earns his keep today as an auto painter. He got rid of the small amount of rust and laid down some primer/sealer before getting to work on the meat and potatoes of this matter: the installation of the Mustang 306ci engine.
Not only is it a more modern unit, but the '89 Mustang engine has also been bored 0.030 over and built to take abuse with Speed Pro pistons, Trick Flow aluminum cylinder heads, and roller rockers from the same company.
An amalgam of other trick bits can be found throughout the motor such as Clevite bearings and Speed Pro rings, as well as a Ford E303 camshaft. The rearend has been fortified as well, with a Ford 9-inch housing, a pair of 31-spline axles, 3.89 gears, and a limited-slip differential. It has to be stout to handle the extra power provided by the Powerdyne blower. Oh, and if you're wondering what that gorgeous hunk of aluminum is on top of the motor, that would be the customized Saleen/Vortech intake manifold.