From The Classifieds: 1964 Ford Falcon XM coupe

Whether a car is cool, or uncool, depends on your personal perspective.

And, because coolness necessarily embraces a wide demographic spectrum, it does not need to also mean “expensive”.

Depending on who your friends are and how you see the world, a cool car can be a clapped-out, ancient Alfa Romeo convertible as much as it can be a Volvo P1800 that has denied all expectations regarding a car’s normal life expectancy.

Or it could be an early Ford Falcon hardtop coupe.

The first Falcon coupe arrived with the XM sedan in 1964 as a weapon in Ford’s armoury calculated to batter market-leader Holden, and was unlike any mainstream car Australians had ever seen.

The design, as well as much of the body, came straight from the USA. With two doors and a low-slung roofline it introduced the word “sporty” to the local market and at the time certainly made Holden look like a pretty frumpy outfit.

In reality the Falcon hardtop was of course far from sporty, although with the optional 200 cubic inch Super Pursuit six-cylinder engine it could be made to perform pretty well.

The interior, by the standards of the day, was classy and even though headroom was a bit less and the front seats had a split backrest to allow entry to the rear, the coupe was just as roomy as sedan equivalents, as was the boot. The pillarless side windows also gave it an airy, almost convertible feel (In fact numerous individuals have bitten the bullet over the years, removing the hardtop roofs to replace them with canvas).

The XM Falcon coupe also benefitted from numerous toughening-up measures necessitated by problems encountered with the first XK model introduced in 1960. Suspension, steering, powertrains (including the Super Pursuit engine) and other elements were upgraded and the styling was prettied up by Ford’s local design team.

The Falcon two door hardtop only existed for two years, in XM and XP guise. It slipped off the model lineup in 1966 and was not replaced until the 1972 XA Falcon hardtop. In the meantime, in 1968, Holden had reignited the Australian car psyche with the fully Australian-designed Monaro coupe.

Today, it comes maybe as a bit of a surprise that the market isn’t populated by more hardtop Falcons. In part, the short, two-year production run explains that.

However they do crop up, in varying states of repair. This white 1964 XM Deluxe currently on sale through carsales.com.au is a good example. It takes us back to the swinging sixties with what appears to be a true representation of how the car could be equipped at the time.

Residing in the Brisbane suburb of MacGregor, the “fully restored” car is fitted with the Super Pursuit engine, along with automatic transmission (the later three-speed unit, not the original two-speed). It is described as being in “immaculate condition inside and out,” and suitable as a daily driver.

At an asking price of $27,999 the hardtop comes with a full roadworthy certificate and is registered until September this year.

Still cool? Definitely. Not just for its comparative rarity, but also because it continues to look classy half a century after its Australian launch, the Falcon hardtop coupe rightly still attracts plenty of admiring roadside attention.