The best way to buy a custom-built car is to let someone else do the heavy financial lifting for you. This nasty little 1964 Ford Falcon, for example, has a fairly large pile of money behind it but today it’s extremely affordable. Better still, with 2200 miles on the odometer, it’s already sorted out and ready to rock. Can’t say that about many freshly finished show cars. There’s beautifully finished bodywork with flashy two-tone paint and minimalist flame graphics, so it’ll look good practically forever. Inside, the custom interior is comfortable and stylish, again so it’ll always be in style. And under the hood, well, you’ll find a snarky supercharged 302 cubic inch V8 that turns it into the purest kind of entertainment—the kind that bounces your eyeballs off the inside of your skull. Interested? You should be, because this Falcon looks like a show car but runs like a racer.

The Falcon was all-new in 1964, and the new look was a total home run. Looking more like a 7/8-scale Fairlane, the Falcon grew slightly and packed some muscle onto its formerly flyweight frame. Forward-canted front fenders and a pair of character lines stamped into the sheetmetal give it the illusion of motion, while the jet-inspired taillights remained a Ford trademark. Someone spent a great deal of money reworking this Falcon, starting with that awesome paint job. We believe it was finished 10 or 12 years ago, perhaps as a show car for the SEMA show (it’s full of JL Audio equipment and the JL Audio logo appears in several places on the car), and the two-tone combination still looks awesome. Laser-straight bodywork holds up under scrutiny and the electric blue paint seems to glow from within out in the sunlight. Graphics can be a make-or-break thing on a car like this, and they wisely chose to take a minimalist approach, adding some flames on the quarters just for effect, but not over done. Add in a teardrop hood inspired by the lightweight Thunderbolts and a modest wing on the deck lid and you get a car that looks right from any angle. Other neat details include the blue-dot high-intensity headlights, shaved emblems except the ‘Falcon’ badges on the front fenders, and nicely restored chrome bumpers.

The blue and silver theme continues inside with a fully custom interior that’s a lot more comfortable than the original Falcon bench seat. Low-back buckets borrowed from a late-model and modified for use here look like they were born in the Falcon and they do a far better job of keeping you in place. The original dash was retained, albeit subtly reshaped and filled with Auto Meter gauges, including a big Monster tach on top of the dash where it belongs. A small center console was fabricated for the trick B&M shifter and another set of gauges: boost and transmission temperature. Even the fire extinguisher was color-matched to the bodywork. There’s a significant entertainment system, as you’d imagine, with a touch screen that folds out of the head unit in the center of the dash and a DVD player hidden under the passenger seat. They wisely retained the rear seat, making this a very usable hot rod and you can see that it’s highly detailed throughout, including the taut, wrinkle-free headliner and color-matched garnish moldings. And just check out that trunk! All the audio equipment was neatly installed to become part of the design so it can hide in plain sight, and there’s even a separate voltage gauge so the system can be monitored. Pneumatic struts hold the trunk open, which is a nice touch, and they thoughtfully added a set of charging posts for the two hidden batteries that power everything.

There’s still a small block Ford in the Falcon, a Ford Motorsports 302 cubic inch V8 that slots between the shock towers easily because the second-gen Falcon was designed to handle the 260/289/302 from the start. The way it was originally built, the V8 was rated at 295 horsepower but thanks to the B&M street blower on top, there’s considerably more on tap today. It’s a roots-style blower, so it makes full boost before you can even get your foot on the floor making this Falcon is a weapon on the street. Canfield aluminum heads handle the pressurized intake charge and there’s a good-sized blower cam inside that idles well but pulls like a freight train. Everything under the hood was painted blue or silver to match the bodywork and they obviously took a lot of extra time to hide the plumbing and wiring. A giant Griffin aluminum radiator with electric fan keeps it cool without too much drama and that trick air cleaner assembly pulls cold air through the functional hood scoop and into a 750 cfm Holley blower carb. Gorgeous long-tube headers feed a custom dual exhaust system with Flowmaster mufflers, so you know this thing sounds gnarly.

Underneath you can tell it has been driven and enjoyed properly, but there’s also a lot more high-quality workmanship. Subframe connectors reinforce the tub in a way that you can actually feel and it has been fitted with vented and cross-drilled disc brakes that are a big step up from the puny 9-inch drums it carried originally. The C4 3-speed automatic transmission has a 2200 RPM stall torque converter and a reverse manual valve body, so you’ll need to yank that shifter through the gears yourself—don’t worry, it’s fun. 4.11 gears in the 8-inch rear end make it punchy as hell, and traction bars on the rear springs help plant the tires to get the power where it needs to go. The entire fuel system was plumbed in -10 AN braided stainless to feed the blown V8. You’ll also note the original gas tank was fitted with a custom sump and an electric fuel pump to supply the go-juice. Nothing exotic, just proven hardware that’s sorted out and works like it should. The stance is exactly right, too, complements of Colorado Custom wheels measuring 17x7 in front and 18x8 in back and wearing staggered 205/50/17 and 235/50/18 Yokohama radials.

If you’ve wanted to own a show car, this is your chance. It looks awesome, drives better than it looks, and has all the high-end details that separate good cars from great ones. You’ve seen nice cars at shows, but rarely do they have this level of finish quality, and you’ll find everyone admiring the little details as much as the brilliant paint job. And it’s an absolute party to drive. With all that in mind, how can you go wrong at this price? Call today!

Harwood Motors welcomes and encourages personal or professional inspections of any vehicle prior to purchase.