1961 was the second year of the Ford Falcon and the first year Ford made the Futura model with its sportier interior including bucket seats. This car is a lot of fun to drive and own. It really is solid with little rust. I've tried to keep the car as original as possible. I bought the car in 1991 after the original owner passed away. The family said the car was usually always garaged and the original owner mostly just drove it locally to run errands in his old age. It had 66K miles on it back then and it was my first vehicle (which I've always cared for). The car now has 79K miles on it. When I bought the car, had a ton of stuff done to it (too much to mention). I've had a lot of normal maintenance items taken care of in the 25 years that I've owned it as well. In the last few years I've had all brakes replaced, ew custom leaf springs installed, ew shocks, ew exhaust system + muffler installed, ew gas tank (16 gallon) installed, nd the heater core is bypassed because it leaked a bit (would cost about $100 to fix but I don't drive when it's cold out anyway).
The only "restoration" that I've done is to have the front seats reupholstered 20 years ago, ound a nicer looking front bumper and had it re-chromed and installed, ad an original passenger side front quarter panel installed and painted to match (I dented the old one on my garage door), adiator was replaced but is now old again, nd I sanded down a little rust that was in the trunk then filled and painted it. Back seats are original and are in great condition. The original owner had both rear fenders fixed where there was some rust on the very edge of the fender skirts. The repair along the fender skirt was probably done in the 80's. You can see a slight line where the repair was done if you get close up. I've included pictures (it's really not that noticeable). Frame and underside are solid. Only a little surface rust in a few places. I've kept the car garaged for the 25 years I've owned it and have only been caught out driving twice when it started to rain. I believe the car was repainted in the late 80's and is in the original white color.
Engine is original and runs nicely. The trunk is nice and solid. The interior could use new windlace around the doors and a new carpet (been worn out the whole time I've owned the car but I didn't care because I just used the car to drive around every once in a while). The carpet has a hole about 5 inches in diameter and could be totally replaced for $190 from falconparts.com. Door windlace on both sides can be replaced for about $50 total from falconparts.com. Everything else inside the car looks great....headliner is perfect and seats are really nice. I installed front and rear seat belts as the car didn't originally have them. I also extended the driver's seat track back 6 inches extra to give me more leg room (I'm 6'2" tall). Both front seats adjust forward and back as they should. Recline works by adjusting seat bolts (this is the original design).
I've included a bunch of pictures and the vin report from falconparts.com showing that the car is still as it was originally. As I've stated, his is a great driver and not perfect....but it's a really nice car. This car gets a lot of thumbs up on the road.
I've got a pretty low reserve on it. Good luck!