Network
Shopping on the marketplaces can be a love/hate relationship with little room between the two vices. For us, a joking mention of this 1965 Ford Galaxie over a Friday night dinner turned into a Sunday morning drive to further investigate the supposed good deal.
Not only did this deal seem too good to be true, but it should also be noted that very little of my automotive knowledge is based on Fords. My automotive roots were forged in classic Chevys. While most of that knowledge is interchangeable between the two brands, the lack of Ford knowledge means I wouldn’t know common problems, part availability, or cost. Despite not knowing these things, there was more excitement about expanding our horizons and learning new things to push ourselves. This 1965 Ford Galaxie was going to be a welcomed challenge for me and an enjoyable cruiser for my dad.
It's pretty obvious we weren't expecting a show car.
Before leaving for the hour-and-a-half drive, we had done the basics of marketplace window shopping. We called the seller, got some more pictures, and made a lowball offer. With all of those boxes checked, we loaded up and headed out the next day. We were prepared for body rust but agreed that frame rust or excessive hard-to-fix spots of rust would be a deal breaker for us. We wanted something that I could work on while keeping it on the road. After all, this four-door 1965 Galaxie grabbed our attention because I wanted my dad to get to cruise around with my mom and their grandkids on the weekends.
After inspecting the obvious spots for rust and a test drive, we were ready to make the purchase. However, we had one last test. We pulled into a parking lot and put it in Reverse. After moving a few feet, the engine died on us. This wasn’t a huge deal since we had quickly realized the engine needed some help after hearing it start up. Due to the starter being right next to the exhaust manifold, it overheated and needed some time to cool down.
Despite its looks, the trunk pan was very solid and passed the “punch test” in every spot that was hit.
While the starter cooled down, we took this time for one last look around the Galaxie. We started investigating the fuel cell in the truck and were mostly impressed with the installation. This left us with the question of why the fuel cell was there in the first place. We started looking around the factory fuel tank and couldn’t find any obvious bad spots. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed chunks of rusted metal just sitting on the frame. I touched the frame and my finger went straight through.
This is just the passenger side frame, the driver’s side was just as bad.
For us, this frame rust was a deal breaker. While welding isn’t overly difficult for me, extreme frame rust like this raises overall structural integrity worries. Knowing that my nieces and nephews would be riding in the back seat while knowing the rear frame had repairs done to it, is a solid no in my book.
At this point, we listened to our gut feelings and knew we needed to walk away. We did just that, we got the car back to the seller’s house, shook his hand, and drove off. Even though we walked away from this marketplace find, we hope that you learned at least one thing from our experience. We’d love to hear your thoughts on this adventure and hear your marketplace stories, so be sure to comment on the video. We’ll see you in our next marketplace test drive.
