Pat Croce, Cheryl & Nick Longo
I first fell in love with Galaxies in 1969. I remember the first time I rode in my Uncle Pete’s 1962 Galaxie XL like it was yesterday. It was a black on black convertible. I was 13 years old and I sat in the back seat on the way to the Dairy Queen in Coventry, Rhode Island. I watched the Apollo crew take the first step on the moon on the TV up on the wall while I waited in line for my cone. It was a magical night. My uncle drove that ’62 Galaxie so fast it was hard to stay in one place on the slippery vinyl of that wide back seat.
When I was finally ready to get in to the collector car hobby
there was never a doubt that I would get a Galaxie and my wife
Cheryl and I found a nice one.
The car was ordered with an unusual combination of equipment. It
would be interesting to find out how many 1964 Galaxie 500’s
were ordered with a 6 cylinder engine, dealer-installed air
conditioning, power brakes, and manual steering! While the car
isn’t nearly as fast as my uncle Pete’s, it‘s just as
comfortable, and now I sit in the front seat.
The car is equipped with the 135 horsepower, 223 Mileage Maker 6
cylinder and C4 Cruise-o-matic transmission. The car is complete
down to the last detail. It is also very well documented, which
is one of the reasons we liked it right away. Our Rangoon Red
Galaxie was purchased new at a Ford dealership in Redlands,
about 15 minutes form where we live. The original owner kept it
for 29 years, until 1993. We have the original window sticker,
build sheet, owner’s manual, dashboard dealer tags, and tons of
maintenance receipts all the way back to 1964. Because of the
historical detail found in these records, I feel like I’ve known
this car from the beginning.
I wonder if a young boy sat in the back seat of this car on that
same warm summer night in 1969, thinking about trips to the moon
and Galaxies.