1973 Ford Galaxie 500 Hardtop (7k miles) Review & Drive

Hey , this is Adam .

Welcome to my rare classic car channel today .

One of my favorite cars and also a very rare car this 1973 Ford Galaxy 500 .

If you watched or grew up watching 1970 S era cop television shows , chances are you saw one of these or a custom 500 perhaps a Galaxy that was a pillared sedan .

It was really rare to see a hard top Galaxy , but they almost all were in this combination of the black exterior with the blue interior , which is what this car has .

So this vehicle has about 7300 miles on it .

I bought it out of a barn in Southern Illinois probably about four or five years ago .

And it was basically just sitting in the bar and tires deflated dust caked all over it .

And the seller had some pictures up on Craigslist of it .

And I thought , well , that's interesting , you know , black and I noticed it was a hard top .

I asked for more pictures .

He sent a few more along and he had cleaned up the car , washed it off by that point and well , it looked like it needed a little bit of help .

The car appeared to be in really nice shape .

It still had the original tires on it and the interior was just in immaculate shape .

So , as I looked at the pictures seemed to me like it was a genuine low mileage car , I bought it sight unseen , had it shipped to me and when I got it , I was really pleased with the overall cosmetic condition .

Now again , similar to those who have been watching my videos with the 75 Oldsmobile , a car that's been sitting like this for a long time , needs some help waking up , needed the fuel system , purged carburetor , rebuilt fuel sender .

I'm trying to remember what else I put on it .

I had to put new tires on , it , had to fix the exhaust , which had a number of holes in it just from sitting , had to fix the automatic climate control , which believe it or not , this car has automatic climate control and not much else .

So did some work to it , changed all the fluids , break work .

But now it's just a wonderfully driving car .

And again , ultra rare , this car doesn't have many options , but it has some really interesting ones .

It doesn't even have a radio .

So it's got this fender plug where the antenna would normally go and you can see it just has that fancy design in the middle of the dash because again , it has no radio .

Let's take a quick look at the Marty report here and just to show you how rare this car is .

This car is one of 245 that were painted black for 73 Galaxy four door hard tops and one of five painted black with a blue interior .

So this is really the only one left and one of 248 with this auto temp air conditioning control .

You'll note it's a retail order .

It's actually not a fleet order .

Somebody ordered this and it has just a few options .

It has the auto temp air conditioner , full wheel covers and heavy duty suspension , which meant that the front suspension had about 15% stiffer springs , stiffer shocks can take a look at the climate control there .

Very strange to see automatic climate control on a car that doesn't have many other options .

Here's the window sticker .

It does have the 400 which was only a $50 option back then .

Not bad vinyl seat trim .

As I mentioned , the auto temp control , which is almost $500 extremely expensive wheel covers and the heavy duty suspension , which was really a quite reasonably priced option .

And it was sold to this dealer in Southern Illinois built in Wayne assembly .

So when I bought this car , there was this little note that came with it .

It says that the original owner Everett Hunt , you can see his name is on the original owner card sold his car in 1983 to Marvin Bursley , I suppose , for $3000 and it had 1950 miles at the time .

So this was a notarized document and then I bought it off of a relative of this Marvin .

It had basically been sitting in the garage , not a garage , a barn for many , many years , tires deflated just in its lumber .

He even still had the factory build sheet under the bench seat when I got it , which I took out and put it in this folder .

So extremely rare car .

One of five black with blue interior Galaxy hardtops made .

Let's take a look at the inside again , you have the wonderful key buzzer .

So 7200 and 50 nine miles on the car .

And as you can see as I was mentioning , it has this beauty plate , I guess you'd call it where the radio would normally go automatic climate control in the Galaxies .

You did get the full arm rests as opposed to the stub arm rest that came in the customs .

A little bit fancier door panels , a little bit fancier glove box trim with the wood grain there .

You know , this is just a standard wheel .

It really is nice looking and you can see has the wonderful hard top element here with no B pillar .

What's interesting about this car compared to the 71 to 76 generation of G M cars is it feels almost like an intermediate on the inside .

Well , it's a full size car this distance between the top of the dash pad and the windshield isn't as great as on the G MS .

The windshield glass doesn't wrap around as much , not as much of an opening here in the door .

So you feel a bit more closed in than you do in other makes , I would say Chryslers also seem to have more interior space .

Also , I would say in particular in the rear compartment .

Well , this one isn't bad .

Chrysler was always good about having their rear doors open almost at a 90 degree angle and lots of back seat room .

Also about being able to see the fender tips through the windshield and the backlash .

It's a pretty plain jane car in a number of aspects .

But boy , what a cool unique ride .

Let's take a look under the hood .

So it's a 402 barrel engine has auto like 2100 carburetor , excellent carburetor .

If you're learning to rebuild carburetors , this is a great one to learn on .

They're not temperamental .

They're easy to work on .

They run really well .

You don't have the power of a four barrel , but they do work really , really well , an un detailed engine bay .

So I'll probably at some point , you know , maybe repaint this radiator top cradle black .

There's some sort of sticker on here with adhesive that kind of adhered and took off some paint .

So I'll sand that and paint that black .

But I'm not a big one for those who watch my videos about under hood detailing .

I actually like it when the car is kind of in this original state because it really speaks to the vehicle and its history and how it was used or not used .

And I'm just as proud to pop this hood as one that was a fully detailed engine compartment .

Maybe I'm crazy but still even has for those Ford fans .

This is totally intact .

This accordion style snorkel element that's hyper rare and let's start it up now .

It is cold so it'll run on fast idle for a minute .

We'll do my key reach in as I usually do smooth running engine and I probably should replace this belt .

This jumping a little bit , it's an original belt at a minimum snug it up a little bit .

It looks like that tension is really loose .

So I'll take care of that .

So has the original radiator hose , just a single exhaust on this , but it sounds really throaty and nice .

Let's take a look at the trunk now , not an overly detailed or lined trunk key .

One of the problems when you have a fair number of old Fords , so still is the original spare with the factory marking you can see there and really just an online trunk with this minimal mat here is the license plates from when I bought it and it was last on the road in July 95 I bought it probably four or five years ago .

So it was off the road for about 20 years .

I did find a spare wheel cover in case I ever needed it .

These trunks , the nice thing is they're really deep .

Ford mounts the gas tank vertically as opposed to other makes where it was underneath the trunk floor here .

So it's good and bad .

You get this really deep floor , you can house a lot .

Some people like it .

Some people don't like it because you have this , you have to stoop down to really put stuff in there and retrieve it so it can be good or bad .

And for those of you in later years , Ford also had the extended range fuel tank , which went in this area here .

I think it gave about an extra eight gallons .

If you ever see some strange thing there that looks like an aftermarket plastic tank .

That's what it is .

Pretty crude installations on those .

I just absolutely love the looks of this car every time I see it , it reminds me of a cop car from the era , especially in black and the 400 Boys .

This is a nice motor in this car .

You get the 351 the 400 the 4 29 4 60 and the 400 watt was only 171 horsepower .

I believe it was £314 feet of torque , which was within £6 feet of torque of the 4 29 motor .

So , if you're just driving around town , this thing really feels like it's got a lot of get up and go to it .

When I bought it , I had an issue where it just didn't run quite right .

And aside from I fixed the fuel system and rebuilt the carburetor .

And again , one of the things you want to do is you go through these cars is you just want to make sure that you're looking at things that are out of place , you know , that seem like they may be causing an issue .

So it was kind of cutting in and out a bit and I popped the distributor cap and I noticed that it still had the original set of points .

This , by the way is still the original cap and rotor on this car .

They're in great shape .

Amazingly after all these years , no corrosion on the cap somehow .

But it says motor craft and the rotor under it , it says motor craft as well .

In any event , the points were the original points and they were all crowded and pitted .

And so I put a new set of points and condenser in this and wow , I mean , this thing , it's a two barrel , but if you're just accelerating , trying to get off the line , um , wow .

Does it feel nice and powerful ?

The paint isn't perfect I could probably , you know , go and do some have somebody professionally do .

I would say some more intense buffing .

I don't do buffing with wool pads or , you know , extreme paint correction .

It's very shiny as it is in the car .

I mean , it looks like a new car from three ft away up close .

You know , there's some scratches again .

This was a barn , find it came out of a barn and I'm just thankful that it was in as nice a shape as it was .

No rust .

Really hardly any door dings .

Even , even this red emblem that's always cracked is perfect .

It's not faded , not cracked .

What an awesome car .

So again , I grew up watching some of the seventies COP TV shows and you saw these all the time in non hardtop form , kind of in the pillar , sedan form , but it's just a great car gets looks everywhere .

I love this look of the non remote controlled mirror too .

It's very stylish .

I've taken this car to a number of car shows .

I parked at one time back when I was living in a different state at a car show next to a Ferrari and this car was getting way more looks than the Ferrari and the owner of that car was not happy about that because clearly his car was worth a lot more than this was .

But everybody remembers these and it brings back some sort of a memory for many people and that's what this is about .

Really , just bringing about memories of what , ah , what people had .

So , it's fun to go from this as well to this Mercury .

I have out again , I got to replace a window gear , but in general , these cars are quite reliable .

Once you go through them the first time it takes a little elbow grease and work the first time .

But then you get something like this and you've got a brand new car when you're done .

All right , let's take it for a drive , maybe one more .

Look around back and this has the 73 bumper which the 74 is even offset a little more because they had a more intense rear crash standard .

So it's not quite as chunky , although it is pretty big , great kind of mid century modern galaxy script here .

Let's take it for a drive .

All right .

So here we are in the galaxy .

Let's start it up .

Take it for a drive sitting in this car is just a cool , cool feeling with the hard top windows down , looking out over the hood .

Something about a black car from this era , especially one that pretty much was the near ubiquitous cop car of the era , at least on the TV shows because Ford sponsored Ford marketing sponsored so many of them , it's just fun to drive .

As I mentioned previously , this car does have the heavy duty suspension and it endows it with a firmer ride than the regular suspension , but it is not unpleasantly firm .

You can see over these frost heaves , the car is kind of bouncing up and down a bit , but it's not unpleasant at all .

And these Fords were sprung so mushy from the factory that it's actually a welcome departure to get into this because it just feels so different .

I would say , in spite of it being the heavy duty suspension for Ford , it's probably even slightly more compliant than a Chrysler of the era .

With the standard torsion bar , rear leaf set up .

Chryslers were always sprung kind of stiff relative to the competition and tended to be biased towards handling as opposed to ride .

Ford was the inverse Ford was really going after great quality ride .

So it depends on what you want .

This is a nice balance between ride and handling .

Although I would say this car still doesn't handle as nicely as a GM car with a base suspension and certainly not one with the optional heavy duty suspension with bigger stabilizer bars .

It's a pleasant drive .

You are also winding the wheel a lot more in this car than a GM or Chrysler , the steering ratios and the Fords was slower on the power steering gear .

It was about 22 to 1 than the others .

The other thing you notice in this car with this 400 V eight is just an incredible amount of torque as you're pulling away from a stop sign or a stoplight , it feels like a much bigger engine and as you tip more and more into the throttle , it just has a better and better response .

Now , once you start getting to the upper R PM range with the two barrel carburetor , it does wheeze a bit , but for everyday driving , it's really hard to beat .

I mean , it has instant throttle response .

This two barrel carburetor is excellent , makes great noises .

And as I was mentioning , if somebody is looking to rebuild the carburetor for the first time , these motor craft 2100 s are a great place to start .

They're very easy to rebuild .

They're reliable .

I would recommend starting with one if you have the opportunity just even buy a scrap one on ebay or Craigslist for , I don't know , 10 $20 or something and take it apart and learn a few things .

I mean , I'm not even stepping on the gas and you heard I peeled out a little there but again , a car that instantly gets up to speed , no hesitations , passing power on the freeway is not great just because it's a two barrel that's 191 171 horsepower .

But around town acceleration is excellent and this car will hold 80 85 miles an hour on the freeway all day long without issue .

So in any event , thanks for taking a ride along here with me in my 73 galaxy hope you enjoy it , take care .