had someone tell me once that ford had the falcon ready for production in 1958, but they were in a civil suit over the name "falcon" with plymouth, who also wanted to use the name. this suit supposedly delayed the release of the falcon until 1960.


true?
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NMCB 28 Seabee Battalion

Doesn't sound true, though I have nothing but common sense to back it up. Manufacturers register car trade names out the wazoo for cars that are never built in production. If Plymouth already owned the Falcon name, then there would be no dispute and nothing to fight over. Plymouth would have owned it plain and simple. And considering the costs, Ford would have just given it one of the other hundereds of names they have in their stock, rather than delay production and sales of the car.

I have no doubt that the Falcon was deep into development by 1958 but it makes no bit of sense that they had a car ready to go by 1958 that lacked only a name that they were willing to fight over. And besides, there was no big market in 1958 for an economy car. Nash had the domestic market covered and Volkswagen had the import economy car covered. GM's entry into this market was not exactly a splash with the Corvair. And the Nova's entry along with the Falcon's went for the most part without notice.