The Ford Motor Company's Ford division was quite late to the personal luxury car party in the 1970's spurred by General Motors' 1969 Pontiac Grand Prix and 1970 Chevrolet Monte Carlo when they rolled out these tarted up Torino's they called "Elite" for 1974. Actually, for 1974 these were called the "Gran Torino Elite"; Ford dropped the Gran Torino pre-fix for 1975 and 1976. My Facebook Marketplace find here hails from 1976.
Ford apparently saw no need to come sooner with a personal luxury car given they had their Thunderbird in their stable, but the Thunderbird, even the loosely Torino-based 1972-1976 models, were full sized cars, not mid-size like the Grand Prix and Monte Carlo, were (opinion) far less handsome than GM's wonder-twins, were far more expensive and subsequently got trounced at the box office.
Calling these tarted up Torino's isn't fair, though. They're more like rebadged Mercury Cougar XR-7's. A different grill here, some futzing with the goofy opera windows, adjust the vinyl top and there you go. A Ford Elite.
These cars remind me of when I asked my mother for a pair of Levi's that all the cool kids were wearing but she bought me Sears Toughskins instead. How I didn't get stuffed in a locker more than I did is anyone's guess. Might as well have been a Ford Elite.
Taste and armpits, these cars no doubt have their fans, GM fan boy here, I ain't one of them. I would give credit where credit is due if I thought these deserving - for example, I thought Chrysler's 1975-1977 Cordoba quite handsome although it's styling obliviously was obviously a derivative of the 1973 Chevrolet Monte Carlo. I had a '75 Cordoba, and while I loved it, I thought the '76 Chevrolet Monte Carlo a friend had rode and handled better. Far better looking too but us beggars can't be choosers. I was lucky to have new clothing.
That's Ford's venerable 351-cubic inch "Windsor" V-8, "Windsor" denoting it was built at their engine plant across the Detroit River in Windsor, Ontario. Low-compression, tiny two-barrel carburetor, 154 horsepower - the muscle car era was dead and buried by 1976. Good news is these are easily "souped-up"; how fast do you want to spend? If you're curious, that's not a Folger's Coffee can, it's a reservoir for engine vacuum.
Might be my "GM myopia", but I have to wonder why someone would buy this car - perhaps at three-grand, maybe $3,500 considering its condition but eight-grand? Seriously? I see no value proposition here but, again, there's an arse for every seat. Ford tried to build a Monte Carlo or Grand Prix and, my blog, my opinion, failed miserably. Chevrolet sold more than three Monte Carlo's for every one "Elite" Ford sold.
Ford dropped the Elite moniker replacing it in their lineup for 1977 with a restyled car they glued "Thunderbird" to; in retrospect, what they should have done as far back as 1972. Wouldn't you know it? The Thunderbird moniker still had some of the old magic in it as 1977-1979 Thundrtbirds became the best selling T-Bird's of all time.
Didn't hurt that they did away with most if not all of the quirks of these cars with the 1977 reboot. They were priced lower too - America, then as now, loves a bargain.
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