1981 Ford Fairmont - Oh So '70's Vibe (And Not in a Good Way)

Although my birth year coincided with the debut of the Pontiac GTO and I was born within a month of the launch of the Ford Mustang and the Plymouth Barracuda, by the time I approached driving age, thanks to two gas crisis and EPA emissions and safety regulations, the cool car party was long over. Due to increasingly stringent safety, emissions and gas mileage regulations, staid looking economy cars were king and anything with a V-8 engine, not to mention any modicum of performance, real or imagined, was verboten. 

However, what came about at the Ford Motor Company as result of circumstances and government scrutiny, was actually quite good. Although, I had little use for the game changing 1978 Ford Fairmont and its corporate kissin' cousin, the Mercury Zephyr. Even in two-door guise like this '81 Fairmont.  

To be honest, though, as good as these cars are based on what became known as the "Fox-body", or platform were, they have not aged well. At least in comparison to their far more famous sibling, the Ford Mustang. And to a lesser degree the 1979-1986 Mercury Capri. The Ford Motor Company used the Fox-body on a wide variety of automobiles across all three of their divisions including Lincoln. The origin of the name, by the way, the subject of much conjecture but the common notion is Ford named it after the Audi Fox which was supposedly the benchmark they aspired to when they first started drawing it up in 1973. 

The "Fox-body" was a radical departure from most anything the Ford Motor Company or any domestic manufacturer had come with before it. The relatively lightweight, unit-bodied Foxes featured a then "space-age" Macpherson strut front suspension and rack-and-pinion steering that afforded drivers a near European level of ride and handling. Well, for at the time anyway. 

Ah, but where it counted to pre-pubescent me, its simple styling was a decided turnoff; not that there were any Ford's of the era that I cared for save for any Fox-body Mustang or Capri with a "5.0" glued to its front fenders. Simple by design and straightforward in ways what they replaced (the Ford Maverick and Mercury Comet) certainly weren't, the Fairmont and Zephyr were the Ford Motor Company's literal and figurative interpretation of a Volvo 240. Ha, as if? Well, auto pundits raved about these cars in ways they didn't gush about General Motors downsized full and mid-sized models that were really, if we're being honest, nothing more than shrunken versions of what they had been pushing out for the past thirty years or so. Your opinion may vary, see dealer for details. 

Funny how some of us have to learn life's lessons the hard way. While my first car, coincidentally or not, was a 1974 Mercury Comet, what I refer to as my "second first car", was exactly what I wanted in the first place - a big, spatially inefficient, V-8 powered "personal luxury car" that was a wallowing monster to handle. But I thought it cool as all hell even though I was smitten by the handling prowess of a friends tiny, early '80's Toyota Corolla. That little car along with a number of other smaller, sharp handling cars subliming stoking the coals of my inner race car driver; I didn't realize at the time that not only was I a budding automobile enthusiast, I actually really enjoyed driving. 

Back to our '81 Fairmont here in the '23. I found this on Facebook Marketplace not long ago for sale near my home here on the west side of Cleveland, Ohio. Asking price was a fair $4,500 for a rust-free, forty-year-old, 50,000-mile anything although I chafe at the thought of dropping that on this. Attempting to look at it through the goggles of my 26-year-old, semi-car conscious older son, I still can't see past it's, as he would put it, "not in a good way, oh-so-'70's-vibe". He adores my 1977 Corvette so he does know a thing or two. I might me somewhat alone in my contempt for this car as I went back to Marketplace to find it and it seems to be gone. 

1968 Ford Galaxie 500 Convertible - Not My Father's Ford Ranch Wagon

Up until I was around eight years old, my father worked as an executive in the Manhattan office of Burlington Industries, a fabric making company based in Greensboro, North Carolina. At least once a month, often times more, he would travel down there for meetings. He'd be gone early Monday and not return until Friday evenings, sometimes Saturday mornings. Sad thing is, I can't say I actually missed him, we were not close, but when he was away, there was relative peace in my house because my parents wouldn't be at each other's throats. That and his homecomings usually meant dinners of Coke and pizza. Also, he'd bring the pizza home in what he referred to as "company cars" which I came to learn were more like "company paid for rental cars". One time he came home in a car that sort of resembled his 1968 Ford Ranch Wagon but it, for certain, was not my father's Ranch Wagon; it was 1968 Ford Galaxie coupe like this red convertible Galaxie 500. 

I was not a fan of the Ranch Wagon. Story goes that when my father's wretched '61 Rambler cracked its engine block, he replaced it with a blue, 1968 Ford Ranch Wagon from Hertz Used Car Sales. Figures since he spent so much time at the Hertz counter at JFK and LaGuardia that he'd pick up a used rental. His car was light blue like the Ranch Wagon in the foreground in this photo from a 1968 Ford brochure is. It didn't have a roof rack, nor did it have side chrome moldings. Ford "dog-dish" or "poverty" hubcaps finished off the sorry, spartan, no-frills "Grapes of Wrath" motif.  At first, I thought it just another "company car" until he started putting the damn thing in the garage.

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Meanwhile, across the narrow street from us, neighbors with kids around my age had a 1968 Ford Country Squire like the one pictured above from another brochure. Power-everything and facing rear jump seats. Jump seats - the dream of every kid born between say 1960 and 1975. That Country Squire made my father's Ranch Wagon have all the industrial charm of a school bus.  

So, when I saw that Galaxie, I was smitten. Although the car had nothing in common with my father's Ranch Wagon from the A-pillar back, I thought it the most fascinating car in the world. Mind you, it was a hard top coupe; I may have burst into flames seeing a hedonistic convertible like our redhead here. Although, coming to know the man who was my father, playing catch with Joe Namath in my backyard was more of a possibility than us ever owning such a car. 

In hindsight, I've come to the realization that my father's Ranch Wagon was the embodiment of the man, we are what we drive, after all. Or whom we wished to be seen as. More Willie Loman than the swaggering, confident John Wayne meets Frank Sinatra I wished he was, my father was a simplistic, blue-collar guy caught in the crossfire of the executive mumbo-jumbo and posturing of "Mad Men" era New York City. That show pegged those guys dead on; my father told a tale or ten of the consequences of liquid lunches. And the car he chose to replace his hoary Rambler with was a carpenter\plumber\electrician's special rather than an executive express like Don Draper's Cadillac. Pick a lane, old man. And stay there. He just didn't get that. 

Sadly, my father lacked the intrinsic mechanical aptitude, skill and work ethic of his immigrant father making him a wannabee in two very different universes and not particularly good in either. He changed jobs frequently. Throw in a most difficult homelife and his self-medication to deal with his miserable life and you might be able to at least start to appreciate my taking solace in the small things like his not being around, Coke and pizza and of course, cars. My father and I were like two orbs occupying the same space barely acknowledging each other. Not unlike the way my dog and car interact with each other. A benign, listless and at the end of the day harmless coexistence.  I didn't ask for anything more than he could provide. Which wasn't much. 

For model year 1968, Ford offered twenty-one variations of their quite good, new-for-1965 full size car.  And who knows why too although GM did the same thing. Chrysler to a somewhat lesser degree. Did they really need two different types of two- and four-door models? Two different Country Squires as well if the only difference between the two is one has the, literally, killer rear jump seats and the other doesn't. Oh, look. You could also get the jumpers in the Ranch Wagon. 

It's been said that one of the reasons for the shoddy build quality of domestics back then was because there were too many different ways an automobile could be configured. Our Galaxie 500 drop-top here is near the top of the second row. Not too near the top and certainly a long, long ways from the bottom of the lineup. 

For my money, I'd opt for this car back then rather than splurge for an XL convertible. Especially stuffed with Ford's "FE" (Ford-Edsel), 390 "4V" (four-venturi, sounds better than nozzle) "Thunderbird" V-8 engine. Despite single digit city fuel economy. Can't be that much better on the highway. The front end on these cars is cleaner and simpler and isn't bogged down with the fussy headlight doors of the XL convertible too. Not quite sure the Ford mags were available on these cars and the raised white letter tires for certain were not. But they look marvelous with the rims on this car. Why spend more than you have to? 

I found this memory machine on Facebook Marketplace for sale near my home in Cleveland, Ohio with a price reduced ask of $12,500. It's a North Carolina car which means it's going to be pretty free from rust, which is so important on an older car, especially really old cars. NADA pegs this average retail at $18,100, high retail at $29,400 so the seller might be looking to onload this rather than store it for the winter. Finding relative bargains like this another reason I love car shopping this time of year up here. No, I'm not going to go for it, but it is nice to think about. You get this closer to ten-grand and I'll writhe with jealousy.

As for my father's Ranch Wagon, he traded it in during the summer of 1977 on a 1970 Buick Electra 225 four-door hard-top I steered him towards after my mother decided it was time to get rid of the wagon. All of thirteen at the time, I had no idea how pretentious it may have seemed going from the Ranch Wagon to the Electra, but I didn't know better. Not that I cared, I just loved that car. And after my father was left to his own devices after the Rambler croaked, I wasn't going to take any chances. 

 

1986 Ford Bronco II - II Tippy

Back in the '70's, Ford had a habit of using "II" when they'd launch either new versions of an existing nameplate or an accompanying model to one. For 1974 they launched their diminutive, Pinto-based "Mustang II" and for 1977 they rechristened their intermediate but still elephantine 1972 vintage Torino as the "LTD II"; which they sold alongside the still full-size and ginormous LTD which wouldn't be shrunk until 1979. For 1984, seemingly long after the Great Downsizing Epoch had subsided, Ford rolled out a compact sport utility vehicle they labeled, "Bronco II". Our blocky, stubby subject is a 1986. 

Based on the then current (1982) Ford Ranger pickup truck chassis, just like the current Bronco is Ranger based, the Bronco II was dimensionally all but identical to the first Bronco Ford peddled between 1966 and 1977. If you blurred your eyes a little and went with the flow, you could say that it was a spiritual updating to the first Bronco that is now one of the hottest and most desired "vintage" vehicles out there today. If you don't blur your eyes or go with the flow, ahem, you just didn't get what the Bronco II was all about. I didn't and still don't. 1966-1977 Bronco's? Oh. Hell yeah. One of these? Err, no. 

The fact I didn't get what the "II" was all about makes my appreciation of the current model all the more amazing. I'm from Long Island; I don't "get" anything truck. The new Bronco, again, I'm referring to the "Bronco" and not the fancy Ford Escape they call "Bronco Sport", is a transcendental design that is so wonderful, the masses are throwing themselves into financial harms to have one. Despite the fact that they are about as practical as a Ford Mustang II. Yeah, yeah. I know that's more than a slight exaggeration, but I say that to illustrate my point. Your opinion may vary. See dealer for details. 

Any "cool" (subjective) that the '66-'77 Bronco had was lost on the 1984-1990 "II". The proportions and any semblance of balance are actually better with the II, but therein lies most of the charm of the original Bronco that the current one successfully apes. The original is a weird, clumsy, disproportional design that has a butch, industrial syncopation to it. Let's understand, however, that often times good design doesn't work aesthetically. For instance, better "design" is what made General Motors downsized 1978 intermediates so damn boring. There was no whimsy, no spirit, no elan. And any semblance of it, like what they tried to do with the 1978 Chevrolet Monte Carlo and Pontiac Grand Prix, came across as grossly pretensious. 

What the Bronco II is best or worst remembered for, however, is not its design, folks actually loved it and bought nearly three-quarters of a million of them between 1984 and 1990, but its propensity to rollover. In short, because of the "II's" center of gravity versus its width being proportionally at odds, it's "Stability Index" was sorely off. "II's" look "tippy", and they were. Ford paid some $113 million in 334 wrongful death and injury settlements; some accounts say more than 800 people were killed in "II's" that rolled over and one in five sold between 1984-1990 was involved in a rollover. Wow. Ford apparently knew about the issue even during the "II's" design phase in the early 1980's but they went forward with it because it would have been too expensive to engineer out the problems with the suspension. 

It got so bad for the "II" that Geico refused to write policies for them. 

My only first-hand experience in one was as a back seat passenger in one a friend of a friend had back in the late '80's. Again, I'm no "truck" girl, bit I found the whole the utterly ridiculous. Along with it being oh-so-bouncy, especially in the back seat, I thought the whole thing felt like it was riding on giant balloons. Which in fact it was in reality. If I was going to do a "truck" back in the day, and I had to have a Ford, it would have been an "O.J. Bronco" although it would have been in black or dark red. Then again, give me a Chevy K5 Blazer.  

The Ford Explorer, that replaced the Bronco II in 1991, had similar rollover propensity issues until Ford sorted it out with a wider track and an independent rear suspension. In...2002. Along with "O.J.'s Bronco", is it any wonder why Ford waited twenty-five to come with another SUV they called Bronco? 

 

Ford's New Bronco - I Want One

A family down the block from us just got one of these new Ford Bronco's. Just like this in whatever hue of grey blue this is too. And I want one. Bad. That's saying a lot too since in general I'm not even a cross-over kind of girl let alone a "trucker". These are "trucks" seeing their based on the mid-size Ford Ranger pickup truck. 

It's interesting to note that Ford used their original Bronco of 1966-1977 fame as the inspiration for their new Bronco as there's not a shred of what those of a particular vintage refer to as, "O.J.'s Bronco" in it. Then again, "O.J.'s Bronco", like all Ford Bronco's made after 1977, are far less distinctive looking than the originals. If anything, there's a whole lot more 1984-1990 Bronco II in these new Bronco's, especially the two-door models, than "O.J. Bronco". Then again, Ford probably doesn't want buyers of these new Broncos googling "Bronco II" any more than they want them googling "O.J. Bronco". 

The design of this new Bronco is so good, Ford could have it called it "Simpson", and it would still be, arguably, the hottest new vehicle on the market today. I know people who've waited eighteen months for theirs to come in. That they call it something impossibly cool like "Bronco" only adds to the mystique, the allure if you will. Please note, Ford also sells something they call "Bronco Sport" and it's an entirely different vehicle. Frankly, it's an underwhelming looking affair.  

You can't see in pictures just how different this thing is from my new main squeeze; but it's totally different. The Bronco Sport (above) looks like a first-generation Ford Escape. In and of itself not a bad thing but why'd they go and call this "Bronco Sport"? Holy marketing confusion, Ford Motor Company. Then again, these are same people who slap "Mustang" on an all-electric cross-over and recycle "Maverick" onto a compact pickup truck. The latter marketing faux pas far less egregious than the former. Speaking of the new Maverick, the Bronco Sport shares it's underpinnings with the new Maverick which while looking like a compact pickup, it's more like a cross-over with a pickup truck-ish body seeing it shares its guts with the Ford Escape. 

Ford introduced the original Bronco in 1966 as a direct competitor to the Jeep CJ. At first offered in roadster, "half-cab" and wagon, by '68 the "roadster" (above) was gone and after 1972 all Ford Broncos were three-door wagons. Ford sold between 12,000 and 14,000 a year, one year they sold 26,000, so they were a relatively niche vehicle. I never saw one in the wild when I was growing up on Long Island in the '70's. Part of the problem was they were so small, too small for families. That didn't matter since Ford sold lots of County Squires. Offering little to no creature comforts, folks bought them for their rugged, compact utility, they were all four-wheel-drive, or they quickly came to realize they had misspent their money on a fashion statement. 

Meanwhile, as Ford was attempting to out-do Jeep, debate all you want if they succeeded or not, in 1969 General Motors rolled out their full-sized, short-wheelbase pickup truck-based Chevrolet K5 "Blazer". Too bad these rode-like trucks with square wheels - these are painfully cool and again, that's coming from a dyed-in-the-wool car guy. GMC got the same vehicle for 1970 but they called it, "Jimmy". The rest, as we say, was history. 

The Blazer\Jimmy was an immediate smash hit that in typical GM form didn't invent a market segment, just redefined and transformed it. Ford didn't come with any answer to the Blazer\Jimmy until 1978. In an age of "downsizing", Ford upsized the Bronco when they took a page out of GM's playbook shortening a Ford F100's wheelbase, dropping a back seat in the bed and bolting down a removal plastic top. No surprise, it sold very well. Cool as these are, there also sort of anonymous looking. Well, that was until the "O.J. 500". 

Five generations of the F100\F150 based Bronco later, Ford replaced it in 1997 with the four-door only, Expedition. A bastion of civility compared to the hoary Bronco; Ford continues to produce the Expedition to this day albeit one that's gone through a gaggle of refinement and four generations over the last quarter century.  

But wait, there's a chapter to this horse story that Ford probably wants to forget about. In 1984, in conjunction with the also new for 1983 Ford Ranger pickup, they foaled, (sorry) the diminutive "Bronco II". Although dimensionally quite similar to the original Bronco, if you ask me, it lacked all of its butch charm. Built through 1990, the "II" was most famous or infamous for stability problems. A top-heavy, narrow design, the "II" had a propensity to flip over. Especially in what's referred to as "J-turns"; the Ford Motor Company, naturally, blamed driver error for the roll-overs. So many "II's" flipped over injuring and killing drivers and passengers that the GEICO insurance company stopped writing policies for them. 

However, to those of us of a certain vintage, "Ford Bronco" will always mean, "O.J." although, in fairness, that infamous designation probably belongs just to the white ones. Ford said that the "O.J. 500" had no bearing on their decision to drop the Bronco name in 1997 as sales of these brutes were dropping anyway. Here's the actual Bronco involved in the infamous low-speed chase on display at the "Alcatraz East Prison Museum" in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. If you're wondering, the Ford V8 next to the Bronco was used in the filming of the 1967 film, "Bonnie and Clyde" and was shot up by local police prior to the filming of the scene. The "real" Bonnie and Clyde death car is on display in a casino in Nevada. 

Based on how many 1966-1977 Broncos were made, there were only around 225,000, and so much time has passed since the whole "O.J. 500", much like Ford's new compact "Maverick", it probably doesn't matter what Ford calls this thing or what inspired its design. It's transcendental much in the way the "new" Mini Cooper was and still is. No one cares that it apes the lines of an older vehicle. All that said, I want one. A two-door, please. The four-doors look like shoeboxes on wheels. 

Incidentally, a Bronco is a wild horse and not a particular breed or type of horse. 

1958 Edsel Ranger - Could it have Been Named Anything Else?

This big old 1958 Ford popped up on Facebook recently near our home here in the Cleveland, Ohio area with an eyebrow raising asking price of "just" $4,000. I say, "just" because if this was a GM or Chrysler product of this vintage, in what appears to be great shape, it would have an asking price three, four if not five or six times as much. In this crazy market, it might go for as much as ten times as much. Why's this so cheap? Because it's not just a Ford, it's an Edsel. 

My older son and I came across an Edsel at a car show during the summer before the start of The Pandemic and he didn't seem to notice just how unusual the front-end styling on it was. To him it was just "an old car" and not something particularly strange or even ugly. Mind you, though, he didn't care for it like he does Cadillac's of this vintage either. Could his apathy towards an Edsel indicate that Edsel's may soon have their day in the sun? 

The brainchild of Henry Ford II's "Whiz Kid" staff, the Ford Motor Company produced and sold Edsel's for 1958 and 1959 only. Technically there was a 1960 model, but production was halted not long after it began. All in, a total of 120,000 were built making them relatively rare. Not unicorn rare but compared to a 1957 Chevrolet, these are very uncommon. 

Allegedly squeezed between Ford's Mercury and Ford divisions, the Edsel was purportedly intended to help create at Ford a mid-priced three like General Motors had. Edsel Ford, the son of Henry Ford and the father of Henry Ford II, had created the Mercury division himself back in 1939 to help bridge the price gap between a Ford and a Lincoln and compete grill-to-grill with Pontiac, Oldsmobile and Buick. Problem with Mercury, most model years, it was nothing more than a slightly disguised Ford. In an effort to make the Edsel distinctive from any other Ford make or model, enter the "horse-collar" front end. I liken it to a toilet, urinal or even a bidet but that's just me. 

Allegedly inspired by the front-end styling of an Alfa Romeo, you see that now when it's pointed out, while the grill did get a fairly handsome reboot for 1959 that took out most of the "oh-god-what-is-that?" aspect of it, Edsel had more problems than just its styling. 

Poor workmanship and unproven yet clever technical innovations like a push-button automatic transmission selector did a number on sales. Couple that with a short but nasty recession in 1958, a massive and ultimately disappointing marketing build-up ahead of time didn't help either. Imagine the groans of disappointment from those who bought into the pre-game hype when they saw this thing. Horse-collar\American Standard front end and all. 

Then there was the name. By all accounts, Edsel Ford was a wonderful human being but his name. Yikes. And I don't think he was referred to as "Ed" by friends and family either. Legend has it the Ford family themselves at first bristled at using "Edsel" as a moniker too. At least at first. HF II had final say on using his father's name rejecting, again, legend has it, some 18,000 other suggestions.

End the end of the day, though, the name of this car was perfect. Could this be anything other than an "Edsel"? 

1964 Mercury Comet - Blame it on the Bossa Nova

Much like Dodge's "Dart", when I think of a "Mercury Comet", I first think of a small-car. Not surprising since I grew up in the 70's and a Mercury Comet when I was a kid was a compact car. And my first car was one of those "little" Comet's too. 

That wasn't the case in the 1960's as the Mercury Comet, while based on Ford's new-for-1960 compact Falcon, was a pretty big car; not full-size by the standards of the day but at one-hundred ninety-five inches long stem-to-stern, it was hardly what you could consider tiny. I literally ran into this red-on-red '64 the other night in the upholstery shop where I had work done to the driver's seat on my "new-to-me", 2004 Mitsubishi Eclipset GTS Spyder. It's either the smallest big car ever made or vice-versa. 

I'm not a Ford girl and perhaps it was the red-paint, the lighting, my excitement about getting my seat back, the cozy environ or the bossa nova, but I was all but slobbering over this thing like a five-year old on Chrustmas morning. 

The first "Comet" was actually slated to be a 1960 Edsel known as the Model B and was based on a one-hundred fourteen inch long version of the Ford Falcon's one-hundred nine inch base. The Edsel Model B was also more than thirteen inches longer than a Falcon. However, when Edsel went belly-up after model-year 1959, the car was rebranded as simply "Comet", similar to "Valiant by Chrysler", and was sold through Mercury dealerships. It was christened officially as a "Mercury Comet" stating in 1963. 

Ford, err, Mercury, redesigned Comet for 1964 using the same chassis the previous model used. Less than an inch longer than the "original" Comet, it's lack of tail-fins and straighter flanks gave the illusion that it was larger than it actually was. Which, somewhat ironically given that Comet was, for all intents and purposes a "smaller car", meant something back in the day when the size of a car supposedly mattered to American's. Was the Comet a big small car or a small big car? Personally, I think it's sized perfectly and a lot of buyers back then felt the same way; Comet sold pretty well. For a Mercury anyways. 

Our lovely red-head being a Comet "Cyclone" meant it was born with a "high-performance" 289 cubic-inch V-8 similar to the "Hi-Po" 289 cubic-inch V-8 of Mustang fame. In 1966, Mercury moved the Comet to the same intermediate chassis Ford used to under-pin their Fairlane. 

Comet became the awful Ford Maverick based turd of my childhood starting in 1971. Even back then I felt as though "my Comet" was a come-lately to a party that was quite the rager. Based on this '64, turns out I was right. 

About the only thing I learned about this car was that it was originally white, it was "frankenstiened" up the ying-yang and was in the shop getting a new headliner and rear seats to match the previously restored front buckets. 

The rest of my conversation with the shop owner was about keeping old leather in good shape. By the way, he recommended I use saddle soap and the same leather conditioner you'd use on a high quality leather jacket or sofa; never use Armour All or any leather cleaner you'd find in an Autozone or what not. Let the saddle soap dry completely before sitting on it too. 

1971 Ford LTD - When The Big Ford was Fab

I haven't come across too many old cars in the flesh worth blogging about since the pandemic began.  Seems owners of the old stuff have kept their cars quarantined as well. Most of what I have blogged about over the last six to eight months have been special interest projects of my own or inspiration from my online cheap-car searches. Imagine my delight this past Sunday when I literally stumbled across this big old Ford behind a repair shop near my home here in Cleveland, Ohio that I was dropping off a jug of used gear oil behind. It's a 1971 Ford LTD Brougham and there's nothing like something you find yourself. 

In my very humble opinion, there aren't too many Ford's manufactured between 1949 and 1972 that I think can go bumper-to-bumper with most anything from General Motors. Ford's 1969 LTD was one of those rare exceptions and the update they did to them for 1971 made them even better looking. Ford screwed the whole thing up come 1973 but from 1969-1972, especially in 1971 and 1972, the big Ford was fab. Oh, and for the record, I'm referring to the coupes. The four door sedans, especially the pillared sedans, I have no use for. Wagons are perfectly fine. And at the risk of sacrilege, I think I might like these better than a 1971 or 1972 Chevrolet Impala Coupe. I Might. I know all too well that being as loyal as I am, given a choice between them, I'll always go GM. 

The most distinctive styling change on the '71's from the 1969 and '70 LTD was on the front end. Similar to what Pontiac had been doing on their full-size models going back to 1967, is it me or is this not an update of what the Edsel would have evolved into had Ford not pulled the plug on it? We also have to keep in mind that for a brief moment Pontiac's honcho, Bunkie Knudsen, was in charge of Ford and he was a big fan of the open mouth grill. Some referred to it as the "Bunkie Beak" as he rubber stamped it to must lesser success on the 1970 - 1972 Ford Thunderbird. Somehow it worked beautifully on, of all things, Ford's 1971 and 1972 full size cadre. 

Like I pointed out in my blog about that small town '69 LTD not long ago, what I think I like about these big Ford's is that they look like they could be GM designs. The Chevrolet-like Rally Rims helping to add some GM mystique to the Big Oval design. They sure look like GM Rally's you'd find on various Chevrolet's and Pontiac's but they almost can't be. I swear I can recall as kid seeing Sears selling various wheel knock-offs from The Big Three right out of their catalog. 

I have mixed feelings about stuff like this - sometimes it works but most often times it doesn't. I'm not such a purist that I think they look out of place just because they're a GM inspired wheel on a Ford, I happen to think they don't look half bad. However, knowing what I know, I can't look past them. My wife was with me when I saw this car and I asked for her opinion on the matter and she gave me the blank stare down that she gives me when she could care less about what it is I'm asking her. 

This big brute is far from perfect. Nefarious dents here and there, rust bubbles under the vinyl roof. I neglected to photograph the interior - the seats are in good shape but the dash is all ripped out. Perhaps that's why it's back here. A side project after hours for one of the mechanics at the shop. 

What? No rudimentary after market dual exhaust? And who knows what lurks under the massive hood. If it's the stock motor it's either a 351 or 400 cubic inch, "two-barrel" V-8. A 429 V-8 was optional...how fun would that be in this? I thought of opening the hood but this is a new repair facility and no doubt there's surveillance cameras all over the place. I'm sure they got my license plate - not that they'd come after me for dropping off a jug of poison for them to dispose of but anything more than simple fawning over a car like this would be circumspect to trespassing. I did open the passenger side door and got a good whiff of that to-die-for old car smell. That would be that aroma of gas, rubber, plastic and who knows what else. If I trespassed then, your honor, I'm guilty as charged. 

This is a dealer sticker from a long defunct Ford dealership in southern Ohio east of Cincinnati on the Ohio - Kentucky border. I've always found these things obnoxious - ok, I buy the car from you and then I have to drive it around as a rolling advertisement for you? So many dealers did this back then and many of them going to so far to rivet a chrome dealer emblem on rather than an impossible to remove sticker. If you're not familiar with the geography of the great state of Ohio, Cincinnati is in the southwest corner of the state and Cleveland is in the western part of what is referred to as "northeast Ohio". The fact this car originally hails from "down there" might be why it's in reasonably rust free condition. Well, save for the bubbles under the vinyl top. They don't get a but a smidgen of the awful winter weather we get up here and that means a whole lot less metal eating rock salt on the roads. 

Well, as far as "old car season" goes, we're just about at the end of it up here. Not that it's been much of one this year with the pandemic and all. That's why it was extra special to see something like this this past weekend. My own personal one car car show and I loved it. They say this damn thing will end one day. That one day can't come soon enough for a whole bunch of reasons.