First car?
- Thread starter retroenzo
- Start date
In the early 70's, they were making so many smaller cars to combat the gas crisis.
In the later 70's, how did we end up with 4 wheel cruise ships like the Lincoln Continental/Mercury Grand Marquis, Cadillac ElDorado/Olds Toronado?
How much gas was wasted hauling those things around?
I wasn't around but I have to wonder if it was only just to show off status. "I can guzzle gas and you can't!"
When I was a kid -- in the '80s -- my family had a 1978 Ford Fairmont which was pretty long. A station wagon with a trunk that spread pretty far out. The Fairmont probably had nothing on those cars, though.
When I was a kid -- in the '80s -- my family had a 1978 Ford Fairmont which was pretty long. A station wagon with a trunk that spread pretty far out. The Fairmont probably had nothing on those cars, though.
The Fairmount was a mid-size. The Colony Park or Roadmaster—those were big wagons.
There was a Mercury Marquis wagon too. Our AMC Ambassador wagon was pretty sizeable, but it was late 60's-early 70's.
I think the Orion was the one Ford Car my immediate family have had. Earlier on, we just tended to lean towards Vauxhalls. No idea why, but that's just the way it went.
I did drive my brothers Nova on a few occasions and perhaps it was done to the feedback you get from the car. I always found Vauxhalls seemed to give lighter feedback through the steering wheel than Fords did.
A lot of those battle wagons had pretty crummy engines to make them better at MPG.
Yep, but as far as I know, still V8's, but like you said, crappy ones.
A Ford guy, eh? I knew, like Fords, you had a couple of screws loose.But seriously folks, my dream car as a teenager was a 1973 Mustang Grande. I would've preferred the 351 Cleveland over the Windsor, though I can't really remember why.
But it's funny, you pointed out the Aston Martin look to the grille on the 70's model, and new Fords are doing the same thing. Several models have the same front end look as current Astons. Which as far as I'm concerned makes Astons less desireable.
Heh heh....speaking of screws: That white Torino had a screw lying in the bottom of the inside of the passenger door, from the factory. Never installed wherever it was supposed to go. When going around corners or up and down hills, it was always rolling back and forth in there. Years later, when the salted roads made a rust hole in the bottom of the door, the damn thing finally dropped out somewhere. No more annoying sound.
Here's a Mustang story for you:
As I mentioned in the Gremlin post, one of my half-brothers had a 1972 Mustang at the same time as the Gremlin.
It was this light blue 'sportsroof' which was the base version of the Mach 1:
I loved that car, but boy did it go through hell. My brother comes driving up to my parents' house one day with no driver's door. It had been torn off and was sitting in the back seat. He had been parked on a street, opened the door, and a drunk smashed it off and sent it skidding down the street. Luckily, my brother didn't have time to start to step out of the car. When the cops caught up with the drunk, he said "I thought that was a helluva bump!" A replacement door from a junkyard was located and that was fixed. Then his big ol' German Shepard threw up in it. That was cleaned up. Then his wife at the time got in an accident with it. The repairs were less than stellar in quality. You can still see a dent in the left side of the valance panel underneath the rear bumper. The front valance was bent down in the center and never fixed. The original front bumper had a pair of bumper guards from the factory, but the replacement in the photo does not. My brother had a falling out with his wife and decided to go back into the Navy. Couldn't sell the car in time to anyone else before requiring to report to Pensacola, so my parents bought it from him. Quite late at night he drove it up and into my parents' garage, got the money, and left. When my dad came out the next morning to look it over he found that the trunk floor had a lot of rust holes, the exhaust manifolds were rusted through (it had sounded quite loud going into the garage) and there were various other problems. He was not too happy. We had the car for a few months, and my dad got it patched up and looking quite nice, but it had too many problems that were not going to improve without spending too much money. I really hated to see it go. My parents traded it for the green 1973 Gran Torino wagon. We had that for a few months, but the tail gate and general back end of the car were getting too rusted.
In August of 1977, we visited a nearby used car dealer. There were 3 Mustangs on the lot and I was like a kid in a candy store. There was a 1973 Mach 1 like this one, Saddle Bronze Metallic with Ginger cloth and vinyl Mach 1 interior, standard flat hood and 302 engine, but it had a/c and the fold down 'sport deck' rear seat. My dad and I loved that car:
Also on the lot was a 1972 Grande like this one except that it had a white vinyl top and white interior:
The third one on the lot was a 1973 hardtop, also bronze, but that one was too rusted to seriously consider.
My mother complained about the visibility through the back window of the fastback Mustangs. Well, the Grande would have been a solution to that. But, she decided that she wanted to go to the local Ford dealer and look at new cars. We ended up with a new 1977 'Limited Edition' 2 door Maverick that looked okay, but that had the straight 6 engine that could barely pull itself up a hill. We had various problems with that car in 5 years of ownership. My dad and I were really disappointed that we didn't get one of the Mustangs. He didn't argue with her, because the car was going to be her daily driver and he wanted her to have her choice.
Fast forward to 1996. Memories of the Mustangs finally made me look for one. I found a 1973 hardtop nearby. It had only 26,000 original miles on it. Book value at that time was $6650. The guy was firm at $6800. I had just sold a bunch of miscellaneous stuff out of the garage for $150. That made up the difference and I bought the car. This one was quite a 'late' car, having been built in June of 1973, a month before the end of production. The assembly line was behind schedule and the front seats ended up being installed in reverse positions. The left for the right and vice versa. The seat back release handles were supposed to be in the outboard positions, not inboard. Also, when mounting the front bumper they had sheared off the heads of a couple of the bumper bolts. I took care of those things. In the photos, the car still sits on its original 23-year-old tires. I had to replace those, because they were out of round from sitting. The original full-size spare was still brand-new and unused in the trunk. I kept the car for 2 years and then swapped it and the 1973 Ranchero in to a Ford dealer for a new 1998 Crown Vic.
Thirty months later, I saw the car for sale in a print ad. It had a nice, fresh re-do of the old white paint and some parts upgrades here and there. The price was $6500. I bought it back. I kept it for another while and then finally traded it straight-up for the 1979 Ranchero GT.
A complaint my mother had about the 1972 Grande was the white interior. She said it would have been impossible to keep clean. Well, as you can see in the photos that white hardtop was one very clean car all the way around from white interior to engine compartment and all.
For a short time, my wife and I had a 1967 hardtop. That was maroon with black interior, 289 V8 2 barrel and auto trans. It had the fairly rare bench front seat. It was another 'late' car, having been built just a couple of weeks before the end of production for the 1967 model year. It was too rusted on the underside to keep. We sold it to a couple who planned to save up for a complete restoration.
If we look for a Mustang in the future, it will probably be a 1972 'Sprint' which is a favorite:
By the way, one version of the 351 Cleveland V8 that is sought after is the 'Q'-code 4 barrel 'Cobra-Jet' version. That was still available with the 4-speed manual transmission in all models of the Mustang in 1973. The engine had been de-tuned and fitted with full emissions control equipment in 1972, but for 1973 I believe the horsepower rating was 266 nevertheless.
Last edited:
Heh heh....speaking of screws: That white Torino had a screw lying in the bottom of the inside of the passenger door, from the factory. Never installed wherever it was supposed to go. When going around corners or up and down hills, it was always rolling back and forth in there. Years later, when the salted roads made a rust hole in the bottom of the door, the damn thing finally dropped out somewhere. No more annoying sound.
Here's a Mustang story for you:
As I mentioned in the Gremlin post, one of my half-brothers had a 1972 Mustang at the same time as the Gremlin.
It was this light blue 'sportsroof' which was the base version of the Mach 1:
I loved that car, but boy did it go through hell. My brother comes driving up to my parents' house one day with no driver's door. It had been torn off and was sitting in the back seat. He had been parked on a street, opened the door, and a drunk smashed it off and sent it skidding down the street. Luckily, my brother didn't have time to start to step out of the car. When the cops caught up with the drunk, he said "I thought that was a helluva bump!" A replacement door from a junkyard was located and that was fixed. Then his big ol' German Shepard threw up in it. That was cleaned up. Then his wife at the time got in an accident with it. The repairs were less than stellar in quality. You can still see a dent in the left side of the valance panel underneath the rear bumper. The fron valance was bent down in the center and never fixed. The original front bumper had a pair of bumper guards from the factory, but the replacement in the photo does not. My brother had a falling out with his wife and decided to go back into the Navy. Couldn't sell the car in time to anyone else before requiring to report to Pensacola, so my parents bought it from him. Quite late at night he drove it up and into my parents garage, got the money, and left. When my dad came out the next morning to look it over he found that the trunk floor had a lot of rust holes, the exhaust manifolds were rusted through (it had sounded quite loud going into the garage) and there were various other problems. He was not too happy. We had the car for a few months, and my dad got it patched up and looking quite nice, but it had too many problems that were not going to improve without spending too much money. I really hated to see it go. My parents traded it for the green 1973 Gran Torino wagon. We had that for a few months, but the tail gate and general back end of the car were getting too rusted.
In August of 1977, we visited a nearby used car dealer. There were 3 Mustangs on the lot and I was like a kid in a candy store. There was a 1973 Mach 1 like this one, Saddle Bronze Metallic with Ginger cloth and vinyl Mach 1 interior, standard flat hood and 302 engine, but it had a/c and the fold down 'sport deck' rear seat. My dad and I loved that car:
Also on the lot was a 1972 Grande like this one except that it had a white vinyl top and white interior:
The third one on the lot was a 1973 hardtop, also bronze, but that one was too rusted to seriously consider.
My mother complained about the visibility through the back window of the fastback Mustangs. Well, the Grande would have been a solution to that. But, she decided that she wanted to go to the local Ford dealer and look at new cars. We ended up with a new 1977 'Limited Edition' 2 door Maverick that looked okay, but that had the straight 6 engine that could barely pull itself up a hill. We had various problems with that car in 5 years of ownership. My dad and I were really disappointed that we didn't get one of the Mustangs. He didn't argue with her, because the car was going to be her daily driver and he wanted her to have her choice.
Fast forward to 1996. Memories of the Mustangs finally made me look for one. I found a 1973 hardtop nearby. It had only 26,000 original miles on it. Book value at that time was $6650. The guy was firm at $6800. I had just sold a bunch of miscellaneous stuff out of the garage for $150. That made up the difference and I bought the car. This one was quite a 'late' car, having been built in June of 1973, a month before the end of production. The assembly line was behind schedule and the front seats ended up being installed in reverse positions. The left for the right and vice versa. The seat back release handles were supposed to be in the outboard positions, not inboard. Also, when mounting the front bumper they had sheered off the heads of a couple of the bumper bolts. I took care of those things. In the photos, the car still sits on its original 23-year-old tires. I had to replace those, because they were out of round from sitting. The original full-size spare was still brand-new and unused in the trunk. I kept the car for 2 years and then swapped it and the 1973 Ranchero in to a Ford dealer for a new 1998 Crown Vic.
Thirty months later, I saw the car for sale in a print ad. It had a nice, fresh re-do of the old white paint and some parts upgrades here and there. The price was $6500. I bought it back. I kept it for another while and then finally traded it straight-up for the 1979 Ranchero GT.
A complaint my mother had about the 1972 Grande was the white interior. She said it would have been impossible to keep clean. Well, as you can see in the photos that white hardtop was one very clean car all the way around from white interior to engine compartment and all.
For a short time, my wife and I had a 1967 hardtop. That was maroon with black interior, 289 V8 2 barrel and auto trans. It had the fairly rare bench front seat. It was another 'late' car,having been built just a couple of weeks before the end of production for the 1967 model year. It was too rusted on the underside to keep. We sold it to a couple who planned to save up for a complete restoration.
If we look for a Mustang in the future, it will probably be a 1972 'Sprint' which is a favorite:
By the way, one version of the 351 Cleveland V8 that is sought after is the 'Q'-code 4 barrel 'Cobra-Jet' version. That was still available with the 4-speed manual transmission in all models of the Mustang in 1973. The engine had been de-tuned and fitted with full emissions control equipment in 1972, but for 1973 I believe the horsepower rating was 266 nevertheless.
That white Grande is a '73, with the parking lights in the grille vertical like that, no?
Wasn't there also a "super" cobra jet motor?
I'm not sure why I was so obsessed with the 1973 Mustang Grande. I never got one, but did see a 1972 convertible at a used car lot back in 1986. It was in nice shape, but I couldn't afford it nor was I a "convertible guy".
The white one is a base hardtop. The Grande version had a vinyl top (some base hardtops did too) different style full wheel covers, different interior seating upgrade, etc. All 1973 models had the vertical turn signals and no auxiliary lamps like 71-72 had.
The 'super' cobra-jet was a version of the 429 engine in 1971.
That's right, thanks. I was too lazy to go looking
It's not lazy....it's 'otherwise occupied'.
I loved the Orion. From my child's point of view it looked like an Escort with a bigger boot, but I'm sure there was more to it than that. Similar to how I thought the Granada was just a bigger Cortina. Hey I was a child.
I think it basically was an Escort with a Boot.
As others seem to be doing, I thought I'd also post my history of cars since my Nova was written off.
I followed that up with a 1999 Citroen Saxo which I loved but after a couple of accidents (not caused by me, I hasten to add), it never felt right again.
I traded that in for a 2002 Ford Ka which I had for years. A lot of people took the p*** out of it (including me) but it was a fun little car. It was like driving a go-kart at times.
From there I went to a 2007 Kia Picanto. I thought it looked fun but it was a bucket of bolts!
After a very expensive air conditioning fault and power steering fault, I got rid of it and have what I have now, a 2009 Ford Fiesta, and I love this car to bits. The only complaint is that I can't connect my phone to the car via USB to listen to podcasts or music like I could with the Picanto.
Similar threads
