Rust, Roses, Rice Crispies & Relatives

Polaroid SX70 photograph of my 1964 Thunderbird, just before it was restored in 1980. Rust had ravaged the lower bodysides, with the exception of the removable fender skirts. They were never taken off the car, but were most likely made from aluminum which doesn't rust. If they were steel, like the body, they would have rusted out also. The 'Bird was in the shop for about six months and came back looking brand new. The color was called Diamond Blue—almost white. The interior was a medium blue pleated vinyl that shone in the sun.

This is an almost ten year old photograph, back in the film days and cheap processing at the local drug store. The flash bulbs were very "hot" and the fast processing always produced really oversaturated colors and deep shadows. Although I miss the medium of film, for historical purposes especially, I find I have much more control of my images with digital cameras now. I suppose if I had ever learned how to develop my own film, I would have enjoyed that more, but once a photo is developed, there's not much you can do to it to "fix" it.

A real Ford Family—My aunt Hoohoo in the family's 1952 Ford F-100 pickup, and one of their Ford sedans in the background,a plain-Jane '52 Mainline. If you could have seen more of the driveway, there would also have been a beat up '51 Country Squire wagon, a '36 Ford Phaeton slowly turning back into the soil, and her gorgeous '58 Thunderbird. This truck was bought in the late '50s from a local guy nicknamed The Rebel. He owned a body shop in town and that's a custom gold and white paint job. Notice the "wide whites" and full chrome wheel covers, a pretty flashy touch for a Fifties pickup.

Another shot of my great uncle Art's store, this time in color. I'm surprised at the number of items that are still being sold today. Of course the boxes and logos are different now, but the brand names remain. Art was pretty "modern" having a large TV in his little store! Even though the store was about 10 steps from the house, it had an intercom system so Art could communicate to the people in the house without leaving the store. I thought that was neat. You just pushed a button and spoke into what looked like a radio and someone in the house would answer. I have audiotapes of "little me" talking to my grandmother through the intercom—they're reel-to-reel tapes!

 

The Sanborn family, circa 1930, Leete's Island, CT. Five year old Hoohoo on the left, twelve year old Veronica, my mother, in the back and my grandmother and grandfather. I think I may have posted this image before, but I found a better print of it this weekend and rescanned it.

Ford's "Total Performance" for 1964

As perfect as my 1962 Ford brochure is, my '64 version is decidedly less so! Unfortunately this brochure was stored in my Mom's basement for years and years, and went through a couple of episodes with broken sump pumps and flooded basements. The cover and back cover suffered the most, sticking to whatever was on the top and bottom of them, but the interior has water damage too. This was a great year for Fords so I kept it, and hopefully it won't deteriorate any further. This piece has a litho date of 1963, and is missing Ford's brightest star for '64, the Mustang which wouldn't be introduced until April 17th of 1964. 

Featured in it though are Ford's almost completely restyled lineup, from the new sheetmetal and rooflines of the full-sized Fords, to the heavily facelifted Fairlane, and the completely restyled Falcon and Thunderbird. Illustrated above, in the opening spread featuring all of the new Fords, is a photo of the Swing-Away steering wheel in a Galaxie. My '64 Tbird came with that unique feature standard, but I never realized that it was optional on the full-sizers as well.

The Galaxies and Customs featured brand new rooflines. The four door pillarless hardtop is one of my all-time favorite large Fords, although it took me many years to come to that appreciation. This four door was available as a 500/XL complete with bucket seats and console! Note the blue 2 door in the upper right-hand corner. It's ID'd as the 500/XL convertible, and on close inspection it is, but the airbrushing artist got the roofline totally wrong. It has the "slantback" roofline of the hardtop. I thought they had just inserted the wrong photo, but on close inspection, the stainless trim at the base of the roof includes the snaps for the convertible's roof cover and the roof's details are different from the hardtops. Oops! 

Interestingly, the Galaxie/Custom line is given a third page in this 12-page brochure, and the Fairlane is only given one page. The Fairlane was heavily facelifted this year, with new roofs and new bodies, and would be again in '65. In '66 it was completely redesigned in a larger package, and was impressive enough for my Dad to come home with a bright red 500/XL hardtop coupe.

The completely redesigned Falcon is featured on these two pages. It was much more sculpted and angular. Bodystyles included sedans and hardtops, as well as the sporty convertible. The Econoline van was included in the Falcon lineup, called the Deluxe Club Wagon in passenger trim.

My beloved '64 Thunderbird! Photos highlight the cozy "Twin Cove" rear seating in this series of Tbirds, as well as the absolutely perfect profile proportions seen here on the Landau. The convertible's clean lines is obvious on the red 'Bird, the result of the modified retractible roof mechanism of the '57-'59 Fords and first 4-seater Tbirds of '58. The soft top retracted completely into the rear trunk, which opened up electrically "backwards" to accept it. It then closed with a smooth metal cover replacing the usual bulky boot-covered rear stack for an oh-so elegant appearance.

• This '64 Galaxie 500/XL 4 door hardtop was sold a long time ago, but the link still works. It shows the 4 door with bucket seats, and just how well-trimmed and special Ford's Galaxie interiors really were.

• That same purveyor of vintage cars, Memory Lane, also has this great '64 Falcon Sprint convertible for sale. Thanks to loyal reader, Woody, for posting the link in the comments. I'm adding it to the "front" post so everyone sees it, What a great looking little convertible, and it's a great suggestion of Woody's that Ford sell a new convertible for less than its current Mustang.

Classic Domestic Car Lineup—Ford for '62

When I think of a "classic" American carmaker's full lineup of product offerings, the 1962 Ford perfectly fits the bill. They had a compact, an intermediate, a full sizer, a luxury offering, and even a "people mover" or van as they were called back then. The Falcon, Fairlane, Galaxie, Thunderbird and Econoline are really all anyone needed, or needs today!

My father came home with a black Galaxie 2 door post sedan in 1962, with a 390 V8 engine, the lightest-weight bodystyle with the FE series V8. There were also a couple of 406 engines available but apparently were special-order only, and my father was an impulse "buy from the lot" type of guy. For a young car lover, he certainly gave me some great surprises growing up because of that!

To make "room" for their upcoming intermediate, Ford renamed all of its full size cars "Galaxie" for 1962. Higher trim levels were thus the Galaxie 500 and 500/XL, adding trim and features and equipped to near luxury levels. Elegance was stressed, as can be seen in the way the Galaxie was photographed. The Falcon also added a new model this year, the Squire wagon, available with bucket seats if so desired! The new Falcon Futura featured Thunderbird-inspired bucket seats, console and thickly padded vinyl interiors.

Though there were "senior compacts" from GM in 1961, Ford really can be credited with creating the new "intermediate" class in 1962 with its Fairlane. Interestingly, this new class of cars, fitting perfectly between the compacts and full sizers, this '62 Fairlane used the 115 inch wheelbase of the very popular full size Fords of the mid Fifties. Ford even plucked the Fairlane moniker from that popular series of Fords. For this new car however, Ford used unibody construction, similar to the Falcon's, for lower weight. Ford kept this construction for its intermediates until the 1972 model year.

At the top end of Ford's lineup, the luxurious and sporty Thunderbird added two new models for '62. The now-classic Landau luxury coupe and Sports Roadster convertible both made their first appearances. The Landau upped the luxury ante inside with lots of woodgrain trim and added a vinyl roof complete with "S" bars on the C pillar. The Sports Roadster used a fiberglass toneau with built in headrests covering the rear seats. This was meant to evoke the original 2-seater Tbird, and has become a highly-coveted collectible in its own right. The bottom spread illustrates all of Ford's passenger cars for '62, really a lineup for the ages, in my opinion!

B T W : 

This piece is entitled, "Ford Owner Newsletter Supplement, The Long Ford Line for 1962," measures 11 x 8 3/8 inches and is 16-pages including front and rear covers. The layout is almost haphazard when you look at all of the spreads as I've scanned and grouped them here. The fonts are consistent throughout, but the sizes aren't for the titles. There is not much of a discernible template, as text column widths and photo widths vary. This piece is in exceptional condition, a bit odd since it wasn't an expensive piece to produce—no glossy varnished pages, no heavier-than-usual paper stock. I think it's all the more desirable to me because of it!

Johnny Lightning's Family Hauler, 1960 Style

Johnny Lightning's 1960 Ford Country Squire, produced in 2002 for its Playing Mantis series.

M  Y  C O L L E C T I O N — As I mentioned in the post below, $1.19 Car-A-Palooza, scale model station wagons are scarce. That doesn't mean I don't have quite a few, lol. I've always been attracted to scale models of real-life cars, as opposed to racing cars or fantasy cars. Station wagons used to be as ubiquitous as SUVs and crossovers are today, so they fit into my aesthetic perfectly. When they're the versions with woodgrain, like this Country Squire, I can't bring them home fast enough. The metallic green exterior contrasts beautifully with the woodgrained sides and tailgate, and complements the very well-detailed six-seat interior. Johnny Lightnings are a step up from Matchboxes or Hot Wheels for roughly three times the price, a still affordable $4.99 eight years ago, if I remember correctly.

The design of the 1960 full-size Ford is of my favorite postwar Fords, based on a styling mockup known as the Quicksilver. I've read a couple of articles on this car, but can't find much about it online. It's mentioned in this great article at How Stuff Works on the development of the '61 Lincoln. From what I remember, it was designed by Alex Tremulis, designer of the late and lamented Tucker Torpedo, but I'm not 100% sure of it. I'll keep researching and update this post if I find anything.

Quicksilver styling model, the basis for the sleek and sophisticated 1960 full-size Ford.

Does Anyone Remember the 1981-82 Granada?

Because I Certainly Don't Remember This Second Generation!

If you had asked me yesterday whether Ford made a second generation North American Granada, based on a slightly facelifted Fairmont, the Fox platform, I would have said no. I don't remember it at all! I don't think I've ever seen one in person, certainly not the coupe with its attractively widened C pillar (compared with the Fairmont). Apparently I picked up this brochure at the dealership 29 years ago and never looked at it again until this morning! Talk about "like new" condition...

Looking at this car with my 2010 eyes, I can honestly say it's pretty decent looking. It's a bit more formal than the Fairmont, a bit fussier in detail, but the changes aren't heavy-handed at all, and add a bit of class to the car if you ask me. The black coupe, below, is downright elegant looking in that honest way that Fords of a certain vintage always possessed. They were available with four-, six- and eight-cylinder engines, and were all rear-wheel drive. They came in L, GL, and GLX trim levels for '81, in coupes and sedans, and added a wagon for '82. 

The Mercury version for this 1981-82 second generation was no longer called Monarch, it became the Cougar. For '83 the Granada name was retired for good, replaced with yet another facelifted Fox body, and renamed the LTD. At that point, the "Fox" Cougar became the Marquis. The early '80s was certainly a fluid time in terms of Ford's naming practices, as they tried to downsize their models and keep up with the times. Jack Telnack's "aero" age was just around the corner . . .

I swear I've never seen one of these coupes in either Granada or Cougar guise. Compared with the original Fairmont, the wider C pillar is good looking! I really like it in this all black version. It's tasteful and appears light; it's elegant without being ornate. The proportions are great for a mid-size Eighties automobile.

The GLX trim level was the top of the line, but oddly came with blackout trim on the rocker panel moldings, B pillar and window frames and headlight recesses. The interior came in vinyl buckets or optional split bench seats with dual armrests. It's "sort" of sporty with the black trim, but the interior was "luxury" oriented with lots of woodgrain.

For the rest of the trim levels, and the options page, click the jump link.

Soft Watercolors for Hard-Edged Muscle Cars

Elegantly Creative Brochure for Ford's 1970 Performance Lineup

Notice the juxtaposition of yellow and blue cars used in this spread, the hues of my sunflowers and morning glories from the past summer! Great colors are great colors wherever they're found.

M Y   C O L L E C T I O N — With a litho date of 8/69, this 8 1/2 x 11 inch, 16-page brochure documents Ford's phenomenal performance car lineup for the 1970 model year. Included are the Mustangs, Torinos and full-size Fords of legend—Boss 302, Mach 1, Torino GT and Cobra, Ranchero GT and Ford XL. As this booklet was produced at introduction time, the legendary production Boss 429 is absent. Neither is there a mention of the much-hyped Torino King Cobra, a good thing as it never progressed past the prototype stage. Even without those two additional powerhouses, these pages have enough horsepower and implied testosterone for any historic muscle car fan. 

I'm amused that the ad agency decided to use very elegantly rendered watercolor and ink drawings to illustrate these muscle cars, cars obviously geared towards the manliest of men. Remember, this was just a few years past the Mad Men era of chain-smoking, womanizing male-dominated advertising. The late Sixties saw the rise of pop culture and psychedelic influences creeping into marketing, so perhaps the agency was subliminally trying to reach the feminine side of its male target audience! Ha!

Seen in today's light however, the illustrations are really gorgeous and show the emotion and beauty behind these vehicular land-based rockets to their best, and most nuanced, advantage. Yes, they were hot performance cars, but they were truly beautiful as well. The 1970-71 Torino GT Sportsroof is still one of my favorite cars from that period, by any manufacturer.

Torino GT, Sportsroof and convertible. See my homage below, in my "BTW" sidebar.

Mustang Boss 302, a true legend in the making. Ford is making a new version.

Mustang Mach 1, sport slats optional—a touch of the Lamborghini Miura's pizzazz at about one fifth the cost.

Ranchero GT car-based pickup, and the full-size Ford XL with optional two-tone paint, the luxury performance cruiser of the lineup, the ninth and last year the XL was produced. The delightful first generation Bronco is in the lower left.

Matte black hoods and Ford's racing heritage were clearly in evidence on the cover of this brochure.

I started off this post with the strongest illustrations in this brochure, pages 4-13, and I'm going to end with what precedes them, pages 2-3.  This spread is a nicely written and illustrated essay of Ford's performance history. I've scanned it a bit larger than usual so it will be easier to read when it's clicked on and enlarged. I really looked this booklet over with my eagle eyes, trying to find an art credit for the illustrations, and there isn't one. It's really too bad, they're quite good, and remind me of the artwork that appeared in magazines like Car and Driver back in the day.

B T W :

I've always loved Fords and have created hundreds of my own versions of them in the past several years. You can find several of my Mustangs here. And as always, all of my "fake" cars that I've posted on this blog are able to be found by using the Chops link below my Flickr gallery and show review link, or the Labels list on the lower right of this blog page.

My Torino GT chop is a direct homage to the '70 Torino GT illustrated in this brochure.

My Ranchero chop is loosely based on the '70-'71 and later models, with a bit of beefy F150 thrown in for good measure. 

A Few More Pieces and I'll Have a Car

This very stylized logo used on the 1966 Ford Country Squire station wagon could only have been designed in the Sixties. Close to 3 1/2 inches in diameter, I would have been very happy to have the assignment to work on details like this, had I pursued a career in car design. Isn't the horse's head beautifully rendered? For a Google Image photo of the '66 Country Squire and the logo placement on the front fender, click here. 

I'm guessing this 5-inch Nash hubcap dates to the early 1920s. Nash Motors began producing cars in 1916. This small cap, which literally covered only the center hub of the large wheels of that period, is cast from brass and was plated, probably in nickel. There is a tear in the brass—I can only imagine the force needed to do that—a car accident, perhaps? I found this in my dad's garage bins when the house was sold, He was as much of a pack rat as I am. I love the dull sheen and the slight glow of the aged brass coming through the thinning nickel outer plating, sort of like the way I fade layers in my art. The oh-so Twenties logo and typography is charming as well.

The gas cap used on the early 1970s AMC Hornet. American Motors created some great logos for their cars in the '60s and '70s, including the Marlin, Gremlin and this Hornet, They were whimsical, stylish and well-detailed, and small items like this gas cap were well-made of quality materials.

I once had close to 100 hubcaps/wheelcovers in my collection, but they're one of the few things I downsized at my last move, and it was very difficult for me to let them go! I now have only ten or so. I'll photograph and post them one of these days.

Ford 1975: The Other Side of the World

The cover of the 1975 German Ford Escort brochure, available in coupe, sedan and wagon bodystyles. This has become known as the Series II for this platform, the Series I being built from 1969-74. In '75 the car was restyled with more contemporary squared up lines. The wagon used the new front clip grafted onto its older, more rounded body—not an aesthetic triumph to say the least—but one that must have been rooted in economics. I think this updated body is very attractive, the rear wheel drive proportions clearly in evidence, and the thin pillars and low beltline are exactly to my taste.

I spent some time in Germany in the spring of '75, as part of an exchange program. I studied German for four years in high school, as well as French and Russian, but honestly, was never very good at foreign languages. My last attempt was a year of Intensive German in college, and then I decided to concentrate on studies I actually could progress in, lol. In the spring of '74 I had planned a Russian exchange, but at the last minute, literally the week before I was to leave, the Russian government cancelled all visas for a while. So I was really happy to go to Germany the next year.

The mid-level Escort L coupe. There was a base level underneath this, and a Ghia level above.

The wagon bodystyle utilized the rear body of the more rounded earlier Series I, which didn't really mate very well with the squared up front clip. "Basic" sure describes the rear space. I can't think of any American wagons from that time with plain painted metal for the load floor. If not carpeted, domestic wagons usually came with a linoleum-type floor covering in a matte finish.

The upmarket Ghia level of trim included this oh-so-American vinyl roof. The sedan's updated greenhouse looks great to my eyes. Comparable cars imported to the US at this time would have been the rear wheel-drive Plymouth Cricket and Mitsubishi Colt and the brand-new front wheel drive VW Rabbit.

The Escort Sport, with its rally-inspired driving lights and blackout trim.

• For the Wiki on this European rear-wheel drive Escort, click here.

Ford's 1972 Better Idea Lineup

This is a large format dealer piece for the 1972 Fords, 18" x 11". I've only found this one folio, consisting of the front and back covers, featured here, and the inside covers featuring a page for the Pinto and a page for the Thunderbird. I have no doubt the rest of the interior pages fell out and are probably in another of my brochure cartons. I have 7-8 large cartons full of dealer literature, and will get around to totally organizing them at some point. I've scanned these two images large enough to be able to read and to enjoy the illustrations. This is an early promo piece, with a litho date of 8/71. The Pinto Wagon and Squire were introduced in February of '72, too late for this piece.

This is the year my dad bought a new LTD Brougham 2 door coupe in Light Gray Metallic with a black vinyl roof and a black interior, with the optional high-back "Twin Comfort Lounge" split front seats. My dad was 6'3" and my mom was 4'10" so they always tried to have either bucket seats or divided front seats like the LTD's. This is the car I drove to my high school proms, otherwise totally forgettable evenings for me, lol. 

• For the Wiki on the Pinto click here, Most of the information seems correct to me, except for the price. Wikis states it was "close to $1,850" but I remember distinctly it was $1,919 for the 2 door base coupe.

Red, White and Blue—On a Diminutive Scale

There has been an email floating around the web for a few years of "regular" cars squeezed down into tiny, Hot Wheels/roller skate looking devices. When I first received it I was amused at the concept, but not the execution. They weren't photoshopped very well. Yes, they were amusing, but I thought the concept needed to be executed a bit differently. I created several of these miniatures, and present three of them here today. From the top, the red Ford GT/Kei (Kei is a market of tiny cars in Japan with engines of 660cc and under). I'm pretty sure this was the first chop of mine featured on the Autoextremist website several years ago. In the middle is my small '63 Thunderbird. At the bottom is my '61 Impala-lite.

You'll notice I didn't just up the tires/wheels and proportionately "squeeze" the cars. I shortened overhangs, hoods and trunks, and changed some character lines on the cars to smooth them out for their newer, shorter overall lengths. I like to think, in another dimension, in a vastly different world where gas mileage was always a priority and garages were legally limited to 12 feet long, lol, my cars might actually have been designed by Detroit's stylists.

Hedging Its Bets, Ford's Elite for '75

Hedging its bets in the hotly contested midsize personal luxury segment, Ford continued its glorified Gran Torino Elite, for '75, although it officially became the Ford Elite this year. It's clear that this car tested the waters, or more correctly, warmed up the waters, and then acted as a placeholder for the '77 Thunderbird's move to the midsize platform. Double opera windows and thickly padded side moldings don't necessarily a luxury car make, but the general design of the grille and single headlights was quite dramatic and forward Ford-like at the same time. 

Elite's interior, a facelift of the Gran Torino interior that came in with the '72 redesign, would serve Ford for years and years. The '77-79 Thunderbird featured a version of this five- and seven-dial IP, as did the renamed LTD II of '77-79.

• Here's the Wiki on the Elite.

• Here's the Wiki on the LTD II, a decent facelift in an oddly-ending decade for design.

Early Promo for Original Granada

This is a dealer promo booklet measuring roughly 8 1/2 x 11 inches, and has a litho mark of 8/74, making this a pretty early piece. The cover, on the left, is pretty subdued considering what a huge gamble this car was for Ford at the time, offering full-size car luxuries in a much trimmer package. The fact that they supposedly benchmarked the Mercedes Benz 280E sedan didn't go unnoticed by the enthusiast press. "Mitered" corners were touted in the build quality of the window frames, and clean lines for the time certainly looked at home next to the imports of the day. From a distance, anyway. The right side of this graphic shows a page of the Optional Extras, illustrating that Detroit was alive and well with that time old "Give 'em what they need, Sell 'em what they want" tradition of extra-cost accessories. This coupe shows how the car could be optioned to almost Lincoln-like levels, and how it almost looks Lincoln-like from this angle.

This interior shot leaves no doubt as to the market and buyers Ford was courting with this "new size" mainstream car. The 5/8 scale mini-model makes the interior seem much larger than its old-school rear-wheel drive 109.9" platform actually allowed. I long for the days of mainstream red interiors! My '85 Town Car had a red velour interior like this.

Ford's Better Idea Wagons in 1965

This is a medium size folder, 8 1/2 x 11 inches, 8 interior pages and fold-outs equaling 12 total pages, with a fold out split in the front cover. The tailgate section of this 1965 Ford Country Squire folds down to reveal the new and unique, twin-facing rear seats, increasing the wagon's total passenger count to ten.

Interior pages devoted to the full size, mid size and compact Ford wagons.

The last page reminds the viewer that Ford had plenty of other new cars in its showrooms for 1965, including the new top line Galaxie 500 LTD 4 door hardtop, and the Mustang notchback which had been introduced on April 17th, 1964.