Headline superlatives are a slippery slope. But I’m on solid ground here, despite feeling like an idiot for not including the 1965 LTD in my CC survey of five revolutionary cars: 1945 Jeep; 1957 VW; 1958 Thunderbird; 1965 Mustang and the 1973 Honda Civic. But sitting in my old truck across Amazon Creek and spying this ’65 LTD Coupe in a parking lot 100 yards away, the Ford Better Idea light bulb suddenly went off: this is the car that completely changed the marketplace, that singlehandedly launched what I have now officially dubbed the Great Brougham Epoch. Hail the single most influential American car of the whole damn modern era.
Pretty strong words, and this two-door without the vinyl roof doesn’t make the best example (this four door is more representative), but hear me out. Prior to the LTD’s arrival in 1965, “luxury” was just not overtly pushed in the low price brands. Sure, the word “luxurious” might have made into the ads for the high-trim models to separate them from the strippers, but that was a very relative term of the use. Up until 1965, all the top trim models sported shiny vinyl upholstery; and that includes the top line Pontiac Bonneville and most Buicks and Olds, except for their very top sedans. In 1964, vinyl roofs were still as scarce as bell bottoms.
That largely reflected the times: in the late fifties and early sixties lots of folks were sitting on vinyl chairs and couches at home too. The 1959 Cadillac De Ville I shot and wrote about recently brings that home: very casual, if not downright sporty, in the golf club sense of the word. Of course, there was the Fleetwood Sixty Special sedan and such by Lincoln and Imperial. But suddenly in 1965, here comes Lee Iaccoca pushing a radical notion indeed: a new definition of luxury, one that was way ahead of its times.
This notion of affordable luxury was a huge cultural shift that deeply influenced design for decades to come. That includes our houses, interior furnishings, and so much else. This really came to bloom in the seventies and the seeds really popped in the eighties. And it really hasn’t fully ended yet: let’s face it, the Lincoln Town Car is much more of a true successor to the Ford LTD than the 1961 Continental.
The 1965 LTD was not really a separate model until 1967; it started as a trim package available for the Galaxie 500. And not a cheap one: for an extra 20% over the price of the Galaxie, one got different upholstery in a peculiarly sheer and softly-textured synthetic fabric that’s been referred to a “pantyhose fabric”; nothing like the re-upholstered seats in this car. This may be another car for which it might be difficult to ever find an exact replacement fabric.
Past the softer seats, some extra sound padding and the standard 289 (4.7 L) V8 and automatic, the LTD’s additional content was heavy on the badging. The important thing was to let your neighbor know you’d bought an LTD, not just any old Ford. And Ford brazenly started comparing the LTD with the Rolls Royce, including the famous “Quieter than a Rolls Royce tv ad (see related post)
Here’s a more flattering picture of that rear seat. Now that could look straight out of a Lincoln or Cadillac brochure. Yes, this was a whole new ball game. And what relevant role was Mercury ever to play again in Ford’s future?
The direct competition instantly knew what they had to do: rush out their own LTD packages, as quick a possible. Chevrolet’s Caprice package arrived as a mid-year option for the Impala, and Plymouth trotted out their VIP, and even AMC trotted out a DPL. The acronyms of success were rolling off the marketing men’s lips like schoolboys reciting the ABC.
But that was just the opening salvo. The ’65 LTD marked the great turning point, when sporty became passe, or just the playthings of guys who knew the difference. Sure, the final days of the golden sixties performance era were still just ahead in 1965, but the LTD was already looking beyond that. A true visionary.
It foreshadowed the era when emission controls and high insurance rates all but killed true performance cars. But that wasn’t the real market anyway; the overwhelming majority of Mustangs and Camaros had low level V8s or sixes. It was all about the image. And the sporty image is what had increasingly predominated since the early fifties.
That started with the little MGs and such the GIs brought home after the war. Within a few years, it couldn’t be ignored, hence the Corvette and original two-passenger Thunderbird. And by 1961, it was in full bloom: bucket seats and floor shifts were everywhere, even if it was for a two speed Powerglide hooked to a six.
The popular 1961 Corvair Monza gets a big helping of credit. Right on its heels, Chevrolet released the SS option for its big cars: buckets, console, etc.. and a six was still the base engine. And everyone else plunged in too. The Mustang was the explosion. Ironically, the LTD arrived only some six months after the Mustang. All too quickly, it upset the sporty applecart, and the trappings of luxury were the thing to have in your driveway.
I don’t have the resources to do a full cultural survey, but I can’t help but wonder if the 1965 LTD’s influence was even greater than we give it credit for in the automotive realm. Did the whole cultural shift to the seventies’ growing taste for velour, dark wood paneling, and other trappings of luxury in our homes and offices start right here? Was Lee Iaccoca that much of a genius? Or did he just feel the earliest winds blowing in that direction and set sail sooner than anyone else? Brilliant, either way.
Obviously, the LTD didn’t bequeath its name to the Great Brougham Epoch. That name had long been used by Cadillac for its very top sedans. And I’m going to finish writing this before I look up who used the name first on a more affordable sedan (I should know that). But the fact that the long-exclusive Brougham name soon graced the most pedestrian of cars is what this Epoch is all about. So now we also have to define when it ended; it appears vinyl roofs are not available from the factory for the current and last Lincoln Town Car, which in every other way is certainly the last living dinosaur of the Brougham Epoch.
The ’65 LTD is an excellent precursor to our CC Complete Cutlasss Chronicles, because the Cutlass Supreme appeared just two years after the LTD, and was perhaps the first overtly luxurious mid-size car model, and went on to dominate the Brougham Epoch. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves, again.
The mechanical details of the LTD are boring and largely irrelevant. It seems like almost all of them came with the first-step optional 352 FE (5.8 L) V8; a dullard of an engine. And the Cruise-O-Matic was well known to be the least efficient of the popular Big Three automatics. The combination suited the LTD perfectly in a way, as Ford’s major efforts to soften and hush the ride of its all-new ’65 full-sized cars resulted in the beginning of another era: the Great Wallowing Big Fords Epoch.
Maybe that’s the real reason the LTD was created; trying to sell the sport qualities of the new ’65s would have been a stretch. The Ford Total Performance Era was already fragmenting before it reached its peak. And the Great Brougham Epoch wouldn’t need all that expensive racing to make its point. Charging 20% more for a different upholstery and a handful of badges was a hell of a lot more profitable too. And Ford sold over 100k of the LTD packages in that first year alone. No wonder the whole industry piled in, and quickly.
All hail Lee Iaccoca LTD; the Emperor of the Great Brougham Epoch!
Another great article! I know that you aren’t a big fan of full-size Fords, but I’ve always had a soft spot for full-size Fords from the 1960s, and the 1965 model in particular. Maybe it was because Matchbox used a 1965 Galaxie sedan as the basis for its police car and fire chief car from 1966-69 in its 1-75 range. EVERY boy had these Matchbox cars at that time.
I was really hooked on the stacked headlight theme, along with the rectangular taillights, which Matchbox captured perfectly in its miniature diecasts. The collector-car market, of course, prefers the equivalent Chevrolets from those years, particularly the SS models.
Of course, I was too young to know that pundits called the 1965 Ford “the box the 1963 Pontiac came in”.
If I recall correctly, the suspension and frame of this car were all-new, and the front suspension design is still used by NASCAR.
In the long run, this car really kicked off the dynamic that enabled Ford to undermine GM. For years, Ford had been very weak in the medium-price market. Mercury wasn’t much competition for Chrysler or Dodge, let alone Buick, Oldsmobile or Pontiac. But if Ford could take the Galaxie upscale, and charge extra money for it, then Chevrolet would be forced to follow suit.
Only problem was that Chevrolet was soon stomping on the turf of the BOP divisions. Ford, of course, was encroaching on Mercury’s turf, but given that Mercury had never really had much of an image – or the sales to go with it – it really didn’t matter all that much to the corporation.
But if one could get a Chevrolet that was as nicely trimmed and luxurious as an Eighty-Eight or Bonneville or LeSabre, then why buy one of those cars? Over time, the rationale for Sloan’s stair-step divisional structure came crashing down, and GM never found another formula for success. Today, very few people really believe that a Buick is more prestigious than a Chevrolet.
Ford, meanwhile, was happy to sell increasingly luxurious Fords, whether they were LTDs or Gran Torino Broughams or Thunderbirds, and if a few sales were lost by Mercury, it was no big deal to the corporation as a whole.
This excellent post takes us into the world of those who were still classed as (cringe) baby boomers but were too late for Vietnam (thankfully), legal LSD (I wouldn’t know), free love (at least in my case), and pre-malaise American cars.
The Matchbox Ford Galaxie police car and the (equally nice) Fire Chief version were the perfect cars at the perfect time, with good road holding, an intimidating presence, and the ability to ram everything off the road if necessary. (Someone some day should make a list of what diecast vehicles are all-time classics, but this certainly would be in the top ten.)
Lesney had replaced an earlier Ford with the Galaxie and slipped up by changing the blue-and-white color scheme of that (mistakenly two-door) model to overall white, but they made up for this somewhat by including the same logo on the vehicles, so our municipalities (made up of shirt cardboard roads with pencil and a few new-fangled Pentel markers in my case) could share both new and old cars. And they also later upgraded the Galaxie to a Mercury, with no other changes, so my police force was able to buy new cars.
The LTD specifically, though, was further emblazoned into my consciousness by the FBI TV series, starring Efrem Zimbalist Jr. (son of the great violinist, hence the “Jr”) that made its debut at the time my parents first allowed a (black-and-white) TV into the household. A major and relatively early example of product placement, the show was not only sponsored by Ford but featured Ford cars pretty exclusively, and they must have given the producers some of the first cars off the line every year, since it was always amazing how quickly the featured cars were updated after the model-year change.
Producer Quinn Martin later continued his association with Ford in “The Invaders” and “The Streets of San Francisco,” both classic shows that are (only to some degree in the case of the latter) available on DVD. “The FBI” unfortunately isn’t, as far as I know, so I don’t know whether it was only baddies who lurched around in the LTD — while the FBI men drove Custom 500s — or they were more widely seen.
Meanwhile, here’s another diecast example from my collection, the Dinky France Galaxie. There’s no sign of LTD badging on the car, but the plasticwood dashboard is nicely reproduced as is even the hood ornament …
My grandparents (both sets) and a few aunts and uncles were full participants in the Great Wallowing Big Fords Epoch; there were always several big Fords in the family during the late 60′s-to-late 70′s period (eventually this morphed into Great Wallowing Big Mercurys as well). And my parents had an Impala SS, but just the badge-and-bucket-seats version with the 327, not the big-block V8.
Ford is still trying to evoke that LTD-next-to-the-Rolls thing; when the new Taurus was introduced, one of the ads featured a guy who was proud of his SHO and how it was one of the cars the valet parked out front with the higher-end stuff.
I’m glad you brought up the new Taurus. I drove a very nicely equipped one in Colorado last summer and kept thinking to myself, “They should have called this the ‘LTD.’” The Town Car might be headed for oblivion, but the Brougham spirit lives on. Without stepping up to the EcoBoost you can get a FWD Taurus Limited to nearly $42k. Heck, it’s possible to spend over $33,500 on a Fusion without opting for either AWD or the 3.5 liter V6.
Boo, and here I always related the introduction of the Cutlass Supreme to the success of The Supremes…..
Iacooca, the man the myth, the legend.
Ironically during my parents rotation of Oldsmobiles, Pontiacs, and Chevrolets the Chevy dealer loaned them an early 1980s LTD while their Chevy Celebrity was in the shop. (FWIW the Celebrity was advertised as “the little car with the big car feel.”) Mom declared the Ford was a “wallowing pig” and I can’t ever recall my father even test driving a used Ford after that.
Smaller cars were the “in” thing back then. We called anything larger than a Celebrity a “boat” or a gas-hog! Your mom was right on the mark! When the early mid-80′s Buick and other FWD “full sizers” came out, well, they were pretty special and impressed me. FWIW, we drove K-cars, Fairmonts, and an AMC Concord on both sides of our family.
Paul, you did it again! That 1965 Ford Galaxie 500 is one of my all-time favorites with the 1966 model right behind it. Aside from being a Chevy man, a certain female I chased around Yuba City when in the air force so very long ago drove one of these – 2 dr. hardtop, white, black vinyl top, red interior. Extremely beautiful girl, beautiful car, even if I liked my ’64 Chevy better! Now my brain is running in overdrive, so I have to list my favorite cars in order: Chevy Impala, Chevelle/Malibu, Nova, Camaro, Ford Galaxie 500, Morris Minor. Well – that’s it for the cars that really matter(ed) to me. In looking over the limo version, it kind of reminds me of the mini-limo K-car, which I thought was really cool. Our local Plymouth dealer had a couple back then.
Yet another example of a simple, straight line design that holds up nearly 50 years later. Gracefully aging much better than an equally conditioned ’65 Impala IMO.
(I’ve written before, there is an “evil” glint in those stacked headlights that is absent from the Pontiac of the same vintage that I find appealing.)
Definitely one of my all-time favourites.
Just to stoke the embers of debate, could an argument also be made that Chevrolet started the “Cadillac look for Chevrolet money” trend in ’58 with the introduction of the Impala?
That said, I don’t dispute Paul’s point that this car began the Brougham Epoch that peaked in the 70s.
You would also have to consider the 1957 Ford Fairlane 500, a longer-wheelbase, more luxurious version of the “regular” Ford, that was built to take on the Buick Special. Buick had claimed third place in sales by 1954, and would hold that position through 1956. Ford was going after customers in the lower-medium price field.
It wasn’t an LTD but my ride for Prom in ’90 was a 66 Galaxie. We had more attention rolling up to the valet in that than ANY of the Limos there!
My mother had a beat-to-poop example, a white ’65 4-door (yes, it was a genuine LTD) with a 352/dual exhaust (until the exhaust system fell off). We got it in 1974 for $50.00 because it was all she could afford, and we knew the seller and a little of the car’s history. It had been hit hard in the rear, so we drilled holes in the tops of the rear quarters and mounted trailer lights on top for the brake lights – kind of a poor man’s Imperial gunsights.
Amazingly, that thing got my family (single mom – 4 kids) everywhere we needed to go, even in the infamous 20″ blizzard that hit Detroit in December ’74. No, it wasn’t perfectly reliable by any means, in fact it truly was a POS, but we managed to keep that beast on the road for over two years, until the gas tank fell off on the freeway in the spring of ’77. When we came back to get it, it was gone, and my mother didn’t even care, she was probably relieved to have gotten that thing out of her life once and for all. My grandmother, upon hearing of our plight, gave us her ’70 Maverick and got herself a new ’77 Maverick (could she have been the only repeat Maverick buyer?).
Despite this tortured history, I still have love for the clean look of this generation of Ford; I especially like the ’66. They must have really loved it in Brazil, because they kept making these up to 1983. Here’s an ’83:
http://www2.uol.com.br/bestcars/carros/ford/landau4g.jpg
That Brazilian Ford is a really attractive car, more like a Mark III than an LTD.
Exactly how long does a car run after the gas tank falls off (having never had that particular piece fall off, I’m curious)?
Long enough (after the terrifying clunk) to notice that the gas gauge had gone from 1/2 tank to below E in an instant (yeah, I know, American gas guzzler). My mom pulled over and shut it off, so we’ll never know just how long it could have gone on. Maybe a few more seconds. We were all fortunate we weren’t incinerated. I found the gas tank and dragged it to the shoulder (I was 15 and
stupidbrave enough to do it). Walked to a pay phone, called a neighbor to please rescue us, and that was the last time I ever saw the car. I’ve never wondered what happened to it, not even now; to me it was a symbol of poverty that we hung onto for a little too long.Outstanding article and comments, thank you. I hope you’ll cover the XL as well. As LTD was introducing the cheap luxo-barge, XL was closing the book on very big cars with very big engines. My folks kept their 1968 XL fastback for 15 years. Metallic gold, black vinyl roof, fake mags, racing stripes and a 428. Absolutely preposterous. I called it their sports aircraft carrier. That 428 insisted on Sunoco 260 (102 octane), 7 mpg. Mom adored it.
Ford division (especially with King Lido in the drivers’ seat) didn’t feel like doing any favors for then struggling Mercury, and much like Dodge, went after the more senior division with an upmarket car – and a nice one at that. Lincoln like luxury at a Ford price! Certainly created the immediate knee-jerk reaction at GM with the ’65 1/2 Caprice (very Olds 98/Electra 225/Cadillac Calais like luxury) and the Plymouth Fury VIP (a car as a six year old I remember my Dad actually contemplating buying).
I still remember all the Ford LTD comparison ads to high priced (usually British) cars; especially the ’72 LTD being compared to a Jaguar XJ6!
Remember, Iacocoa was head of the Ford Division in those days. He liked his battles under the “scorched earth” rubric.
He didn’t care WHERE his sales came from; GM or Dodge or Mercury. He just WANTED them!
Its DNA shows up in the current Taurus. In profile (especially the C-pillar) and in the taillights.
Great article, Paul.
As I recall, the fabric was universally referred to as “panty cloth”.
Very durable stuff too …. as is the fabric in most cars and trucks.
But when the cloth in the car got dirty or wet, it got a funky smell and never left the car, we would go down the shore and even with towels and stuff on the seats we always managed to get sand and wet on the seats causing that funky smell
There was a number of differences in Canadian built (Oakville, Ontario) cars before 1967. One was that no 2 door LTD was offered to us in 1965. The 4 door HT that we did get had completely different interior trim (same as 1965 Merc Park-Lane).
This was repeated in 1966. Also, couldn’t get a 289 engine until 1966. So in 1965, you went straight from the 240 Six to the 352 ,minus the 4 bbl carb of the US version, which made it a real boat anchor at 220 HP (versus 200 for the 289, and a lot less front end weight). Also, our option listed was more restricted, the most notable restriction being no factory in dash AC. If you wanted air, it was a dealer-installed unit under the dash.
In 1966, while you could finally get a 289, there was no 352 as in the US (no big loss).
And the 390 was 2-barrel only for Canada. Curiously, the two 427s (4V & 8V) were available in both countries, although I have never seen one.
These variations were all a result of the trade barriers which existed before the 1965 Auto Pact. We could order AC starting in 1967, but it had to be a US built car. Oakville was finally set up to install factory air in 1968, when it finally became available on the Meteors.
I would say that the LTD was the second shot from Ford. The first would be the 1955-57 Thunderbird. The LTD (Long Two Door?) was a much cheaper implementation of the undercutting strategy. The Thunderbird required a whole lot of effort to produce, this car, just gussy up an existing sedan. Styled to ape the very successful Pontiacs of the day, while appointed like the Cadillacs of the day. Excellent strategy for the time.
My father had a 1965 LTD 4-door hardtop in silver-blue – no vinyl top. It had the 390 (T-bird) engine (4 bbl?) – this car was previously used by the coroner – so it had some kind of police-package? I drove this car in my early-driving years. It was a quiet ride compared to other similar vintage cars.
Several comments about the interior. This was the first car in my memory that had keys which could be inserted either side up. The dashboard was swept back very dramatically at the bottom – my father had after-market air conditioning installed and the unit created a shelf at the bottom of the dash because of the swept back dash. Finally, I remember a vacuum operated rear vent (near the rear window). There was a knob on the dash that opened/closed the vent – this whole rear-vent system was an answer to the similar GM system.
I think you’re right about the reversable key. Ford started introducing it in 1965, and it would make sense that they offered it first on the expensive cars. My ’66 Mustang did not have them, but the ’67s did, IIRC.
Regarding “T-bird power”, I believe that was merely a marketing gimmick by Ford. I notice that this car has a “352″ fender emblem with the T-bird logo. While I happen to like the 352/360/390 group of FE-Series engines and have many happy memories of them, I’ll admit the 352 was nothing to write home about, power-wise.
Loved this article. Karl, the reversible key feature wasn’t just for the LTD’s. Dad ordered a new ’65 Custom in March ’65, the bottom of the basement trim level! But it still had the reversible keys. Even that stripped down model had a very quiet ride. I still wish Dad had popped for the LTD trim but he was a product of the Great Depression, hard wired to be frugal, and he just couldn’t see the sense in spending all that money for some plastic wood, I guess. The ’65′s styling was obviously influenced by Pontiac but manages to look cleaner, and its ultra modern dash was one of the best of the ’60′s. Now it’s time for the diecast makers to give this car its due!
Always liked the clean dash of the 65 and went to PEP BOYS and bought a roll of the wood grain plastic and dressed up the chrome in the car with it, along with white pinstripes and a 4 way flasher install from pepe boys and signal stat that car was da BOSS!!!!!!
Any idea what ‘LTD’ meant? I always thought it stood for Luxury Through Design, but does anyone have the official word from Ford?
Numerous theories and assumptions, but none verified. It means nothing; or anything.
one possible meaning is shortened “LimiTeD”. “Limited” indicated some kind of exclusivity.
yup, that’s it. LIMITED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Perhaps indicative of Ford’s aspirations for mass market luxury, I remember the local Ford dealer tell my dad that LTD stood for “Lincoln Trimmed Down”. And some of the detailing certainly bears this out: the panty cloth knit nylon seemingly matched the luxury of brocade fabrics in Cadillacs and Lincolns; the c-pillars housed not only courtesy lights, but (gasp) stereo speakers; and, a center rear armrest provided a luxury touch not found on other entry full-sizers. (An aside: I’ve got a theory that the entire collapse of the American domination of the market can be traced to removal of that armrest by American manufacturers, while imports had them on all but the lowest trim lines.)
Paul nails it here, in terms of how quickly the luxury-themed race went, and the link between cars and home luxury. Chevy (in ’66?) had a “formal” coupe roofline for the Caprice coupe only; in ’67, LTD had both a formal roof AND covered in vinyl. Reminiscent of home, the LTD later added “TwinComfort Lounge seats”, 50/50 split bench front seats with each half having it’s own armrest. And by ’69, Ford introduced a dash severly swept back on the passenger side–and dubbed that space “the front room”.
My parents had one of these rather briefly in 1965-66. My father had a one-man body and fender shop, and a friend of his who ran a junkyard hooked him up with a nearly new wrecked Galaxie 500. It was a gold two-door with the 390/Cruis-o-matic setup.
It had a black top, and for a long time I assumed that it was factory vinyl top, but based on what I’ve read here, it may not have been. Around that time Daddy had become enamored with this stuff that you sprayed on that looked like a vinyl roof. The stuff really looked like a vinyl roof, and it adhered well. We found out (much later) that its down side was that when you wanted to remove it, it took a strong man, a large side grinder, and a box of rough-grit grinding wheels to get that crap off again. So, maybe the ’65 was Daddy’s first experiment with the fake vinyl roof. Regardless, the black roof and gold body looked sharp.
What led to the car’s early departure from the family was it’s gas mileage, which was in the range of 8 mpg. Even back then, Daddy wasn’t going to put with that crap. He had bought another car from the same source, this one a ’66 Galaxie 500 XL with the 390/C6 drivetrain. It’s mileage was almost double the ’65 at 15 mpg. Adios, ’65!
the 65-70 Fords were the mainstay of our family either new or used, dad had the 65 LTD used for over 8 yrs and unc would buy a new car every yr for tax purposes so the cars kept coming in fast..t he 68 LTD wagon was the frost car we had with factory Ac in it, darn near froze my little kid arse off on vacation sitting in center seat and loving it!!!!! Alas the 68 took a good hit in from a toytoa but the wagon smashed the shoot outa it.. but bent the frome on the LTD and unc just wrote it off and bought a swoopy new gold 1969 in May of that year with power EVERYTHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
“Chevrolet released the SS option for its big cars: buckets, console, etc.. and a six was still the base engine.”
Actually, that’s not the case. To get the SS package on a ’61 Impala, you had to order the 348 engine or its mid-year successor, the 409. By ’62 the SS package was available on an Impala with the lowly 235 6 cylinder or V8′s from 283 through 409 ci.
Dang, you have the second-greatest avatar which I was thinking about using over on TTAC until I could come up with something better than the door of my Impala.
Now I gotta find something else! Love it!
In late 1964, our ’55 Chevy BelAir was on it’s last legs. After going through hell with a cracked block in a late 50′s lemon Plymouth Fury (same car as in the movie Christine), we bought a ’55 Chevy used from someone moving to Australia and became a GM family.
We would have looked at Impalas and the like but GM was on strike. My dad saw a TV ad for a new Ford during a football game…the LTD. Yes, it was only a trim package but was cleverly promoted. We took a test drive and were amazed at how quiet it was. We would not have normally bought a Ford but were convinced. We ordered a sedan in silver blue with a dark blue padded vinyl roof. It was just around $3,000. It had the standard 289 2bbl and 3 speed Cruise O Matic. It had that novel flo-thru ventilation…a vacuum driven motor that opened a vent under the rear window. That, the wing vent windows and the vents under the dash helped some, as we didn’t have AC. It was the most luxurious car we had. To us it was a limo. It was big but at 210″ long not as huge as some other large cars. I remember it had a blue cold light on the dash to tell you the engine was cold. No temp gauge though.
We kept the LTD for 10 years and it had about 150K miles, a lot back then. I remember the engine locking up once and it was rebuilt around 100K. It had no PCV system and just a road draft tube to ventilate the crankcase. When I drove it late in its life, I found that my parents were using the wrong drive position all the time. They were starting out in second gear, the one for low traction starts! That couldn’t have been too good for the car!
By the time I started driving, the car was about 9 years old and was pretty battle scarred from a motorcycle who crashed into the back door and tons of stop and go driving. The paint had faded badly too and had no shine. Still, I loved driving and working on it…until it was on a lift and the doors would not open…because the frame was badly rusted. I was advised to carefully drive it to the junkyard. I did and it was sad to see some young kid drive my beloved LTD towards the pile of metal that it would soon be part of. I got $50. I kept some of the LTD medallions and the owners manual.
We replaced it with a 2 year old ’71 Caprice we bought from a relative for a good deal. That was a good car too and died of rust as well…the rear axle almost came off the car as it went around a turn like a fire truck!
After the LTD, I had some $100 cars in my teen years. A1966 Bonneville wagon was a great car we had until it was at least 15. But that LTD made a Ford fan out of me and I have bought small Fords since, Fiesta (German import), Escort GT and my current first gen Focus zx3. I still dream of that LTD and although cars have improved so much since, perhaps because I grew up with it, I would love to drive it again.
I remember the 1968 LTD Brougham very well!
My dad bought a demo at a small Ford dealership in MN. I thought it was beautiful! I loved the cloth upholstery. BTW the “Brougham” was now an optional interior package. Perhaps because of the additional expense of the standard LTD/XL hidden headlights?
The standard LTD interior was like the XL bench seat but in cloth, still a bit nicer than the Galaxie 500.
Dad’s LTD was a 4 door HT in Seafoam Green (pale avocado), black vinyl top, Dark Ivy Green interior. 390 2V. It could do some mean smokey brake lock burn outs!
It looks like you can still get the upholstery ( for anyone restoring one):
http://www.smsautofabrics.com/product-info.php?pid=66-6129&pcl=c&ino=17325
As I remember Ford used a lot of satin fabrics on their premium cars: Lincolns, Thunderbird/LTD Broughams, Park Lane/Marquis, while GM used brocades…..all were slippery!
My grandfather had the midnight blue hard top 4-door– as depicted in the brochure. No post between the front and rear windows. That car floated. It was absolutely beautiful, and if I could find that car today, I would spend quite a lot to bring it back.
yeah the road feel on these cars was zip. we took a LOL car on a test drive in the mid 70′s with the 390 and just about blew away every toyo and Nissan on the road with it.but zero input on the road feel like you FLOATED on the road!!!!!!!!!!
I like large cars with a quiet ride, good upholstery, and arm rests, at affordable prices. The only thing I dislike about the mythical `Broughams’ are the fake classic touches (including fake RR grille), and the poor packaging causing less interior space. The 65 LTD doesn’t suffer from the first shortcoming at least. For me, fake luxury is more desirable in a commuter car than fake sportiness, at least when said fake luxury has good aircon, nice seats and soft suspension. Even a sport-ish car has no excuse for installing poor, bleak interiors. But that’s just me.
Actually, most ’65 LTDs came with the 300-horsepower 390 Thunderbird engine as did many Galaxie 500s rather than the 352. Both had 4-barrel carbs with the biggest difference being the 352 ran on regular-grade gasoline (93 octane) while the 390 demanded premium fuel (100 octane).
Also notice the back seat view of a window crank rather than a power window switch. Definitely not a Cad or Imperial touch as all of their cars had power lifts standard.
Mark; From what source do you have that info on “most of the LTDs coming with the 390?”
Also, in 1965, Cadillacs still had wind-up windows; I’m not sure what the last year was, but this is from the ’65 brochure.
I can tell you firsthand that crank windows were still around in 67.
WOW, did this article bring back memories of DAD buying a 1965 LTD off the used car lot in FEB of 1969 for 24oo bucks, it was a minty green with a green gut and some kind of vinyl roof, that car had a 289 cid power steering and am radio that never worked , he got over 200k miles on it before he hit a chunk of concrete in 1976 and totaled the trnany and engine oil pan…………………………..Still car was a chick magnet and had to explain was LTD meant to the girls when we cruised with it………………..
And Unc had 3 Wagons that were BARGES, a 1968, 69, and 1970, boy they were HUGE and power everything up the yazoooooooo………………..They even took a good front end hit on the 68 and saved us kids from going thru the winshield and totaled a 1969 Toyota.that sucker was no match for Detroit Iron and folded that Toyo front end like a sardine can.BAMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!
Nice. The big Fords of the mid-Sixties were the first cars I remember liking as a young ‘un in the late Sixties, and in the early Seventies a friend’s dad had a ’65 or ’66 Country Sedan. They still look good today, and though we never owned Fords, I think one of these in our driveway would have made for some pleasant memories…though I can imagine my dad grumbling about the gas mileage and going for the ’67 Beaumont with the six and a Powerglide anyway.