Photos of a more fortunate Maverick by PN
In everyone’s lives, there are a handful of moments in which the figurative lightbulb illuminates in one’s head. One of mine began illuminating in late 1979 or early 1980 when I was seven years old; it took a while for full power but it’s stuck with me like a bug on a windshield.
The Maverick of discussion, a 1971 model which belonged to my paternal grandmother, was likely recycled into a refrigerator long ago but its legacy is still quite vibrant.
Grandma purchased her Maverick in late 1970, special ordered from the one-man band of Stout Ford in Mounds, Illinois. Equipped with the 170 cubic inch straight-six, a three-speed on the column, and a heater, it was as sparse as one could get. Its only real acknowledgement to greater aspirations was being ordered in an eye-catching Grabber Blue.
Upon being unexpectedly widowed at age 45 in October 1966, my grandmother had the unenviable combination of returning to work and raising a twelve year-old. Being the stubborn, bull-headed, and unyielding woman she is, Grandma told me in 1995 this experience made her vow to pay cash for a new car within five years as she didn’t want to be seen as a pitiable, unfortunate widow.
She bought the Maverick in a little over four years.
One day while in third grade I saw a wrinkled yet familiar Maverick parked on this county road my grandmother used daily to get to her job as head cook at the school cafeteria.
Kindergarten through 12th Grade, all in one complex
Being a very small school district, I was able to tell Mrs. Wilson, my third-grade teacher, I needed to go see my grandmother without having to explain who or where she was.
I found Grandma in the stockroom, doing inventory. She appeared surprised about my knowing of her mishap. In retrospect I suspect she didn’t want to make a production but I ruined that. This event was infinitely more fascinating that multiplication tables and I gleefully blabbed the news to anybody who would listen.
Upon my arrival home, my mother was immediately informed of this Major Event. It was met with a simple “ugh”.
His was an identical twin to the yellow one
My father greeted the news in his usual stoic fashion. After eating, he and I, along with my aunt’s husband Lyle, piled into my father’s 1970 Ford F-100 and went to fetch Grandma’s car.
My grandmother was quite accustomed to driving on gravel roads but the loose rock she found that day got the better of her. The oak tree that jumped in front of her succeeded in pushing the front bumper into the radiator, with the radiator being shoved into the fan. The hood was crumpled, but oddly the front fenders were relatively unscathed.
How she drove the Maverick as far as she did before the engine got warm is a mystery to this day. Of course, Grandma was always quite lucky in her driving. A few years earlier she had successfully backed the Maverick through a ravine at a state park that most people wouldn’t dare navigate forward unless wearing a four-point harness while piloting a four-wheel drive. She and my great-grandmother were gabbing and bouncing around the interior the entire time, oblivious to what they had accomplished.
Hooking a log chain between the Maverick and the F-100, we started back to the house – the long way, which surpassed the thirteen miles it would have been on paved roads.
Likely trying to avoid my father’s cigar smoke, I rode in the Maverick and could see absolutely nothing due to eating dust from the pickup. In a way, I feel for Lyle’s navigating the Maverick; he was trying to avoid hitting my father but was rendered blind. The ride was a thrill for seven year-old me, especially when any slack in the chain was yanked out, but it would probably be more nerve-wracking now.
Incidentally, it was about this period of time when Lyle and my father did actually have a collision. One frosty morning Lyle was backing his still ice covered ’76 F-100 from his driveway as my father was going to visit his Uncle Stan. Stan lived next door to Lyle and my aunt. Neither could see each other and they connected right in front of Lyle’s house. So maybe Lyle was understandably gun shy about a repeat performance.
My observation about their sheet-metal bending connection being like Rosco and Enos from The Dukes of Hazzard prompted a lively admonishment. It was worth it, although my brutally honest observations still aren’t appreciated by others.
Now is the point where this true story takes a turn from semi-serious to, well, something different. You might also be asking yourself a few questions, among them:
Jason, why didn’t they call a tow truck?
Great question. None was called as a) that would have cost money, and b) a tow-truck was too far away; besides, everybody there at the time owned a pickup. The car could roll, so what’s the problem?
Jason, didn’t the police take a dim view of pulling a car thirteen miles with a log chain?
A good question based upon a false premise. For law enforcement to take a dim view of anything, there has to be law enforcement. Where I grew up any thought of law enforcement was a novel and abstract concept. I never even saw a car marked with “Alexander County Sheriff” until I was seventeen years old; there were all of two state troopers in the county, neither of whom would have batted an eye (for what it’s worth, my dad had gone to school with one and my mother was friends with the older sister of the other; he had also been a neighbor for a brief while). To give you a flavor for the area, the sheriff’s department would later have all have their cars repossessed.
Jason, what exactly was the plan?
Plan? What plan? You haul it back to the house and let it soak up some sun for a few days until inspiration hits. Of course, the Maverick was put under a shade tree where the best automotive inspiration seems to take place.
My grandmother wasn’t going to pay anybody to fix her car anymore than a cow produces bourbon – and filing an insurance claim was not an option due to increased premiums. Somehow she rooked my father and Lyle into fixing it. As a witness to this whole bizarre spectacle, I’m still not sure how it all came together so well.
One Saturday morning, after Lyle and my dad had basked in their British heritage by smoking a King Edward or three, the sweet tidal wave of inspiration swept over them both. Dad got his socket set, a sledgehammer, and his old Ford tractor.
The hood came off and was tossed on the ground. The self-draining radiator was removed. Chunks of the shattered grille were tossed in every direction. The log chain made a triumphant reappearance and was wrapped around the radiator support. It was obvious things were about to get interesting.
After some incoherent, smoke drenched confab, Lyle got in the Maverick and stood on the brake pedal. Dad began to cremate another King Edward and climbed onto the Ford tractor. Clinching the cigar in his teeth, he revved the old Ford tractor up to three-quarters throttle and gingerly dumped the clutch.
The Maverick lurched and shimmied while the Ford dug its large drive wheels into the ground. Hitting the clutch, dad backed up and repeated the process for what seemed like half the afternoon.
After howling protest from all parties involved, the radiator support was slowly bent back into some semblance of being perpendicular to the fenders. The finesse of a sledgehammer provided the final, delicate touches.
A new radiator reluctantly obliged to being connected to the crinkled radiator support. Points were not scored for inconsistent gaps as functional had been the name of the game all along.
With the radiator in place and the cooling system filled, a preliminary start of the engine yielded no leaks, smoking, knocks, rattles, or other unpleasantries. A quick cruise around the nearby cemetery showed the Maverick didn’t track sideways, so all was good in the world.
Getting back to the house, my father and Lyle continued to partake of activities guaranteed to make any auto-body teacher nauseated. Flipping the hood on its belly, they took turns jumping onto it, slowly turning the tangled mountain of sheet metal into a plateau that could reasonably be seen over.
Reattaching the hood, the log chain made an encore by being welded to the underside of the hood and wrapped around the front bumper. A padlock held it all together. The license plate was screwed onto the tractor straightened bumper and the Maverick was now ready to terrorize the highways of America.
Time for some more likely questions:
Jason, how did the car pass its safety inspection?
What safety inspection? Illinois didn’t have them for passenger cars at that time and they still don’t.
Jason, did your grandmother actually drive this monstrosity?
Why, yes, she did and for well over a year.
Riding in Grandma’s Maverick post-oak tree was a blast. Taking off from a stop, you knew when she had hit 35 mph as air would take the slack out of the chain and raise the hood about three inches. Dropping below 35 would result in a “clunk” as the hood settled back down. It was great fun.
This whole true and sordid tale ultimately developed my practicality mindset. It was also a great lesson in not worrying about silly stuff, not stifling creativity, and exercising self-sufficiency. It’s paying dividends to this day.
And what about the Maverick? After driving it for a year or so, she sold it to some down-on-their-luck family for $200. They drove it for several more years before it vanished.
I love this story for many reasons; one, I grew up in a more populated and (likely) more prosperous county in western Kentucky and never saw any sheriff’s patrol cars until 1968 or so. The town of Henderson has a paid, professional police force but for those in the county the “law” was almost entirely in the hands of the Kentucky State Police. Henderson County is fairly large and it wouldn’t be unheard of for an hour or more to elapse before a state trooper might arrive.
The main reason for my love of your story is the ad hoc vehicle repairs. I can remember straightening the front bumper on a Pontiac station wagon using some logging chain and a stout tree; it wasn’t perfectly straight but at least the tire no longer rubbed. I can also remember using a length of motorcycle drive chain to compensate for a broken motor mount on a friend’s old Plymouth. What is funny about this is that GM did the same thing on certain vehicles a few years later; apparently the motor mounts were prone to breaking and they used drive chain as a backup.
Seems like a perfectly normal chain of events to me. From my childhood anyway. We rode whatever motorized conveyances on the roads. (NC49 at the edge of Alamance County) My aunts and uncles started driving the 64 impala to church at about 12 y/o. Impala was only slightly younger than the aunts and uncles.
And the tractor was a very important tool. You could swing a rope or cable over a hardy tree limb, hook it to a engine in a car on one end, tractor on the other and lift that sucker out easily. We didn’t have an engine hoist, but did have a tractor and ropes and cables and trees. And how else would you start the ’53 Chevy pickup, but to hook it to the tractor and pull it? Put it in 3rd, pull it off with clutch in, then let clutch out and hope she fired. Repeat as necessary. Or PUSH it off if the rope had been taken for some other project. See engine removal above. Only the RICH families had CHAINS… lol My grandfather drove cars till they were used up. Then they were parked in the woods and used as storage lockers. ” Go out to the ’42. [It was a 42 Ford sedan.] Look in the back seat. You’ll find the _____ there, under the _____. There was a 46 Chevy, a 63 Belair(?) wagon, a 63 Impala SS (it was sold, as it had some value); a 52 Studebaker truck, that I remember, plus other sheds and barns. Refrigerator plugged in at the well pump to keep my uncle’s Mountain Dews cold (It’ll tickle yore innards!) Fridge was probably 100 ft from the house. You could see it from the kitchen window. No indoor plumbing when I was little, except in the kitchen. Chamber pot or outhouse. I remember when the bathroom fixtures were finished. Lovely Avocado sink, tub, toilet.
this article brings all that back to mind and how fun and easy life was.
This same grandmother didn’t have an indoor toilet until I was 12 or so. It still seems so odd to see it in her house.
She had an outhouse for years and I still cringe when I see gallon size tin cans, used for green beans and the like, as found in food service. That’s all I’ll say about that.
Had a great aunt and uncle who lived in a handbuilt log cabin on a moumtain in the appalachian part of SE Ohio (Stockport). They lived in it well into the 1960’s. Had rudimentary indoor plumbing, a two basin deep sink, a shower and a toilet. The shower and Toilet where in the open but surrounded by a non-opaque shower curtain/ Oh and hard packed as linoleum dirt floor, and no glass or screens in the windows. But solid built shutters. And of course a wood stove for heat. They did have a gas stove and electric fridge. They called the place Mockingbird Hill! As A kid, I loved IT!!
Haha, my own Grandma had come from Nebraska. When she got married to that farmer in northwest Ohio, indoor plumbing was insisted upon. My grandfather hand-dug a septic tank, a job that took many days due to the heavy clay soil. They did not get electricity there until 1939 when their kids were 11, 6 and 4 (with my mother being the middle one).
What a joy to read. Especially as my own Grandmother, [with the same grit as yours, Jason ] bought the first 70 Maverick Grabber [yellow, just like the one in the article] in Chambersburg PA and drove it for years to her job at the Hanover Shoe Factory.
And had a front ender in it.
Your use of grammar is commendable: “he and I, along with my aunt’s husband Lyle, piled into my father’s 1970 Ford F-100 and went to fetch Grandma’s car.” Rather than “him and me” or some other atrocious construct. Or “had went” Or “we seen”.
It’s become so common that not seeing or hearing the use of bad grammar [and I’m talking about on the radio, on TV, in print and especially the internet], is worthy of positive comment.
Add the vivid descriptions and commentary and the whole piece made me smile. Thanks, Jason.
And another reason I come to CC everyday: excellent writing and intelligent commentary.
A big AMEN to your comment! ? The writing on CC is excellent. It’s a true joy to stop here and revel in all the stories and their comments.
As the son of a former English teacher I concur!
I didn’t think much of the Maverick at the time. Now I think it’s a pretty good looking car.
This doesn’t just work on old Mavericks!
About 15 years ago, I performed a slightly refined version of the ‘tractor & chain’ repair after a friend’s kid drove his ’90 BMW 325i off-road and smashed the radiator into the fan.
With the trashed bumper and radiator removed, I wrapped a chain around the lower radiator support and padded it somewhat with a piece of wood. Then I attached the chain to the bumper-hitch on my pickup and pulled it tight. With the parking brake set on both vehicles, I repeatedly jumped on the chain until the cross-member was pulled out far enough to leave a decent gap between radiator and fan.
Happy Motoring, Mark
Ha, nice to the the expanded version of this story. There’s a similar one in my family that involves a 1983 Buick. I was sitting at home with my folks during a snowstorm when my brother gets home and announces:
“Hi Mom and Dad, I went to drive my friends home and hit a light pole. Don’t worry, there’s not too much damage. Oh, and I spent ten dollars on gas, can I get that back?”
At that point I jumped up and said “Well, gotta go” and beat a retreat to my room before the fireworks started. I wound up fixing it with a stout cable attached to our Impala’s trailer hitch. 🙂
A very enjoyable and, for me, very relatable story. Living in the city (the steel buckle of the rust belt), I haven’t used a tractor to pull bent components, but have used the car itself, chained to a tree or telephone pole. Notable examples include: Rear bumper of a ’75 LeSabre after a woman backed into a pole (used that same pole to pull it back out), ’74 Sedan DeVille front bumper end (bent in and downward when purchased used, attached the chain to the pole about two and a half feet higher than the bumper to pull it out and up), and, less than a year ago, the rear bumper of a very clean ’85 Diplomat after an inattentive idiot rear-ended the right rear while sitting at a redlight. Each time was a success, done carefully and incrementally. The most intricate example was the right front inner substructure of a ’97 Neon, pulled back out after a drunk hit that corner at about 20 mph. Whacking the peaks of the creases with a 5-lb sledge, with the chain under tension, and a small relief cut (later welded) were needed on that one. I had to laugh after reading of the two gentlemen jumping on the inverted, bent hood to flatten it, remembering the time the same thing was done on the shoulder of Rt 28 when the latch failed and the hood flew open at speed, bending itself over the roof of a buddy’s ’71 Skylark coupe. A junkyard replacement and a set of hood pins from B&R Speed Shop were installed the following weekend. A green hood on a brown car looked pretty bad, so i suggested painting the hood flat black, like another buddy’s RoadRunner. In the end, we found red-oxide primer on sale at Keystone Plumbing (a local chain of hardware stores) for 69 cents a can, and shot the whole car with it. Looked pretty badass with the slotted aluminum mags, L-60s, sidepipes, and the obligatory air-shock provided rake. Like most of the cars parked on Beatty St behind the high school in the summer of ’82.
The chain and tree method also works well to “align” a bent I beam on old Ford F-100s. Didn’t drive any worse or wear tires any faster than a new one when we were done!
Great story Jason. I grew up in a very similar situation. We were not incorporated into town, so the local PD had nothing to do with us. The sheriff station was 15+miles away, and everybody drove a pickup with a tow chain in the bed or behind the seat. You usually had to dig thru the empty beer cans to find the chain, but it was always there. I have had two Mavericks, a ’70 and a ’71. I want another
Love this story, Jason, as it reminds me of some adventures with the back end of an F250, an inoperative defroster, some chain, a tree, and a very unfortunate ’74 Hornet Runabout…
Jason and you other raconteurs have made my day. What a barrel of laughs even though at the time these events were serious. What ingenuity on the part of all of you! Now, if you will excuse me, I think I have to change my underpants from laughing so hard.
What a wonderful story. A paean to ingenuity, improvisation and practicality!
Hey, that sounds just like what my wife did with the 626 she is driving. Left one early morning half asleep and felt that isn’t good. Sure enough I get a call later at the office where she tells me she hit the rear of a newer F-350. That clearly can’t be good. She drove it down to the office where I could see it. Plastic grille gone. Glass head lights smashed. One parking lamp smashed. Radiator cracked at the top after the support was pushed back. Hood nicely creased back and bumper cover gouged and probably damaged inside.
Once home I got some straps from Harbor Freight and was able to pull out the support. I had a new radiator in stock so that went in. I had the parking lamp and one head light in stock so they went on. I took the hood off and did my best standing on the crease to get some of it out which I did. Now I could latch it down and the car was driveable. That weekend I got a perfect hood, perfect bumper cover and underneath support, a head light, two metal support brackets, plastic grille, trim and latch at Pick and Pull. Outside of small fold in the support and the fact that the hood and bumper have brand new paint you wouldn’t know.
All these great stories remind me of farm life in rural New Hampshire in the mid 1960’s .
-Nate
Well wrought!
Reminds me quite a lot of the time my older son rear-ended someone in Portland with our ’92 Caravan. This was about 1999 or so, and I had just recently dropped the collision coverage.
I rented a tow dolly, hitched it to the back of the F100, and found it in a big rough graveled lot. Paid the fee and realized that the turn to get the combined rig out of the lot was going to be very off-camber, uphill and loose gravel. I realized I had only one shot at it, which I took with full fury. Just barely made it…
The drive back home on I-5 was pretty uneventful, but I did keep my distance to any cars in front of me.
I yanked the hood and saw that the radiator (and supports) were bent back against the engine. I parked the F100 in front of it, chocked the wheels, got out my come-along, and hoked one end to the bent supports and the other end to the Ford’s rear bumper. The supports on the Caravan obviously weren’t as tough as the Maverick’s.
I bought a new radiator, and a used hood from the junk yard as well as lights (I think). Rattle canned the hood. The gaps between the hood and fenders were substantial, but it all worked well enough. Total cost was peanuts.
Fantastic read, Jason. These kinds of homemade repairs sound like something my frugal-leaning family would also have appreciated.
Yep, I saw my dad tow a car with a rope when I was a kid. That’s why it’s called a tow rope, right? Around 1983 when the transmission failed in my ’70 Coronet (TorqueFlites aren’t indestructible!) he tied an old tire to the bumper of his ’77 Fury and pushed me about six miles, right to the outskirts of town, to save on the tow charge.
Wonderful memories of life in small town U.S.A and Canada.
The two I remember in my childhood were my father putting a bumper hitch on his 69 Marauder to long distance tow someone home with a tow bar. I never got the straight story but by the time they got home that big Mercury back bumper looked more like a wing. It was very fascinating to watch my old man wrap a chain around one of the light poles at his gas station and with a very willing 429 under the hood pull the bumper back out to level. A couple taps on the corners with a sledge to put the wings back and we were good to go!
The other one that stuck in my mind was when the hood flew up on my aunt’s falcon and literally wrapped itself over the roof. My cousin and I, being the youngest (and probably the lightest) were put on the roof with the instructions to push as the others pried and hammered to straighten it. It didn’t work but I remember the fun being part of the grown ups rather than get told to get lost!
In the 1970’s a friend got a job with a V8 Maverick as a company car. He nailed it to merge on the freeway, and it ate its own radiator, no collision needed.
I have a friend who, in the late ’79s came into an early Maverick with a V8, and a stick. And rubber floor mats. Total stripper. White, generic as could be.
“Millicent” bought it when, full of teens, and during some spirited competitive driving, she bottomed out over some railroad tracks. A few minutes later, the engine ate itself on a freeway.
Jason: what was Grandma’s next car after the Maverick?
Great story! There is a lot to recommend the “get a bigger hammer” school of body and fender repair. Ford called the Maverick “The Simple Machine” and they were pretty right about that. A junkyard hood might have made the car respectable as well as functional, but not everyone is interested in that.
As for the towing, I (with the aid of Mrs. JPC and one adult kid) towed my Honda Fit home from where it snapped an axle, then again to a nearby repair shop for the fix within the past year. Why would we call a tow truck?
Reminds me of the time my stepfather straightened the bent front bumper of his Suburban by ramming it into a tree a few times.
As far as the Ford Maverick is concerned, I really WANTED to like them, but something in my young mind at the time felt as if something was missing from the execution of the final car.
The concept was very good, however. The car? Hit and miss, although they sold lots of them.
As far as towing a car with a chain, we did that all the time in the 60s & 70s. Never had a problem or got stopped for doing so.
I think back to some of the absolute bombs we terrorized the roads with and you wonder how we survived! A fun time.
I was puzzled by the Maverick. It was quite a bit smaller than the contemporary GM X bodies (Nova) and Chrysler A bodies, and didn’t originally offer a 4 door body. The Maverick in 2 door form was pretty close in size to the Pinto, and had Ford offered the Maverick with the 2.0L/2.3L it probably would have been a decent competitor to the Vega, ect..
I liked the very early, cheapo Mavericks, the ones with a steering wheel horn ring, dash-mounted ignition switch, and no glove box. And, yeah, you have to wonder how things might have panned out if Ford had skipped the Pinto and kept the Maverick as their VW-fighter.
OTOH, it would have left a couple of big holes in their model line-up without having a direct competitor for either the Vega or Nova, so I guess they didn’t really have much choice but bring out the Pinto and move the Maverick up to compact status, even though it was smaller than the Nova or Chrysler A-bodies.
Wonderful story. My Grandfather had the skills to pull off an operation like that, but he had pretty much retired from using those skills by the 60s. We weren’t that far out in the sticks either as the roads were paved and there were regular sightings of the Kalamazoo County Sheriff.
I performed similar repairs to a 71 Toyota Corona, the result was driven untill inspection time when the inspecting mechanic informed me it was dangerous and he woudnt give it a pink slip so I sold the car cheap, it still ran ok just looked ugly.
I had a ’72 Maverick, bought in 1974 when I was 18. 200 ci six with automatic. It got me where i needed to go until I wrecked it in 1977-78.
I think everywhere outside of major metropolitan areas (and in a few metro areas, too!) folks did Flintstone Bodywork. I can remember doing this kind of thing frequently, as a buddy of mine and I raced street stock division at the local dirt track. It was the quickest/cheapest/fastest way to get the car back into “raceable” shape.
Did the same type repair to niece’s ’07 Cobalt last year. No tractor, but have a stout chain with hooks and a sledge hammer. The radiator and condenser were bent but leak free, so they remain today. Telephone pole and chain wrapped around it, some slack and quick reverse gear tugs pulled out the core support, niece bravely held a block of wood in place as the sledge hammer persuaded the core support into closer alignment. E-bay headlamp set for $60.00. Beat the hood flat (still on hinges) with my fist until the hood latch lined back up with the hood lock in the core support, still opened and shut normally. Lot’s of zip ties were needed to reattach the battered bumper cover.
Gotta love home brewed technology, great story Jason.
Did eventually have the car repaired properly once the $1600 was saved up, the car got her back and forth to work trouble free in the meantime.
Speaking of Maverick. I spotted this vintage promo film strip of the Ford Maverick vs the Plymouth Duster.
A Duster would be a better value if they were otherwise comparable, but the 1,999 Maverick came with the 144/170 Six and a manual. I’m not even sure it had a heater at that price.
No heater? No sale. If that was the case I’d spring for the Duster with the Slant Six. I always preferred the Duster anyway.
Great stories, along with the replies. In October 2001, my wife and I went to visit her family for Thanksgiving in our 1990 Dodge Shadow. We pulled off Highway 402 and were driving through a small town called Wyoming when the engine suddenly died. It made a funny sound when I tried to start it, and we called my mother-in-law to come and get us. They live about a 25 minute drive away, so she picked us up and we locked up the car and left it overnight. The next day, my father-in-law and I went out with his pickup truck and some chains, and we brought the Dodge back to their shop with me steering it. No power steering or brakes, but I kept a close watch on the tail lights and we made it back without a hitch. It turned out the timing belt had snapped, so I borrowed their car and went to the local Canadian Tire for a replacement along with a stop at the beer store to buy a case of beer and help keep everyone refreshed and happy once the timing belt was installed. Much cheaper than a tow truck and garage bill – especially on a holiday weekend.
This brings back memories.
In 1974, the year I graduated HS, I bought a used ’72 Maverick coupe. Blue, with black interior. 250 ci 6 and automatic transmission, about 37,000 miles on it. It was on the used car lot at Hanshumaker Motor Sales in Delphos, OH (they sold Mercury and AMC).
Almost 44 years later, I can’t remember how much I paid for it or what the monthly payments were, or what I put down on it. My dad convinced me to buy something like this as a daily driver.
I bought it because it was a basic transportation vehicle, unlike my ’56 Chevy that I had visions of fixing up.
It gave me good service. I drove it until 1978 or so, when I got into the STUPIDEST car accident ever and totaled it (I ran a stop sign). i think it had about 70,000 miles on it then.