not the best picture, but the best that Google could find
It’s always very satisfying to get a proper explanation to phenomena that has been described repeatedly. The endless stream of comments here over the years here about Fords being the worst rusters (relative to the competition) in the mid-late ’60s through the ’70s has always made me wonder why. Now I know, thanks to reading David Halberstam’s “The Reckoning”.
Rust was always a huge problem in the industry, and it got significantly worse as the use of road salt increased. In 1957, Dr. George E.F. Brewer and his team of development engineers at Ford created E-Coat, and Electrophoretic coating method for automobiles. Electrophoretic deposition (EPD), is a term for a broad range of processes which includes electrocoating, cathodic electrodeposition, anodic electrodeposition, and electrophoretic coating, or electrophoretic painting. A characteristic feature of this process is that paint or primer particles suspended in a liquid medium migrate under the influence of an electric charge and are deposited onto an electrode (the car body receiving an opposite charge).
The first commercial anodic automotive system (“E-Coat”) began operations in 1963, at Ford’s Wixom plant, which built Lincoln Continentals and Thunderbirds.
As seen in this contemporary video, the E-Coat process is typically used in automotive applications to ensure that the special primer coat covers every tiny nook and cranny of the bare steel body. These are the places where rust typically develops first, where moisture is easily trapped.
Contrary to what one might logically expect, Ford did not move to install E-Coat in its other plants and become the leader in rust prevention. Quite the opposite, actually. Why? Ford during this era was dominated by finance types, specifically Ed Lundy, who was one of the original “Whiz Kids” hired by Henry Ford II right after the war to bring modern management techniques to Ford, whose financial management operations (such as they even existed) were utterly obsolete. The Whiz Kids had had been instrumental in creating quantitative analysis and other techniques to manage the overwhelming logistical challenges of the Defense Department during the war. They “sold” themselves as a group to Ford.
Ed Lundy, one of the brightest of the bunch, quickly rose through the ranks in the finance department, and was responsible for making the finance division at Ford all-powerful, controlling every aspect and function of the company. And he had HFII’s full support, as Ford trusted him to safeguard his company, and to make sure that the profits, dividends and stock price stayed high. Lundy, who was CFO from 1967 until his retirement in 1979, was in many ways the most powerful person at Ford for a long period of time, despite not being the CEO or President. As HFII became increasingly disengaged in the ’70s, Lundy’s power grew even more. Henry Ford became extremely conservative in this decade, only liked big cars, and wouldn’t invest in downsizing or small car programs until it was almost too late. This directly led to Ford’s near brush with bankruptcy in 1980.
One of the resultant dynamics during this era was that Ford constantly starved its plants of new equipment. Manufacturing and plant managers, who once ran the show at Ford, were mow low men on the totem pole, just below the product development guys. Lundy would incessantly veto or drastically reduce requests of all sorts from both of these groups, warning HFII that the stock market might react negatively or the dividends, from which the Ford clan lived, might have to be reduced.
So what did Ford do with E-Coat? They sold the rights to the competition, but didn’t invest (some $4 million per plant) to install it in their own faculties. GM paid big license fees to Ford for E-Coat, and the Japanese started using it too. Actually, Ford of Europe, which was always run more progressively, did install E-Coat fairly early on. But the domestic Ford plants were laggards.
Needless to say, this really rubbed Ford’s manufacturing staff, headed by Marvin Runyon, the wrong way. More than ever, it confirmed the arrogance of the executives toward the customers. But Lundy’s (and in effect HFII’s) response to their pleadings was always the same: that the manufacturing guys couldn’t actually prove that improved quality would improve sales in the short term. Seriously.
One day in 1973 Iacocca got furious at a meeting with Runyon, exploding into a rage about the poor quality of their cars, especially in terms of rusting, which was now affecting warranty costs alarmingly. Runyon pointed out that he’d been begging for E-Coat in his plants for almost a decade! Finally Iacocca got the message and started advocating for its wider adoption at Ford.
But even then, it was dragged out over a decade. By 1975, it was in half the plants. And it wasn’t until 1984, almost 30 years after inventing the process and 25 years after first utilizing it at Wixom that E-Coat was finally installed in all of Ford’s plants.
This is just one of so many examples of how the product and manufacturing branches were perpetually starved, including much lower compensation for the execs and managers in those areas. Ambitious young hires knew that it was a dead end to be involved with manufacturing, and stayed away. And the ones that were already there struggled, including physically and mentally. Or finally left, as Runyon did in 1981, to join Nissan as CEO of North America and to oversee the construction of its pioneering assembly and engine plants in Smyrna, TN.
Utterly intriguing when a product failure is directly traceable to corporate and structural weaknesses rather than the unforeseen.
Sadly, it would seem from the current DSG debacle that the more things change, the more corporate things don’t, with disaster the inevitable outcome.
Excellent stuff, Dr N. Satisfying indeed.
dad had a ’73 Cougar convertible. by 1977 it already had holes in the trunk floor, rear quarters, and rockers.
My parents had a ’69 Mustang bought new. Within 3 or 4 years the doors were pockmarked with holes, including one you could put your fist through.
Fascinating information there. I didn’t know about any of that.
The documentary “The Fog Of War”, interviewing Robert McNamara, had some interesting insight into one of the Whiz Kids and his time at Ford, among other things.
David Halberstam’s “The Reckoning” also had some interesting insights about Robert McNamara. McNamara was guy who knew everything about the auto industry but nothing about cars…..or didn’t care. All that matters was numbers. He was also a master of statistics and would use them to support whatever decisions he came up with, often flabbergasting the engineering and manufacturing people. If you tried to fight him with numbers, he would use those same numbers, twist them around and refute your arguments.
One story about his bean counter mentality centered around the manufacturing people needing new paint booths since the present ones dated back to the 1920s Model T days and were too small for modern cars. McNamara countered that new paint booths were too expensive. To deal with the size issue, McNamara suggested cutting the frames in half, paint them and weld them back together.
Then there’s the story about how he “designed” the Falcon. He laid out the parameters in terms of numbers., i.e., weight, mpg requirements, size, etc. When a designer asked him what “kind” of car did he want, e.g. sporty, sexy, etc., McNamara had no answer.
Just before he left Ford, he was championing a front wheel drive economic compact car codenamed “Cardinal”. Imagine how Ford would have been fared during the oil embargo crisis had the car been built.
Oh, one other thing I recalled from the book. McNamara was an minimalist, environmentalist and mountain climber. The car guys at Ford couldn’t figure out how to deal with such a guy.
Spot on with your analysis. McNamara was a complicated, interesting and brilliant man. Definitely not a “car guy” and a slave to statistics and business analytics when it came to decision making. Even so, he was responsible for such hits as the Falcon, 4 seat T-Bird and early sixties Lincoln Continental. He also knew a lemon when he saw it, hating the Edsel and predicting its demise before it was even introduced. He came to Ford as one of the Whiz Kids after the war, faced with an archaic company teetering on bankruptcy, run like a mom and pop grocery by a deteriorating Henry I who had an antipathy for accountants and anyone who did not contribute directly to the bottom line. McNamara’s quickly introduced modern financial and management principles, established cost accounting systems and brought Ford into the modern age. HF II respected his accomplishments and promoted him frequently, culminating with the Ford presidency in 1960.
Then, JFK beckoned and it was off to the New Frontier. The brilliant Secretary of Defense quickly mastered the operation of the Defense Department, applying the prodigious management skills he spent his life acquiring. Surely he would easily overcome that pesky Southeast Asian adversary. After all, he had all the manpower, body counts, bombing tonnage and other metrics on his side. We all know how that worked out. Such a shame. Proof that even geniuses can make mistakes.
I’m starting to think that Ford is just Chrysler, but with a market share big enough not to fear the crises they cause.
Which doesn’t mean that they can’t face the same loss of independence in the future.
My first thought was Chrysler, as well. I would have bet money that no domestic manufacturer would beat Chrysler in the rust department, particularly in the seventies. And the comment that GM licensed E-Coat from Ford is utterly fascinating. Here, the king of doing the absolute cheapest thing possible invested in a process (from their main competitor, no less) to inhibit rust?
Ed Lundy sounds a bit like he was HFII’s version of good old Harry Bennett, with a financial bent and minus the thuggish demeanor.
while that Cougar was essentially used up by 1978, my mom drove a ’72 Duster until 1987 or 88. Yes it was rusting but it was rusting in the “normal” Chrysler A-body areas, and not nearly as quickly as the Cougar.
In Chrysler’s defense, it became a leader in the use of galvanized steel in lower sheetmetal parts as early as 1979. Even former rustbuckets like the Volare were practically rustproof by 1980. Even today, those rare K cars still on the road look fabulous.
Then in typical cynical costcutting fashion, they undid it all by the late 90s. The 4th gen minivans were terrible rusters, as were the Ram pickups of the Daimler era. The Asian companies (with the exception of Mazda) seem to have licked the problem and it has stayed licked. But the American companies cannot seem to avoid the temptation to slack off, save money and stick people with problems they thought had been resolved years earlier.
Rust killed my ’73 Galaxie, but it was fine mechanically and was still running and driving when it went to the junkyard in 2005. I’d still have it otherwise.
I have not read enough about Ford I this era. This does indeed make sense. Although it doesn’t answer why Ford’s rusting issues got remarkably worse as the 1960s wore on. Frames aside, my experience was that the sheet metal of the 1965 big Ford was remarkably rust resistant for the era, with each year of that series becoming less so. The 69-72 models were disasters. I suspect that there were other similar manufacturing shortcuts taken as finance eclipsed manufacturing.
I know it’s sort of taboo to indulge the chalk mark restoration crowd around here at times, but something that I learned from them and stuck with me was Ford’s use of what they referred to as “batch paint” around 1968-1969. It was this blackish greenish finish that was a mix of every exterior color in the plant that was dumped into a vat after a shift, which was then sprayed onto the undercarriage of each car from the firewall back prior to exterior paint. I can’t help but correlate this practice with the uptick in severe rust out on Ford’s into the 70s
Not sure if you’ll see this a year after your comment, but I am curious how putting the waste paint on first would make the rusting worse.
Not being sarcastic, though with me it may be hard to tell 😀
Impurities in the paint? Maybe they were just dumping any old dirty solvent or cleaner in that vat at the end of the shift? Before EPA (and after and always) there are always horror stories of something being accidentally created in the waste containers of industrial operations.
So an investment to improve quality was consistently denied. With the number of units Ford was producing during this time, it makes me wonder if anyone looked at the actual per unit cost of this investment or if those making the decision just looked at the price tag and were reflexively opposed?
Either way, it’s a mentality that I frequently see but still don’t comprehend.
The picture of the RHD Continental is a good one and makes me wonder where it found a home. At first blush I though it was transposed, but the banner behind it is not transposed.
Ford still probably had E-Coat @ its Wixom plant in ’73, since my father’s ’73 T-Bird only had a little rust when we sold it despite the fact it spent it’s time in New England.
Also, I remember reading that the reason why Fiats rusted like crazy in the ’70s was because it made a deal w/the former USSR for steel which turned out to be crappy
This article answers a question I’ve long had about our 1965 Thunderbird which also appeared to be largely rust-resistant when our other Ford models were not – in Indiana, home of salted roads throughout winter.
Ford bragged about T-Bird rustproofing, while not mentioning that other Fords went unprotected.
RHD Continental? There’s a reversed STOP sign behind it. It’s a mirror image, for some reason.
I wondered long and hard about that, but wouldn’t the STOP be facing the front of cars as they were heading down the assembly line? It looks like the printing is on the side away from the camera, particularly as the lower two lines are faint to the eye.
I flipped that picture, and I’m convinced it had been flipped before. The sign on the other side says “NO SMOKING”. And I seriously doubt they used semi-translucent signs back then. They were typically solid and hand painted by sign painters.
I’m quite sure that there were no RHD Contis rolling down the lines. My understanding was that they typically converted by a third party, or such. It’s a bit hard to image mixing up so many parts (wiring, etc…) on the actual production line.
The sign says “STOP Paint Chips xxxxx’, not sure of the third line. There is also a ‘NO SMOKING’ sign. Both appear translucent fabric signs, making the text appear reversed. While right reading coming down the production line.
This photo appears not reversed. I’ve enlarged the image. The ‘steering wheel’ on the passenger side seems too large and mis-positioned. It could be a seat protector that is leaning forward. See the low set circular shape to the lower right that matches the interior colour. The interior rear view mirror is also angled towards the lighter coloured circular object as a LHD car.
I still disagree. That’s a Conti steering wheel; they were huge and thin back then. And I don’t think that No Smoking sign is translucent, nor the other one either. What makes them appear translucent is just the poor resolution.
The dark circle does look like a steering wheel. But if you look inside the darker circular shape, you can see what appear to be vertical pleats angled slightly to the left that appear to go beyond the width of the seat. Why I suspect something that is sitting there leaning against the dash.
Here’s another one from Wixom. Note that the sign clearly faces to the direction of the camera.
That is clearly a staged photo. Rationalizing why it would say “QUALITY AUDITING AREA’ for positive press and public consumption. No need for the production line to see it if the photographer is facing the production line.
The ‘Paint Chips’ sign would primarily face the production line. It would make sense to make those signs translucent so production workers could read them on both sides.
The mirror is on the right, same side as the steering wheel!
I do think the chance of this being a RHD version are remote. I am tending to agree with you Paul, this is probably a reversed image. Unless an original better resolution image can be located.
Daniel; there’s another sign way up near the ceiling, that’s clearly not a translucent sign.
Also, that Quality Audit Sign was for real; that’s where the cars were very carefully checked. All Conti’s then got a full-on check and test drive after they left the assembly line.
These are not translucent signs in the factory; they’re solid and were obviously painted on both sides.
Furthermore, there is no reason to believe any RHD Contis were built then at the factory. it does not make sense.
Yes, I agree, this clearly a reversed photo. Mainly for your very first point. It would make no sense to have a RHD version coming of what appears to the standard production line.
And yes, the signs are very likely one sided facing the back of the production line so the cars don’t leave the area without completing the ‘Paint Chip’ inspection.
Thank you for your time, it was enjoyable establishing this.
I am tending to agree with you Paul, this is probably a reversed image.
Meanwhile I’ve wasted 45 minutes on this….:)
That’s ok; it’s an ugly rainy morning.
And translucent signs make no sense either, in a factory setting where workers are constantly moving up and down the line in this final section.
I would agree that this picture is a mirror image. As to the stop sign, working on an assembly line, your next car would be coming from behind your work station so it would make sense that when you turned to your next piece you’d glance up to see the sign. There is nobody in the cars so sign placement in the factory is different than it would be in a traffic situation.
Thanks again for your time Paul. I know you have very high standards for accuracy on your site. And I and many readers thoroughly really appreciate that. Many editors would let their comment section go to hay. But I really appreciate that you put so much care into pursuing the facts! And keeping commenters accountable.
I agree with Paul about the steering wheel being dark and thin. The light-colored arc on the opposite side is too small in diameter and too low to be a steering wheel. If it had a tilt column, it would be in the highest position during final assembly. I believe the sign says “STOP PAINT CHIPS SCRATCHES” and was likely to be aimed at workers walking against the flow of vehicles at shift change. Also, the worker in the light colored shirt has something in his left side breast pocket which makes sense; shirts with a sole right side pocket are unknown to me.
There were RHD Conti’s, including this period;
These two 65’s in Australia;
https://car-from-uk.com/sale.php?id=36000&country=au
https://car-from-uk.com/sale.php?id=152611&country=au
Scroll down this page, there’s a black RHD 61 convertible in Malaysia;
https://moparforums.com/forums/f38/various-factory-rhd-classic-american-cars-malaysia-9800/
A 63 convertible in Australia again;
http://automotoclassicsale.com/node/8363
A Google search also revealed an array of 70’s Continentals in RHD as well
But not built on the factory assembly line.
Great job reflecting on this Paul. Thank you. This is a topic I followed closely growing up. As my family was affected by numerous Ford products that rusted prematurely. Ford used hidden warranties to try to suppress this issue. Until it became mainstream knowledge. And was common knowledge to many consumers in Canada.
Several weeks ago, the question was posed at CC, ‘Is There A Brand Of Car You’d Never Buy Because It Carries A Certain Stigma?” My first and most important thought was, the stigma a manufacturer has as a thoughtful corporate citizen. Are they good to their workers? With progressive and sustainable environmental practices, for example. Are they leaders in adopting new technology? And do they offer good value to their buyers, with reliable, efficient cars. A number readers saw the question as how a given brand was perceived by consumers for their cultural acceptance in the marketplace. Amazon for example may be popular with many consumers, but they have a poor reputation for their care of their warehouse workers. It would affect my decision to use them, specifically because of this stigma.
For me, the stigma with Ford and their rust lasted through the 70s. Even as their rust resistance improved by the late 70s. As more recently with Volkswagen, I would not consider their cars for some time after the emissions scandal. Even if they were still popular in the marketplace. I felt they needed to pay a price for their corruption. In 2019, GM denied healthcare to striking workers, until public pressure forced them to reinstate it. This would play a role for sure in my decision to buy GM cars. For a while at least. The responsible corporations deserve to do better in the market. The corrupted ones should pay a price until they redeem themselves.
I like what you’re saying here. One current example is Boeing and their 737Max/MCAS debacle. Folks should have gone to prison for that, but instead their CEO gets fired with a 60 million dollar parachute. Meanwhile Boeing’s reputation for excellence (remember ‘If it’s not Boeing, I’m not going’?) is trashed with even their most faithful customer, Southwest, contemplating purchases of Airbus airliners. Friday’s news of internal e-mails (“737Max designed by clowns”) are illustrative of a once sterling corporate citizen bought down to the level of ’70s era Ford by the beancounters and shareholders.
If you own Boeing stock, sell before it devalues.
Fascinating. Ed Lundy. I need to do more research on this. Great Sunday morning read.
I think Suzuki LJ80 was the worst rust bucket. It was built until the 80s.
As we all know, Ford wasn’t alone with rust troubles. Although GM adopted the paint tech, they also experimented with recycled steel. Our ‘75 SDV became a total rust bucket in less than 3 years (and probably just 30,000 miles on the odo) when my dad decided to trade it in on a downsized 78. It was crazy! I’ll never forget, as a little kid, staring at the blistering paint in the rear quarter panels and just under the bottom of the vinyl top. We weren’t alone, of course, because seemingly every one of their cars from that period had the same exact issue.
it’s possibly apocryphal, but I was told that not only was it recycled steel, but coming from Japan by ship and exposed to salt spray. even with being cleaned/treated before stamping it was already compromised.
I could see it. for the Cougar mentioned up thread, we had a few replacement body panels (OE service parts) in hopes of repairing the car some day. I recently got rid of them; they’d been stored indoors away from water or anything the entire time, and they still had rust near some of the welds. All they had was a thin coat of primer.
A lot of the problem was caused by moisture that worked it’s way under the vinyl. The quarter panel (roof) lower edges and the vinyl that was tucked into the rear window trim moldings were another trouble spot. That’s why you don’t want to buy any 60-70’s car that came equipped with a vinyl top.
As a youngster, I was appalled at how extensive my Granddad’s 1957 Plymouth Belvidere rusted. What a shame as it was a beautiful blue with a Powerflite 2-speed push button automatic and a V8. He bought it new and in 1963 bought a ’63 Plymouth Savoy with a Torqueflite 3-speed push button automatic and a peppy V8. I learned to drive with this one. Back then I didn’t understand why the big automakers made cars that rusted and depreciated so fast. The automakers would pay dearly for their mistakes.
Excellent article and a good Sunday read.
Time-travelling back to the seventies. Volkswagen, Opel, German Fords (and German Fords only), Volvo and Mercedes-Benz. Acceptable/reasonable to good factory rust proofing. Don’t know about Saab, too thin on the ground back then.
Everything else in our climate and salty winters ranged from bad to downright horrible, regardless from which country or continent.
I can’t speak for most of these brands, but Volvo sure liked their undercoating. As a dealer tech, I worked on a lot of 70’s and 80’s Volvos. You could always tell which sockets I used for any undercarriage fasteners by their undercoat residue. We appreciated the factory dedication to rust prevention while cussing it at the same time. Yet, rust would eventually show up in a few key spots if the cars were driven in snowier areas where salt was used,…..it just took a comparatively long time to do so.
Extra cost dealer rustproofing packages on new cars was considered a must buy in many regions in the 70s. Whomever the carmaker was. With the quality of the rust proofing product, and thoroughness of the application, varying widely. Plus, another means to make money from the buyer, when the product was clearly inferior. This was another example where the Big Three (and others) left themselves completely exposed to any manufacturer that could make long term corrosion resistance and reliability a selling feature.
We once had a test program using two M151 1/4 ton truck bodies for corrosion testing. One was painted per the production process, the other was E-coated first. Both were taken to the corrosion test facility at Cape Canaveral FL and set up on the coast for three years. The untreated body had severe corrosion similar to the trucks in the fleet. The E-coat body looked like new. A second test was conducted at the same time with several E-coated M151s located with the Army National Guard in Puerto Rico. At the end of the test, these trucks were still in very good condition.
GM cars from the late 90s/early 00s were E-coated and the underside of the body was not painted. On my 00 and 01 LeSabres, not much in terms of rust underneath.
I think his name is Marvin Runyon, not Martin Runyon.
Quite right. Fixed now. Thanks!
“The very thing that made them rich made them poor.”
I have a couple of thoughts here, I’m going to apologize first and then ramble.
First, I seem to recall that The Whiz Kids were the ones who introduced (with a vengeance) the practice of
willfully cheapening qualitysaving money on every part, on the “saving a penny here, and a penny there makes you rich” theory. I believe it was McNamara who purportedly said “If you save one dollar on a million cars, you’ve earned a million dollars.” Unfortunately the money became addictive and every year engineers were expected to find another dollar. This is how we got to plastic exterior door handles that broke off in your hand in cold weather, leaving you standing in the snow looking at your car, wondering if you dare try the other door.The rust… Everything rusted, at least in northern Pennsylvania where I lived. The Fords were indeed the worst though. I vividly recall being shocked by a three year old Ford with the bottom of the trunk lid rusted completely through with a bunch of quarter-sized holes. Detroit didn’t care though because, what else were ya gonna buy? One of them little noisy furrien cat-food cans? And indeed… the Japanese cars rusted horribly too. If Detroit had had decent quality and decent rustproofing this alone would have destroyed the Japanese in the U.S. or at least given them a Hyundai Excel sized bruise. BUT: They rusted no worse than the Fords and they were trouble-free and nice quality, and they started every time, even in the cold until they disappeared in a cloud of red-dust, something you couldn’t say about Detroit cars with their terrible pollution control systems of the 70’s.
Finally, although we’ve been talking about Ford, I believe it was the Vega that broke the magic spell that had kept America believing that American engineering was superior to all competition. Ya hadta be there to understand how terrible these things were. The engines had such bad vibration (no balance shafts) that they regularly shook the carburetors loose from the intake manifolds. The valve seals leaked so they burned oil. The radiator was too small with no overflow tank so they overheated. With an iron head on an aluminum block this guaranteed disaster. And finally, the rust!. There were no fender liners and an untested rustproofing system left the area at the bottom of the A-pillars unprotected. Most Detroit cars lost body panels but, while ugly, were still drivable. Rust on the Vegas in a structural area was terminal…in three years. *
So poof! The belief that Detroit could build a decent car, if they were just given a clean sheet on which to start from scratch officially died with the Vega. However it was the Whiz Kids who had planted the seeds of destruction ten years earlier. It would be another ten years before Detroit (who wanted to blame the price of gasoline) recognized that they were actually in trouble…. in response to which GM produced the Citation.
*( Lest we think that Ford was without sin in this era, I will leave you with two words: Pinto fires.
“I believe it was McNamara who purportedly said “If you save one dollar on a million cars, you’ve earned a million dollars.”
Dude, you haven’t made a million dollars, you’ve jeopardized a million future sales. At three to five thousand per car if you assume late 60s sales after your early 60s costcutting. If you lost just 300 sales due to customer grudges over bad quality, you lost money.
You haven’t made a million, you’ve possibly lost three or five Billion.
Crap thinking like this led to Japan eating your lunch AND dinner for two, three decades. Until they caught the shareholder disease too.
Living all my life in a road-salt-free environment but fairly close to the ocean, I’ve had little experience with the ubiquity of structural rust on cars. But I even I noticed that 1960’s Mustang convertibles were more likely to show rust than other cars of similar age. If left overnight with the top down near the coast, I assume they could get salty fog/condensation in the carpets and die a slow death from above. Over the years, other cars more likely to show rust around here were Fiats (rocker panels), Vegas (around the windshields and backlights) and Toyota pickup beds and windshield headers.
Canadian Tire, Canada’s largest retailer in automotive supplies, was perhaps one of the best bellwethers on this topic.
In the 70s and early 80s, the store dedicated a large section of their auto department to anything related to car owner rust repair. You name it, they sold high volumes of colour match spray cans, bondo, fibreglass patch kits, sheet metal, primers, grinders, etc., etc. Every spring they’d promote these products on sale, and it was a ritual for car owners to have to devout a weekend or two to half-baked rust repairs that only delayed the rust cancer temporarily. And rarely did owners dare tackle the true evil beyond body rust… undercarriage rust!
I’m happy to say the rust repair section is much smaller now, and near invisible in stores.
Speaking of undercarriage rust… This past Thursday I found out that my wifes 2003 Chrysler minivan had severe undercarriage rust. Not only were 2 of the jack points gone, just rusted away, but the rear axle was rusted through, on the verge of collapsing. The rear passenger fender was somewhat rusted, but no big deal. At 135k miles with a myriad of smaller, lesser problems, it’s now toast, it’s time to part ways as a replacement axle could cost $2,000 if a new one could be found. Over the last few days I’ve reflected how the car was at most ok and how a major component like the rear axle should last the lifetime of the car and not fail from rust, as opposed to mechanical failure. Hell, my ’01 Civic with 245k miles has a good body and the original clutch. Boy, those Chrysler products lived up to their reputation…
Same on my 2005 Town and Country. Hard find one here in the NE that isn’t. Thanks Chrysler! Let’s not forget the Ford Windstar axle disaster that has left several dead.
Lack of E coat on their own cars and leasing the tech to others is just another example of short sided thinking by Ford accounting.
That 01-07 4th gen minivan really irritates me for just this reason. I nearly bought a used 01, but in looking it over could see rust bubbles trying to pop through the paint on almost every lower body panel. I later bought a 99 from the 3d gen (with far more miles on it) and those were actually quite good against body rust. The 1-2 Cost-cutting punch of Robert Eaton and Daimler-Benz turned Chrysler’s most important product into a rust bucket.
My brother hasn’t had great luck with his Mopars. They finally junked their 2002 Grand Caravan a few years ago due to massive subframe rust; ditto his 2006 Ram 2500 – the frame had completely rusted through although the rest of the body was in decent shape. Neither of the replacements were Mopar.
In the late 1970s, my parents owned a Chevy Vega and a Ford Torino wagon, both in a copper color that perfectly matched the rust spots caused by the heavy use of road salt in the Chicago suburbs. The Vega developed its first through-the-sheet metal hole in less than a year, while the Torino went about two years before developing gaping cancer sores on its rear flanks. Both cars had all sorts of reliability problems typical of the day, with the Ford being especially temperamental and sometimes virtually undriveable on cold or wet days. In a way, the rust was a blessing, because it consumed two spectacularly awful cars within 4-5 years, which cynics might believe the Detroit Three did by design to juice their sales.
While my parents did go on to buy two other GM cars, they soon switched to imports (VW, then a long string of Toyotas), with bitter memories of those rust buckets heavily influencing their choices.
>> The Whiz Kids had had been instrumental in creating quantitative analysis <<
This practice of obsessing about things that could be quantified over the short term used to be restricted to accounting and finance people.
The B-school at the university I graduated from sends me their magazine from time to time. I read through the latest issue a few weeks ago. One article was about how the B-school has completely bought in to "analytics". Now it isn't just the accounting and finance people. Everyone in the B-school is being taught to dump their data into a computer and do what the computer says. As this B-school is a follower, not a leader, this trend has probably infected most B-schools in the country by now.
I don't think e-coat was the only factor though. GM cars in the 80s suddenly became horrible rusters. It was normal to see GM products only 3 years old, with rust breaking out everywhere on the body, rather than just the normal rust points. If GM had e-coat installed in all it's body plants, Roger Smith must have ordered the electrostatic charging systems turned off to save on the electric bill.
Google’s motto used to be ‘do no evil’ as a progressive start up company. They (and other tech giants) now use AI and other technology to help the fossil fuel industry maximize oil extraction and production.
Oh, pu-leeze! Maximizing oil extraction and production is a GOOD thing. Where Google fails on their motto is in the company’s hoovering up as much data on everyone and everything that it can get its mitts on.
“ Maximizing oil extraction and production is a GOOD thing. ”
Of course, you’ll be dead by the time those hens come home to roost, but what do you care?
Excellent read Paul, I love this stuff. I hope you continue your excerpts on The Reckoning. This is quite insightful about the e-coat technology, but I think this was only one of the factors that lead to the rust problems on Fords. This whole debacle does clearly shows that Ford ethos was at the time. While I don’t have any primary sources to suggest, there is plenty of anecdotal evidence that suggest that the quality of steel Ford used beginning in the late 1960’s dropped off significantly. That and the fact that most Fords from that the late 1960s to the mid 70’s rusted away.
This poor quality steel was combined with some very poor body engineering and cost cutting. Ford often would leave hidden areas of the cars body completely bare. One infamous area for rusting on old Fords is the cowl. While the top panel was painted, but the panel underneath, where the water ran through the rockers was often left bare, and would rust out, resulting in water leaking in the cabin. Ford didn’t finish under vinyl roofs, resulting in severe rust under the roofs, and in some cases the roofs rusted right through.
Ford was aware of the rust problems and as early as 1973 it had started an internal examination where it was identified cars made between 1969 and 1973 rusted significantly faster in rust prone climates. Ford stated they were not meeting the General Product Acceptance Specification that no perforation rust should occur within 5 years. Ford acknowledged that their cars were rusting 1 to 2 years sooner than the competition.
It was such a problem Ford actually had a “secret warranty” for rust repairs, and would in fact cover 100% of the cost to rust repairs for up to 24 months. It would also cover 75% of rust repairs from 25 to 36 months, regardless of mileage. Ford’s internal policy on this was to not advertise this information, and only provide it to those customers who complained the most.
Ford acknowledged there was a problem, but it was also arrogant enough to suggest part of it was increased customer expectations. Ford took steps to resolve the quality issues, but it was a slow process. Along with the e-coat processes being introduced, there also used spray on vinyl sealers, improved water drainage through sheet metal and drain hole design and increased use of galvanized steel.
By the late 1970s, most Fords had drastically improved. It’s kind of ironic a late 1970’s Ford truck was picked as the cover photo, because by the later 1970s the extra galvanized metal in these trucks made them very rust resistant for the era.
Ford often would leave hidden areas of the cars body completely bare
That’s precisely what E-Coat eliminates.
There had to be something else to explain why the 1965-66 cars without ecoat rusted so much worse than the 69-72 can without ecoat.
There had to be something else to explain why the 1965-66 cars without ecoat rusted so much worse than the 69-72 can without ecoat.
Ford had issues with some of it’s paint in the mid 60s, particularly Brittany Blue. I saw a Brittany Blue 65 or 66 wagon around 72. The car looked like it had chicken pox, with 2-3″ diameter spots of rust all over it.
My 67 Thunderbird was “Gunmetal”. The paint was OK everywhere except the panel between the bottom of the windshield and the rear edge of the hood. In the space of a year 72-73, all the paint peeled off of that panel The primer held, so it didn’t rust, but all the “Gunmetal” was gone.
It wasn’t just paint. The most notorious case was the internal Ford memo that said it would be cheaper to pay lawsuit settlements, than spend a buck or two per car to make the Pinto’s gas tank safer, to reduce the probability of someone being incinerated in the car in the first place.
Less well know, but I took note, because I thought the LDO option Maverick was quite handsome, was when Ford decided to stop drilling oil passages in the cranks of their 6s. Ford figured splash alone would be adequate, but early 70s Ford 10w40 didn’t splash worth a hoot in subfreezing weather.
Then there was my notorious 78 Zephyr: where they omitted self-adjusters for the rear brakes, so I had to pay to have them adjusted periodically, and they omitted grease fittings, but required chassis lube, so I had to pay for a fistful of Zerk fittings.
There never was a “Pinto memo.” The memo cited by Mother Jones and the plaintiffs the Grimshaw case had nothing to do with the Pinto.
It was a cost-benefit analysis of a proposed government regulation – and the federal government had requested that Ford perform the calculation. That is why the judge in the Grimshaw case refused to allow that memo to be entered as evidence.
A 1991 Rutgers Law Review article effectively demolishes the entire Pinto narrative advanced by Mother Jones (including how many people actually died in Pinto-related fires – the magazine grossly exaggerated the number).
The Pinto’s overall safety record was actually somewhat better than most competitive small cars of that era.
That’s precisely what E-Coat eliminates.
I am not disputing e-coating would have helped. I was more trying to point out that even though Ford didn’t invest in e-coating, it could have at least put something on the bare steel areas. Yes, the e-coating got all the nooks and crannies, but not finishing the inside of a cowl or under a vinyl roof was just pure cost cutting with no regard for quality. Ford wasn’t even trying to stop the rust, and then by 1973, they are saying “Gee, we might have a problem here.” The Fords from this era were really bad, they are almost non-existent today because of it.
Ford took no effort to engineer their vehicles to resist rust. While E-coating helps, if you have areas that trap moisture/dirt/salt, eventually e-coating or not it will rust. IMO if Ford had just invested in galvanized steel in the rust prone areas, we wouldn’t be having this discussion today. It might have been less costly than converting the factories for e-coating.
I agree with JPC about the changes to the late 1960’s Fords. I have heard stories over the years of Ford started using recycled or imported steels during this time, some of which was already rusting before stamped into body panels. Who knows what is actually true, but I do believe changes were made the steel quality. I have no doubt in this cost cutting era that the quality of steel would have been compromised to save money. And as I quoted in my first comment, Ford’s own internal report directly identified that 1969-73 cars were more prone to rust.
Yes Vince, those 69-72 cars would get gaping holes in the lower 1/3 of the doors, both front and rear. I never saw a pre-69 rust in those places. I also agree that perhaps body engineering had a role. Could Ford have stopped priming the inner doors?
This post reminds me that I never saw rust to that extent on the Marks and Continentals coming from Wixom. But even they were no better than average after a few years so while ecoat helped, it can’t have been the full answer.
I love that it took a formal study for them to figure out that the 69-73 cars rusted worse than everything else. You or I could have told them that. And it wasn’t like Ford management all lived in Phoenix. 🤔
While sandblasting the hood of my ’79 Bronco to repaint, I would clean it to bare metal and if I went a little further more rust would appear. The hood, at least, appeared to literally be made of rusty steel. This was in ’92 and the hood was by far the least rusty original part of the truck. The fenders had already been replaced with cheap, thin replacements but weren’t rusty at all.
Didn’t Ford make its OWN steel for many years?
I remember a chapter in The Reckoning which chronicled a high-level debate within Ford about the company buying higher quality steel – that is also less expensive – from foreign companies.
This touched a nerve, as Ford had been making its own steel, or using steel from American companies. Ford could have saved money – and improved quality – by buying steel made overseas.
This thus wasn’t just a cost issue.
Didn’t Ford make its OWN steel for many years?
As far as I know yes, but I am not aware the on the details of the steel used during this era. It is my hypothesis that the steel quality was reduced in these years primarily to save costs. This could have been done even if Ford was supplying its own steel or using domestic steel and would have still reduced costs.
Like I posted previously, I don’t have any primary sources to suggest the steel quality was reduced. However, based on anecdotal evidence I have heard over the years and seeing how first hand how badly these cars rust, I believe that steel quality was definitely a factor. How else do we explain how cars like the full-size Fords went from having okay bodies to being one of the worst rusters with no major re-engineering? The same thing happened for other car lines too, like the Fairlane/Torino.
Excellent, and comprehensive post Vince. Thank you. You remember all the commercials Ford of Canada ran from 1977 through 1979 promoting the extensive efforts they were now taking towards rust prevention. Most commercials featured Toronto weatherman and voice over actor Dave Devall.
I knew then as a kid, Ford was in major damage control.
Thanks Daniel, and thanks for sharing the old commercial. No doubt these changes actually worked, I as definitely noticed that late 1970s Fords were much more rust resistant than there early in mid-1970s counterparts.
Another example of accountants taking control and ruining companies….Engineers come up with a cost effective way to inhibit rust and the bean counters refuse to implement it……Boeing????
I had a 1967 Galaxie 500 two-door hardop that I loved. When I bought it in 1985, it was seemingly in excellent condition with working factory AC.
But, I learned a lesson about inspecting cars. The frame was astonishingly and dangerously rusted out. I still managed to sell it for a decent price to a father / son team that had plans to change out the frame. I hope they made it happen.
’60s Fords, excepting the Mustang, seem scarce in the old car world compared to many other brands.
My dad’s 1976 LTD performed quite well over its 10 year life with us in salt country. Must have come from the right plant.
The 1967 Ford had a fully boxed frame. The problem there was that if moisture somehow got INSIDE the frame, it would result in the frame rusting from the inside.
For what it’s worth, the 1965 Chevrolet didn’t have a fully boxed frame, but it also had problems with frame rust.
Father in law had a 72 Chevy pickup and it literally rusted to the ground. Not picking on Chevy but it was normal rust for states that used lots of salt on roads. They all did it. Speaking as 35 yr. Ford tech. Have seen many rust buckets. That was the state of technology then..
You don’t need a salt road to get a rusted out truck. Having lived in San Diego for 13 years (68-81), with 8 years near the beach, all one needs is salt air. A friend whose family home was in Palos Verde but went to SDSU and lived in Mission Beach had a visibly rusting four year old GMC truck. Rust was going from top down so the top of the front fenders, cowl area, and bottom of A pillar. He wasn’t the only one and I later saw the same thing when living in the Outer Richmond district of San Francisco.
An incredible example of money men who think they can run anything but run real businesses into the ground. Good production engineers at Ford must have been tearing their hair out, and leaving for the competition. The tyranny of finance in the last fifty years has slowly but surely poisoned American business.
Haven been born in 1989 and finding out these facts as the decades go on sure can be saddening. The United States seems to keep falling on its face in the decades after World War II while countries like Germany and Japan pass us in a leaps and bounds.
70s/80s/90s Japanese car powertrains were superior. But some were notorious rusters. Honda in particular frequently suffered from premature body structure or subframe rusting in areas of the country that salt the roads.
There’s a very good book on the Whiz Kids published several years ago. Their record, both in and out of Ford makes for grim reading. As Ernie Breech’s influence over HFII waned, they provided the ready confirmation for his worst instincts.
I know Chrysler was dipping its bodies by the early 60’s, in response to the atrocious rusting of it’s mid 50’s products – and not just the ’57-59s. The ’55-56s badly rusted along the rocker panels, as my dad can attest. But I don’t think they were e-coated.
I will say we never had major rust issues with any of our early 70’s Mopar products, even though we lived in the salt belt, aside from the front fender tips on our ’72 Coronet Crestwood – those were perfect road salt traps.
The right fender on my Mama’s 1970 Dodge dart was mostly duct tape by the time she got it in 1989 and it stayed that way for the rest of the 1990s. The left fender was not as bad. I wasn’t that old at the time so I don’t really remember where else it rusted with certainty.
So Ford invented E coat, I didnt know that, everything over here rusted in the 60s and 70s not just Fords UK Fords rusted too humidity and salt air eat car bodies quite effectively too a lot of it was down to poor assembly and poor sealing my Hillman being a classic example it was dipped new about 2feet deep in a yellow primer tough paint too it took some getting off but the car rusted out standing due to water getting in and finding a way out, window seals were crap and gaps in joins on the rear quarter panels allowed water in right from new.
Ford did a fair amount of ballyhooing about the Granada’s corrosion protection.
Didn’t seem to help much.
I bought Iacocca’s biography in 1984, and The Reckoning in 1986. In retrospect, they should be read together, as Halberstam’s book puts the major players at Ford into better perspective, particularly Henry Ford II, who had been accused by Iacocca of everything short of human sacrifice.
Reading Halberstam’s book, the people who come off the worst are Robert McNamara and Ed Lundy. They had no real feel for the market, didn’t understand how vehicles were made, but had no compunction against injecting themselves into debates over everything from the state of manufacturing plant to how often a vehicle should be updated.
There was a chapter in The Reckoning where Ford’s manufacturing people argued that increased demand, along with larger cars, meant that Ford need to update its production facilities. (This was in the early 1950s.) In particular, it was difficult to paint the frames. McNamara actually suggested that the completed frames be sawed in half, THEN painted, and reassembled, as an alternative to investing in new facilities. One can imagine the response of the manufacturing personnel to this proposal.
Iacocca emerged as someone who at least understood what motivated the average buyer, and tried to meet that desire. What I came away with was a feeling that a Ford with Iacocca in his proper sphere (marketing and product planning), along with upper management that paid heed to the manufacturing personnel, would have been a very strong combination in the 1960s. Of course, Iacocca’s ego would not have allowed him to settle for anything less than the top seat, although The Reckoning makes clear that even his plans were hampered by resistance from Lundy.
A lot of these issues are more involved than simple cost-cutting. I remember a chapter that detailed an argument among Ford’s executives over buying foreign steel. This steel would have been less expensive, but also of higher quality. But Henry Ford II was very reluctant – it would have touched on major issues with Ford’s suppliers, which, at that time, were all based in the U.S. or Canada. So there was more going on here than simple cost-cutting. Other considerations were also hampering Ford.
And every auto manufacturer tries to cut costs. Many small domestic luxury car makers were in dire shape BEFORE the onset of the Great Depression because they couldn’t match the production volume of Packard and Cadillac, which gave those two marques the ability to produce each car at a lower cost (while still charging very high prices). These manufacturers were already charging astronomical prices – but they still couldn’t make a sufficient profit.
Mercedes-Benz could charge what the market would bear through the 1980s – until Lexus arrived, and then it, too, had start watching costs. We know how the response of Mercedes affected its quality and reliability.
The e-coat saga, and the contrast with the Japanese (although Halberstam focused on Nissan, not Toyota) showed the ultimate dead-end of the American approach. The Japanese worked to reduce costs, but not at the price of quality. They thus took a long-term view of how something like the e-coat would affect their image and sales. They also believed that, over the long-haul, improved quality SAVED money. Ford and the Americans only focused on the immediate financial impact.
Given the botched rollout of the Explorer and Aviator, these lessons apparently still need to be learned.
As always, your comments are well informed and add to the narrative.
As to the paint booth issue, I’m quite sure Halberstam mixed up “frame” with “body”. The issue obviously was the same that Studebaker had: paint booths built in the pre-war era that could not accommodate the wider cars of the later ’50s. McNamara wondered if the car bodies couldn’t be cut in half, painted, and then welded back together. It’s every bit as crazy, but makes more sense than “frame”, as it would be easy enough to paint a frame vertically, or whatever.
This is a recurring issue in this book. Halberstam notes in the introduction that this was by far the hardest book for him to write, since he knew essentially nothing about cars or the car industry. This makes itself quite noticeable throughout the book. There were numerous examples of errors like this, and one has to make leaps of judgement at times to make their real meaning apparent. But his penetrating insight into the personalities and culture is what is most effective here.
Thank you for the kind words.
With The Reckoning, Halberstam undertook a herculean task.
He also reported on the labor issues affecting the domestic auto industry, and the mindset of not only union leaders, but union members. He effectively contrasted the Japanese approach to this thorny issue.
>>Given the botched rollout of the Explorer and Aviator, these lessons apparently still need to be learned.<<
When Hackett was made CEO, I had severe reservations, having worked for years at a Steelcase dealership when he was the CEO of Steelcase. I wonder how badly he will be blistered, again, in the Q4 conference call. Hackett turns 65 this coming April. Wonder if he will be invited to "spend more time with his family"?
Hackett did pull forward several programs that Fields had delayed to save cash. (Thus showing that Ford has failed to learn the importance of keeping product fresh.)
He deserves to be criticized for the botched Explorer and Aviator launch. It’s also disturbing the he never mentions the importance of product quality in his speeches and “vision” for the company. It’s not as though Ford – let alone its potential customers – can take that for granted.
I know it’s the thing now to praise Japanese cars at the expense of domestics in the ’70’s, but where I lived, Japanese cars of that period were serious rusters too–inner fenders? Not hardly.
Late to the table here, but yes Japanese cars were horrible rusters here. I owned a Fiat (!) that lasted longer than the same year Civics. But the Japanese were still learning about building cars for the American market. Also during that time the Japanese citizens only owned their cars for a few years. So that was how they built their cars back then. As time went on they learned how to make their cars last longer. The Japanese learned (in general) that investing up front makes better long term profits. American company management (I worked for an automotive supplier) have more of the attitude of “make as much money as you can and get the hell out of the industry ASAP).
I grew up in Vermont in the 1960’s and ’70’s. Vermont had a clear roads after every storm in 24 hours policy. Salt was the state mineral, mountains in every highway department depot. All cars rusted away. Rocker panels and fenders were first. I remember a first generation Tempest we had that had hand sized holes above the headlights, both sides. It was used, and we had it around 1969. The loss of the driveshaft may have led to it’s demise. I hitchhiked a lot and many people would pick me up. A common comment from a young driver would be to watch for the hole in the floor when I get in. Lots of parked and rusted out Civics, Toyotas, Datsuns and all the American cars. Volvos and SAABs did seem to be more long-lasting. Oil spraying, every year, was essential, and dealer undercoating was very popular in the ’70’s. My grandparents Mercedes would rust away too, maybe a bit slower than the others. Annual inspection removed the worst cars from the roads and kept us all safer.
And although I grew up in a Chevy family, the new-for-’73 pickups and Blazers and Suburbans were severe rusters and quickly, too. A local businessman’s had holes around the door handles, which I believe GM repaired for free. He then bought a new ’76 Chevy pickup.
The problem seems to be more with the way the business is structured and an overweening emphasis on share prices and short term dividend payments. A reluctance to invest money, they’d rather give it to the shareholders. The UK car manufacturers did the same leaving companies like Jaguar for example in a woeful state. I think it’s no co-incidence that the Germans had less of this problem with compulsary workers’ representatives on their boards.
This short-termism has always been endemic in the car industry. What do they care about longevity, they only sell the car once, as long as it lasts through the warranty or lease period that’ll do. Look at the headlights on most modern cars.
Ford have always been the worst offenders. When they took over Volvo, the bean counters started decontenting components. An insider there told me that their warrenty claims increased by 200%. Many Volvo engineers quit the company in utter disgust.
GM vehicles rotted just as bad if not worse than Ford. They had as little zinc as possible in their steel at this time.
I bought my first, and last Ford. A 2004 f150 pu. What a piece of garbage. Never towed anything always maintained it, kept it washed, etc. My 1st red flag at the 3 year mark was the battery cable rusted off the frame, then the rear brake seals leaked, then the springs busted off the lower control arms then the transmission was slipping. Then the rust destroyed the power steering lines so bad the rack had to be replaced. Total rust bucket. Nerver buy another. They deserve to go bankrupt
Very interesting, in past lives I have used e-coating for consumer products. But the big players all had big automotive business.
Next up can you let us know who so many Mercedes – 2000 ish – became such rust buckets? Particularly near any type of trim piece such as door or trunk moldings.
This is an excellent article, I’ll have to read “The Reckoning” again sometime; I recall in the book when the 1949 Ford was being designed, new paint ovens were requested as the old ones dated back to Model T days and could not accommodate the new bodies. McNamara asked if would be possible to build the body in two parts and after painting spot weld them together. During the Vietnam war when he was running the Dept. of Defense he was using quantitative analysis or something similar to determine how the war was progressing-a total failure.
Back in the ’80s, about the only way to prevent automobiles from rusting out was to have the vehicle professionally rust proofed. It was a rather expensive process but it worked-none of the vehicles that had the treatment ever rusted.
Having lived all my life in Buffalo I can anecdotally speak to rust….Fords had the worst reputation…A friend of mine had a 70 Torino…holes in the fenders in under three years. Conversely I found GM a-bodies…70-71 to be pretty robust. Rust proofing was a must. Rusty Jones, Ziebart, Tuff Cote Dinol…all popular and did keep the tin worm at bay for a few years.
I have to say that the advancement in factory rust proofing is amazing…Buffalonians rouitinely traded their cars every 4 years just because of appearance
For some reason, Ramblers seemed to resist Wisconsin road salt and rust less than most. Definitely the definition of a mixed blessing as it meant my parents could keep their Ramblers longer.
AMC was one of the 1st companies to use galvanized steel on all the body panels of all their cars. I think that was under the AMC Buyer Protection Program they implemented. GM bragged about using galvanized steel “self flushing” rocker panels in the ’60’s as well.
I remember advertisements for the AMC Concord touting galvanized steel and factory Ziebart rustproofing…Dealers had to hate it in the north…Rust proofing was a huge add on….sort of like that Tru Cote
AMC pretty much had to move to galvanized steel and factory Ziebart by the end of the 1970’s because their body plant (Kenosha Waterfront, an 1800’s mattress factory that had been added to AMC’s portfolio during Rambler days when AMC was making over half a million cars per year because the Milwaukee body plant had maxed out) had a leaky roof and their sheet metal was rusting before it could be painted, meaning that rust was bubbling through paint before the end of the one year warranty causing huge warranty issues. Not to mention that the sheet metal was stamped in Milwaukee and trucked in clear on flatbed trucks to Kenosha, regardless of weather, and often arrived in Kenosha with a haze of rust on it. Galvanizing the sheet metal was cheaper than fixing the roof. That’s how bad of shape AMC was in by the time the 1970’s were over.
As a child in Quebec, Fords were known far and wide as cars that rusted faster than anything else. In two years an LTD would have holes in it. It was scandalous how the automakers would be allowed to get away with this. In Canada, consumer groups were successful at getting the car makers to offer rust through warranties.
When I moved to the West Coast in 1976 I was flabbergasted at how many old cars were on the road. For me, old was ten years, since in Quebec five years was beater territory.
I just bought a 2000 Honda Civic for a friend’s daughter. It has 200,000 km, zero rust and runs perfectly.
I would put Fords down to at least #2 in the rust department, after the king, the Toyota Pickup. A neighbor had one and it was like watching a slow motion disintegration. The bed went so fast it was shocking, and the cab wasn’t far behind. For some reason, they kept patching up the cab, and with the treated lumber bed they made for it, it was drivable for many more years than I would have ever expected. One day it was gone, and a purple Ford Ranger took it’s place. Their youngest daughter drove it from 16 until she graduated college and then it disappeared too, and a Chevy Trailblazer appeared and is still around, looking quite good for like 20 years old.
Rust was a rampant problem in the industry in all countries.
My dad bought in Spain a Renault 8 as a first car in 1974 and it started rusting from the very first day. The hood had to be replaced before the first year, not counting leaks and other issues.
I know friends whose families had SEATs and they have the same issues, specially in northern Spain, a very rainy area.
The next car, a Citroen GS was a nightmare because it was unreliable. Only in 93 my dad bought a Ford Orion and that car is still around.
We had a 1971 Ford Convertible. It had rust holes in the rocker panels after 18 months
I think today’s rust champion must be late model Ram pickups. I can’t believe how many I see with rotted out bed sides. My brother in law is a body man and told me that it is the seam sealer they use. It is a liquid and it never dries. Thus, leading to significant corrosion issues.
In fact, last year I had to have him fix wheel arch rust on the passenger side of my 2009 Mustang. He said it was for the same reason. I keep the car clean and always flush the under side after the roads get treated. I have never seen another with the same problem. It would be my car since I am planning on keeping it until either it or I wear out.
My family had a 1964 Country Squire Wagon bought new in 64. by 1968 it was more rust than steel and required a valve job at 65,000 miles and a major engine overhaul by 1970. It was the worst car you could imagine. We junked it in 1971 as it was too rotten to try and resell.