Been hankering for a time capsule to that splendiferous decade of the seventies? What better vehicle to relive it in than this sublime ’76 Maverick. It’s got a battering ram in case the worm hole back in time is a bit constricted. But the trip might take a wee bit of time, as its 302 V8 has all of 134 hp to fight against Einstein’s fairly solid theories. But it will prevail, in the end.
This one even features a rather rare partial vinyl roof. Maybe not so much rare as rarefied. And two tone paint to match. And the full wheel covers. This was a heavily optioned car; quite the change from the strippers advertised for $1995 back in 1970.
This one can be yours, for $4555. And since this was posted by canadiancatgreen at the Cohort, it’s only $3622 in greenbacks. Or 0.060 bitcoin, if you had the foresight to pick some up back when they were dirt cheap.
There was a ’75 parked in front of the autobody shop around the corner from my dentist in Maspeth a year and a half ago, devant la plague, in the Vorzeit. Pennsylvania registration stickers on the windshield, NYC Police Benevolent Association stickers on the backlight, a plaid blanket on the backseat. Sat there in its corduroy brownness for most of a year, actually. Two cleanings and a replaced filling. When I went on a Polish fruit-tea/dried Boletus run to the Polish store in the neighborhood (which straddles the Long Island Expressway like a pear-shaped older man coming home on the subway in the afternoon sitting for three on a subway bench) the Maverick was gone, replaced with a 73 Camaro.
I love the imagery in this.
It might be an interesting project, if a set of original slim chrome bumpers could be found to replace the battering rams. Lose the vinyl roof and extra trim, build up the engine a bit…
But I’d rather have the fiberglass 32 Ford behind it, looks like it’s $34,500
Oh yes. First thing I’d do would be to strip those horrible bumpers off. What would that lose, about 300 pounds? Then the weak V8 wouldn’t matter so much. But I’d still get it built with modern ignition and fuel management systems.
Wow, you can actually buy new slim bumpers and brackets to do the swap.
Looks like about $2000 in parts. Worth it for a $4500 car??
Found my pictures from the Spring of ’19!
And from the back
That rag stuffed into the gas filler really takes me back, I’m just old enough to remember when those were a fairly common sight (as frightening as it seems now!)
Always felt that was just begging for someone to coma along and light it.
Filler caps weren’t that expensive.
No, but the gas would slosh out until you got to a shop to replace it.
And in the middle.
The 76 Maverick picture is probably the most loaded 2 door example Ford built. If I remember correctly, this has all the hallmarks of the LDO or Luxury Decor Option that included the same grade of carpeting as used in Thunderbirds and Continentals and ” unique ” front bucket seats. The interior should nearly match the metallic light blue exterior. And, most likely a floor mounted shifter.
My younger sister had a similar 74 Maverick that was an okay car to drive, even though it only had the 250 inline 6 and automatic transmission.
For the price, this doesn’t seem to be too bad of a deal. I would be concerned about the miles on the odometer, the condition of the interior (though I would guess it is as nice as the exterior) and what that ” spot ” is on the lower part of the driver’s door.
I would bet that this car has already been sold.
I know old cars fairly well but the 2-door Maverick LDO is one of those ones that every time I come across it I remember that combination of options and body style existed, and then I somehow go right back to assuming the LDO package was 4-door only.
It does look like a well-optioned example. What’s even more interesting is that, by 1976, Ford had the Granada for buyers who wanted a luxury compact. The Maverick was kept around for people who wanted a basic, inexpensive compact. I can’t imagine there were too many well-optioned Mavericks sold in 1976.
I bought one of the first Maverick LDOs to arrive in Indiana in 1972. I was at the dealership to buy a used 1971 Mustang when three or four LDOs were coming off the truck. They were all two-doors. Mine was Medium Yellow Gold with the 302 and A/C. IIRC the other cars were white, one with the 250 Six and the others with the 302. I believe the dealer did not think that a pricy Maverick would sell easily so I got quite a good deal on the car by buying it the same day it arrived. They also had a buyer for my 69 VW.
1972 was the last year for the slim front bumper. That and the full vinyl top make for a more balanced look than the subject car.
Pumping up the economy for the 1972 election, along with rising oil prices due to the situation in the Middle East, contributed to an inflationary spiral that would continue for the next ten years. The sticker of the subject car probably would have illustrated that when compared to the one for my car. The LDO and other options created an elevated bottom line for a Maverick at that time.
Wow 134 HP from a 5ltr V8. About the same as Fords UK Essex 3.0V6!. The price of those primitive emission controls.,Never sold in the USA ,but the 101hp Cologne V6 was, about the same as the UK spec 2ltr OHC Pinto engine.
The aftermarket for the Ford Windsor is huge. For less than, say, $2000 you’ll have 250 hp. Way less.
No thanks. Been Maverick, done Maverick, got the sore back. If I piloted my Tardis back to ’76 for a car, I’d be looking for a Gremlin with 232 and four-speed.
Neighbors drove a series of these cars for years back in the 1980s. Seemed to be good cars for them and clearly they liked them.
Check out those big 1970s bumpers. Nice old car! Hope some Maverick enthusiast gets it.
Catalog photo is much like today’s car. The two-tone plus vinyl roof seems kinda overdone 45 years later, but nice to see the car soldiering along. I’m happy to know it’s thousands of miles away, or I’d probably be at least driving by to peek:
I love that catalog photo of the Maverick trunk above. Sure, just throw your guitar back there without a case and away you go…
The front bumper reminds me of how lazy Ford designers/engineers were in their take on the 5mph bumper. Remember how well Chrysler dealt with the same issue?
I’ll be a contrarian regarding the 5 MPH Bumpers.
While they looked terrible on most cars, even my beloved ’73 LTD (in retrospect), there were certain cars that pulled off the look.
The last really huge Lincoln Continental Town Cars and Town Coupes come to mind. The Mark V of that era does not look bad either.
The Mark V looks better some days without the oval opera windows, as in the Collector Series cars. I did not know that the Mark had “traditionally outstanding resale value”. Was it any better than the resale value of the Eldorado?
On larger cars they didn’t look as bad; they could carry off the extra length better than the smaller cars could. Plus it often seemed as though Ford just flat didn’t care how their cars looked back then.
The large cars featured “formal,” squared-off styling. The Maverick was conceived as a compact coupe with curvaceous styling. Grafting a big, rectangular chrome log on each end without restyling the car thus didn’t work.
That’s why even the Granada, which is about the same size as this Maverick, carries its bumpers better than the Maverick does.
I had a ’72 or ’73 back in the mid-seventie; can’t remember which year but I know it was pre-cowcatcher.
It was a replacement for my 1969 Olds Cutlass with a 350 that was already succumbing to rust. Needless to say I was not happy with the replacement (I was nineteen and not making car decisions yet).
The first time I got in it, I put a knee through the driver’s seat upholstery as I leaned in to put the registration in the glove box. The idle was set so high and the front brakes were so bad that I nearly put the car through the plate glass front of a laundromat, whilst standing on the brake; I had to shut the car off to avert disaster.
Finally, my GF at the time nearly refused to get in it, when I first showed up at her house in it. I told her I knew how she felt. She wasn’t at all a snob, it was just such an odd-looking car.
1976 was a weird year for Big 3 compacts. Not only could you get the latest Granada/Monarch, Volare/Aspen, or Nova/Skylark/Omega/Ventura variant, the ancient Maverick/Comet and Valiant/Dart were still around for their final year. Hell, if you really wanted to get technical, there was even the Cadillac Seville, and AMC’s Hornet was still hanging in there, too.
The irony is that, of all those choices, the one that was probably still the longest-lived would be the one that was the oldest, the Chrysler A-body, which dated all the way back to 1967.
The Maverick/Comet did have one final lap for the 1977 model year before the arrival of the Fox-body Fairmont/Zephyr.
Don’t forget the Hornet!
The basic Hornet bits would continue into the early 1980s disguised as the Concord, and the late 1980s disguised as the Eagle!
I always find these late Mavericks depressing. Up to about 1974 a Maverick with a V8 and the LDO package could be a decently nice car, but after the Granada came out Ford started cutting corners on the Mav to keep the price down.
Are those the sorriest optional full wheel covers ever put on a car? And does anyone have a worse record than Ford on designing ugly optional wheelcovers?
Mom had a 1972 four-door with a 250 I6 and the C4 automatic, painted a color Ford called “Harvest Gold”, but I called “Puppy Poop Brown”. Ours had four-wheel manual drum brakes with power steering, and the only other option was an AM radio. This car was so cheap that Ford couldn’t even afford to put in a glove box, there was a fiber-reinforced plastic shelf that ran along the bottom of the dashboard to hold the owner’s manual and registration.
This was quite possibly the worst handling car Ford ever made. The brakes and steering were so devoid of feel that they felt like they were shot full of Novacaine. Every corner was an adventure, as there was so much body roll that it felt like we were going to scrape the door handles off in every turn. Add in the lovely Diesel option, where the engine would run for five (5) minutes after shutting the ignition off, and every drive was almost dreaded. The only thing that saved it was this was the car I learned to drive on and took my driving test in. At least the Pinto had rack and pinion steering with good feedback to redeem it.
We didnt get those from Ford or battering ram bumpers but the slim attractive bumpers from Ford OZ were considered quite strong enough for the bumper jack they issued them with.
134hp from a 302 doesnt sound right I drove a 74 Aussie Fairmont GS wagon with 302 for a while and it seemed to go quite well for having a heavy car to propel.
Never underestimate what ’70s style U.S. pollution control and gas mileage enhancements could do to throttle down power outputs. It was not for no reason that the strategy of yanking all of that stuff off of the car, as soon as one could, was common practice.
Different engine too, that would have been the 302 Cleveland with those amazing heads people want in the US. Different animal from the smog strangled 302 Windsor
In fact, Aussie heads are the Cleveland holy grail, or were.
Ayuh. Here y’go, should be all cued up to 19:41 (tho this is after a whole lot of additional screen-and-snark time for the car):
I love MST3K 🙂
I’m deeply suspicious of whoever doesn’t!
Ah, you are a man of rare good taste and sophistication! Love that show as well. “Mitchell” is another good episode for some car spotting.
The “Mitchell” episode was the one that made me a fan of both MST3K and Joe Don Baker.
I would have put the prince of darkness in a muscle car
*watch out for snakes!*
If a “Maverick Ghia” had come from the factory, it would look like this.
That price does seem a bit high for a car that (from these pictures, anyway) looks like it’s in far from pristine condition.
I really can’t imagine what else they could do to dress it up more!
We had a couple of these in our extended family back in the 70s.
Grandma had a new 70 2-door in grabber blue, with a 302. The only options I recall were auto trans, high back buckets and full wheel covers that were better than the subject car. It was pretty zippy for its time, with a touchy throttle. She only putted it around town, so dad would periodically take it out on the interstate to “blow the carbon out”.
Great aunt (grandma’s sister) bought a new 6-cylinder 4-door 76 in a brownish gold that was fairly optioned up. Was the first car I saw with map lights as part of the dome light. (So fancy) Might have even had the color matched wheel covers? We borrowed this one for a family trip to the east coast around 1979.
Both were fairly average for the times. No better or worse than other 70s cars.
I hope the 302 with front disc brakes handled better than the six-cylinder versions (which was most of them, the V8 was a pretty rare option, at least in my neck of the woods). Front disc brakes with power assist had to be better than the manual four-wheel drum brakes on mine!
While I’m no Ford fan, I don’t mind the looks of the pre ’73 Mavericks. The 302 could be easily livened up- a decent distributor recurve, re jet the carby and duals would work wonders. As for the bumpers- you can retro fit the earlier slim ones
You’d loose all that road hugging weight though!
You could plow snow with this thing.
I’m no fan of the Brougham look nor do I like “tribute cars” so a retro restomod with early bumpers and a fuel injected 302 sounds right. My recollection is that these shared the Falcon platform with the early Mustang so upgrading the suspension should be straightforward, plus some bucket seats, slot mags and a 70s paint job.
The fiberglass 32 in the background does nothing for me because it screams cookie cutter “boomer rod” with a Chevy 350, automatic transmission and lots of billet items.
Mmmmm…Beautiful Maverick. I still have 7 plus a building full of parts for them. Love this Tu-Tone.