Social Networking can bring about some really awkward interactions with parents if they are young enough and/or technologically savvy. In my case, they center around my mother and her opinions on some of the curbside classics I find and post to Facebook from time to time. Due to her direct experience as a fashion conscious (and cautious) teenager in the mid 1970s, a number of classic cars can elicit some pretty strong memories.
“Oh god! That is the same Comet grandma tried to buy for me my junior year” was her robust response to this Split Pea Green Comet I found in the El Cerrito hills. This was the first time I had heard that a Comet was in the running as a potential lightly used car purchase by my great grandmother for my mom. All the stories I had heard about that fraught decision placed a Plymouth Duster and a C3 Corvette at opposing ends of each other. The eventual compromise ended up being a 3rd Generation Mercury Cougar in a slightly less putrid seafoam turquoise shade than our feature car here (with a white vinyl top) .
I jested in return about this particular Comet being long lived, seemingly ready for daily duty. However, I understand her rebuttal and admire her ability to bargain for something better than a re-badged Ford Maverick. I took it as yet another example of how automobiles are one of the most emotional consumer purchases Americans (in particular) make, whether that’s conscious or unconscious.
It shouldn’t have surprised my great grandmother Clara when my mother had a prima donna moment when presented with the prospect of Comet ownership in 1977. She herself only accepted a line of Chrysler New Yorkers and Imperials as her automotive choices and had bred appreciation for the finer things in life in her progeny, not knock-offs of greatness . It shouldn’t surprise me either; I had to get my staunch (sometimes irrational) opinions on the subject of fine automobiles from somewhere. Thanks Mom!
I’ve always thought the Mercury Comet was the better looking of the two. The Ford Maverick is nice, but the Comet looks more attractive. Although I don’t particularly like the colours on the cars in these photos, I have always liked the two cars.
Maverick or comet. Same car afaic. Parents were driving a Maverick Grabber with a 302 while in their seventies. Used to get a laugh out of that. It missed the one “must have” item for my young family. An Air Conditioner. Otherwise very fun to drive and even with the 302 it was economical.
I had a neighbour when I was a boy who had a Maverick Grabber. I don’t remember whether I went for a ride in the car or not. But I remember admiring how it looked, if not how it performed.
The Mercury Comet and Ford Maverick are my favorite cars! They have a LOT of fond and wistful memories to me. My mom and dad picked out a used ’72 four-door Ford Maverick in 1977 when their old 1961 Chevy Biscayne got too old and rusty to drive any more. My Auntie (two years earlier) bought an almost identical in appearance four-door ’75 Ford Maverick, also. Both cars are now fully restored and in number one condition and have won awards at local car shows. Both are beautiful, and are perfectly preserved specimens of a period in automotive history that will never be repeated. Both were excellent cars. The ’72 Maverick has more than 120000 miles on the odometer and the ’75 has over 70000. Better service from a car of that era could not be asked for, and restoration of both cars was cheap and easy. Another ’72 Maverick I have is a Canadian car with 52000 miles that has been slightly modified, and this one too is in number one condition. These cars are great cars to restore either as a perfectly restored piece of automotive history, or to use as a daily driver. I get much attention when I take these cars out, and they are noticed at car shows as well. This is why these sedans are my favorite. Yes, they have many sweet memories connected to them!
Sweet! I’ve always liked the Ford Maverick/Mercury Comet. I’ve never understood why they’re so derided by collectors today. Ford Mustangs and Mustang IIs are not bad cars, and the LTD may be bigger, but for some people, the Maverick/Comet would be perfect in size, particularly if you have a family of four. Or even if you don’t have a family, but you own a business, and need a reliable car to conduct that business. 🙂
When my brother got married in 1970, my folks bought him a new Maverick as their wedding gift just as it was publicly introduced. When Dad and I picked it up from the dealer I remember passing a group of kids who pointed and shouted, “Look, a new Maverick!”. It was orange with black vinyl interior and was pretty cool at the time. Several years later I bought a 1975 Maverick Grabber with the 302. I thought I was pretty cool but that V8 put out only about 120hp (if that) and was pretty slow. Past 55 mph you could feel the front end lift and the steering got squirrely…those front ends let a lot of air go under rather than over the car!
My parents had a 74 Maverick 4- door – white – with a blue interior – it was a horrible car. As a pre-teen it was my job to open the garage door and wait for my mother to back the car out – then close the garage door and hop in. The car would start run, then stall. Then it would start, run on its own, then as soon as she put it in reverse it would stall again. Over and over this would happen until it finally warmed up enough.
It was also a serious ruster. A mere 5 years after we bought it my father wanted to trade it in on a new Fairmont and sales guy asked if it had ever been under water.
The Maverick/Comet were the undynamic duo. The third iteration of the lamentable Falcon, it shared the poor handling of the Falcon w/o its only virtue, a practical, if mundane, design.
By removing wheelbase and giving “pony” flair, the duo lost mucho space. But the two door did for some fill the space vacated by the ever expanding Mustang. The four door made the design ungainly but added back some space.
My Aunt traded in a Cricket for a four door Maverick and its most striking feature was a steering wheel which was oddly never centered. Couldn’t handle at all, especially compared with her husband’s vastly superior 1970 Valiant – yet the duo’s suspension managed to transmit every bump and unabated road noise into the interior. I think she missed the Cricket!
Yet Ford sold the duo like hotcakes – al least the first year – before reality set in. The Comet showed the Mercury name was illusory – it was just a less attractive Ford.
That’s a beautiful neighborhood and the Comet fits right in. It’s like a curbside ornament for the house.
It’s funny how all moms were that way with The Comet and such. For my Mom it was The Valiant. You don’t hear young moms singling out cars the way moms once did.
Jason:
Mustang IIs are not bad cars? Ask the man who bought one new in 1975. Three years and 40,000 trouble-filled miles later, I became the first person in my family in 44 years to buy something other than a Ford.
My sister’s first new car was a 1975 Comet, a two door. It was not an awful car but like many vehicles from that era it had some issues, especially with driveability. I only drove it a few times but every time I did it seemed to have a pronounced stumble on throttle tip in; you would push down on the gas pedal and the engine stuttered and coughed a couple of times before finally smoothing out. This was not very reassuring when turning in front of oncoming traffic. The least impressive thing about the Comet was the poor fuel mileage; with the six and automatic it only got 14-15 MPG around town, somewhat better on the highway (20 MPG or so). After several years the Comet was traded in for a Toyota, one with four doors and a usable back seat.
Just curious about something here. When restoring a car from the Early Emission Control Era, is it the accepted practice to keep originality – stumbles, stutters, stalls and all – or to get the engine to run right? Just curious, as I have memories of my late uncle’s ’78 Nissan Skyline, which had a terrible stalling problem when cold.
Personally I’d try to keep the stumbles, stutters, stalls and all,
it’s all part of replicating the actual experience.
That house in the first shot is gorgeous.
…the buzz about the photo with the green car and nice house reminds me that in 1967 the folks bought a new Bonneville, painted the house trim and bought new major kitchen appliances…all in the same Avocado Green! Man, those were the good ol’ days!
I know that the 1970s weren’t the best decade for car makers, with regulations and requirements being imposed left and right against car makers.
Toyota and Honda managed to meet those regulations and requirements and make reliable, higher quality cars.
They still rusted away, though.
Just that they made better 4 cylinder motors at the time, while Motown looked on them as a passing fad. [Until the Shah of Iran was deposed]
It seems unfortunate that the American car makers were either unable, or unwilling, to meet the requirements while Japanese car makers were willing and able to build cars that met, and in some cases exceeded those standards.
I like that roof cargo carrier. A re-purposed pallet, or custom build?
Most likely a pallet, If I catch it again I’ll give it a closer look.
I cannot relate to the social media aspect of this story, or in general, to my parents’ understanding of cars. They don’t exactly *like* cars very much and while having a tasteful car is a priority, so is having a new one. They can’t look at anything old and not think “basketcase,” so as far as any discussion of cars goes, it’s “look at the new XYZ so and so bought. It looks good (read: expensive).” It’s never “I remember that!” or “how charming.”
In fact, by this point in the paragraph, I’m a bit jealous!
I’ll give you my mom’s phone number.
Wait ’til I find a ’64 New Yorker, there’s endless quotables about that car of her youth….
My grandma on my mom’s side of the family was like that. Thankfully it never rubbed off on my mom. It always burned my grandma that my dad’s ’66 Chrysler (by this time a project car) was parked in the garage, but my mom’s car had to sit outside year-round. To her, his Chrysler was just a piece of garbage.
Grandma did have one fond memory of her ’86 Monte Carlo which she liked to recount: The first time I saw it, I told her she should’ve bought an SS. I was 11 years old at the time.
She got her chance to lecture me in return much later, when I was shopping for a vehicle to replace my crusty GMC van. She said something about buying something respectable and looking at what other people in my office were driving. I was shopping for a diesel pickup truck, but I kept that to myself and just nodded along. 🙂
The Maverick and Comet were good-looking cars, especially in two-door form with the pre-1973 bumpers. However, they had a bit of a reputation to overcome. Perhaps those problems had been overcome by the later models, but the early ones weren’t the best cars out there. My grandfather’s fourth car purchase was a Maverick – I think this was in 1971 or ’72. The family needed a second car as my mother’s car, a 1961 Valiant, had broken down one too many times, and rather than having her buy another beater to commute to college, he let her use the family ’68 Impala and bought a Maverick for my grandmother to drive. (Grandpa himself took the train to work, from Jersey to NYC.)
While they did have the Maverick for a good number of years, until 1979, it acquired a singular reputation during that time as a Bad Car. It was also the last Ford he ever bought, despite 3 of his first 5 cars being blue oval products.
I think it is safe to say the above vehicle is the only Mercury Comet driving around with a wooden pallet on its roof.
If only Ford based Mustang 2 on this chassis.
Often wondered that very thing myself. The resulting car would have been very close to the original Mustang.
may even be somewhat shorter if they put the engine behind front wheels and minimize front overhang.
The orig Mustang was based on the orig Falcon chassis – as was this. Both were shortened.
The Granada/Monarch/Versailles were Falcon based too.
The item of the stalling issue on the Maverick/Comet is usually with the six cylinder variety. The Carter carburetor on those engines was fitted with either an anti-stall dash pot and/or a throttle solenoid. If either/or the dash pot or the solenoid was non-functional for whatever reason, this would create problems with the intake of fuel. Most of the time the remedy to this was a simple one; but as with all carbureted engines, other problems also might arise. Many mechanics were not aware of this solenoid and tended to overlook it. I know that my six cylinder Mavericks have both been through this, and it was only after a thorough read-through of the shop manual did I realize what needed to be done. Actually, my problem was repaired with the reconnection of the solenoid wire to the engine harness in both cases.
Goddamn you take some purdy pictures. Mums on facebook, hehehe. Back when this house was built it would have been mums on the other phone.
At least she’s stylin’.
I had a 1974 Ford Maverick that originally came with the 250 ci straight six. It was somewhat better on fuel than my 390 Torino GT, but not by a whole lot. I decided to drop in a warmed over 289 V8 after a year of ownership, it woke the car up. However, the brakes and suspension weren’t really up to the power of the V8. It was a pig that accelerated quickly, but couldn’t really stop or turn. I didn’t have the will or the $$’s to upgrade the rest of the car, so I sold it and bought something better.
I like the looks of the Comet better than the Mav, and these pre-1973 versions look the best of all. Nowadays, you could make one heck of a G-Machine or Pro Resto Mod out of one these. A crate SBC and a 4 speed autobox would make these things scoot. Add on some decent suspension parts and modern disc brakes, et voila! Modern Gran Turismo, right sized.
In 97 bought a well used 72 dark blue Comet. Auto with 302 and ps, and other than that pretty much a stripper. I believe it had drum brakes. For the $500.00 we paid for it it was ok. It needed carb work and seemed to get pretty poor mileage. Got rid of it pretty quickly. Sold it to a nephew who slid it into a curb in the rain and folded the wheel hubcap side down. It went to the junkyard from there.
Hideous cars, the most naively styled American vehicles of the past fifty years. But if Laurence is taking the pictures, I’ll enjoy looking at them nonetheless.
Interesting story and well told, Laurence. I for one have mixed feelings about the Mav and Comet. In 2 door trim, the early small bumper examples at least LOOK good. Ive never actually driven one, but from what I hear the experience is crude at best. Still, as was said before—this would’ve made for a much more respectable and streetworthy reborn Mustang.
As for the 4 door…..in my book its the same as in 99.9999999% of 4 door sedans–YUCK.
Fabulous photography, as always. There is something almost jarring about the combination of this car in front of that beautiful midcentury house.
This picture looks like it would have been taken no later than 1973 in the midwest. After that would come the big brown holes all over the lower half of the car.
Dad had a 74 4-door Comet with the 302 V8. Refrigerator white with jet black vinyl top and jet black vinyl interior. The A/C had a hard time keeping up the with Louisiana humidity in mid summer. Eventually developed a knocking valve (suspect middle brother drag racing at stop lights, but he denied it). Years later, I spotted the car at the local Schwegmann’s parking lot. Appears the new owner keep it for several years , knocking engine and all…..
I owned a gold four door ’72 with the V8 and loaded with all available options. I had been waiting for my new V6 Capri for what seemed like forever, and I just wanted a new car. It was ok, but a stick shift red Capri it wasn’t, and I soon sold it. A BMW owning friend of mine made a lot of fun of my ad for the car in which I called it a “luxury compact”; which I still can’t figure out (his problem). What I do remember is the super plush carpeting, the thick soft, leather like upholstery, and the incredibly bad gas mileage.
It sounds like a twin to my parent’s ’72, color and all. I didn’t think it that bad at the time, the LDO package brought some very useful suspension and NVH upgrades. The 302 was peppy, and would still do 22-23 highway (imperial mpgs). Ordering every option was the key to making these tolerable.
There must have been something wrong with mine. I could only get 12-15 mpg on the highway. The nice folks who bought it said it would get occasional use; they were going to tow it behind their motor home. Hope they solved the problem. It would have been under warranty.
Great story, all vintage cars have lived interesting lives. I love it when their histories are shared. I love to visit junkyards just to exercise my imagination.
In my teen years I drove a Mercury Monarch. I really wished the Bank of Dad had choose a Maverick or Comment instead. I liked their clean simplicity versus the cheap neoclassic, pseudo broughamed body with cheap jewelry, contact papered wood dash of the Monarch. Oddly, I do have a thing for the Versailles.
The Comet/Maverick has good lines and sparten honest simplicity; and my teen mind would have been more secure with a more masculine car. At least I’ve evolved, I would drive a Tri-Delts pink VW cabriolet, carefree and not give a damn.
I hope Ford made a lot of money with these cars because for the life of me, I could never figure out why anyone would buy one. They were smaller than the Nova and the Valiant and even the Ford Falcon. They were slightly bigger than the Pinto, but the Pinto at least had a wagon version and a usable hatch, which the Maverick/Comet did not. The gas mileage wasn’t great and worse than the Pinto.
It just seems like Ford decided to upgrade the old Falcon and make it appear sporty, but didn’t care that the car didn’t try to do anything new. The price of these cars started at under $2000 for a stripped version so perhaps Ford was trying to compete against the Beetle?
Then there is the just plain bad interior. No glove box? Really? No interior room compared to the competition? Who was supposed to want this car when for a little more money, you could get a better car – and for the same money, you could get a better car in the same Ford showroom, as a Pinto? It wasn’t a Mustang. It wasn’t a Torino. What is it supposed to be?
Reviews at that time repeat these same questions. The Maverick/Comet kept coming up smaller and weaker against the competition, even the competition within the Ford showroom.
Yet, these cars kept selling.
The only fix for this car was the four door and unlike the utilitarian and useful style found on the GM or Chrysler competition, Ford did a smaller version of the awkward styling found on the Torino four door. Were there really auto designers thinking the four door was a good design? Once again, auto journalists at that time kept noting that these cars weren’t as good as the competition.
The Maverick/Comet could have been completely skipped in the Ford evolution of their compact car history. It is easy to see how Ford could have ended up with a Granada/Monarch on the same basic body as the Falcon. Both are formal sedans with simple mechanics designed to seat five. But then, what the heck happened in 1969 when they took the Falcon and put a Maverick/Comet body on it for six years?
Weird. Only thing weirder was how many of these cars were sold. Really remarkable.
What I’ve never understood was why Ford never offered either the Maverick or the Mercury Comet in station wagon form. In the 60s, from what I’ve seen, both the Ford Falcon and the Mercury Comet were available in station wagon style. Why didn’t they continue that with the Maverick/Comet?
I agree with you. The Maverick coupe was substantially worse than the original 1960 Falcon, in terms of interior accommodations. The wheelbase was shortened in the rear, and that sloping coupe body made for a miserable and dark back seat. I still can’t believe how well it sold the first couple of years.
I’d chalk a lot of it up to the fact that all the compacts had gotten to big, and the Maverick was the only car that could offer an American car experience (for better or for worse) for the price of a cheap import. That was the strategy, and it worked, if not for long.
I want to buy that car. Do you know the owners?
I just found this and I am the owner – however, I’m not interested in selling.
It’s a great car and I like the looks and utility of the 4-door, which the hot-rodders are, naturally, not interested in.