This is my great grandmother Sue, walking up the path to our front door one sunny day in about 1971. That’s her 1967 Ford LTD parked curbside.
Sue was my mother’s mother’s mother. She favored girl children, and so had little to say to my brother and me but doted on my cousin Patricia. My main memories of her are of her sitting stick straight in a chair in the corner when the family gathered. But oh, the stories my mom and grandma would tell about her. Born in 1889 in Van Wert, Ohio, the courthouse allegedly burned down with her birth records in it, and so by lying about her age she was able to stay on at Bendix in South Bend, Indiana, where we lived, well past the mandatory retirement age. She helped raise my mother, who was a tomboy. This infuriated prim and proper Sue, who expected my mom to be a lady. Sue constantly bought her frilly clothes in pink and other pale colors. After she left home, to the day she died, my mom wore earth tones and black. Sue was also a terror on the roads — my parents would not let me ride with her.
But I did get to ride in that LTD. Sue lived with my grandparents at their home on a small lake near Dowagiac, Michigan. By 1974 or so, Sue was showing clear signs of dementia. One day, Sue managed to back the car into the lake. That was quite a feat, as it was at least 200 yards from the driveway. Shortly after, Grandma put Sue in a nursing home. Grandma drove the LTD for a little while after that, and sometimes took my brother and me along. I remember the cloth seats having a lovely delicate pattern in them, but as I look up LTD interiors on the Internet I find only plain cloth. I’m far more sure that they were in the same blue as the exterior. I noticed that from the inside, the windshield had the same shape and chrome surround as the one in my dad’s ’66 Galaxie. I didn’t know yet that these were essentially the same car.
Sue’s LTD gave her near-Lincoln luxury at a good price: $3,362 was the base price, equivalent to about $32,500 today. I think the vinyl top was an option, but it was a super common one if the ’67 LTDs that turn up on Google Image Search are any indication. The base engine was the 289 V8, putting out 200 HP, which ought to have made it a decent enough performer.
Sue is carrying a record player. On this day I was about three, and my memory hadn’t switched on yet. This must be the day we received this record player, because Mom used it for years and years. Now I have it. I sometimes get it out at the holidays to play the Christmas albums my mom bought as a young adult in the early 60s.
This is the only other photograph I have of Sue from the years I knew her, and it’s with her pet ALLIGATOR. Sue was a badass.
It wasn’t until Sue died some years later that I learned that her name wasn’t Sue. I picked up her In Memoriam card to read that it was actually Eileen, and that her middle initial was P. “Yes,” Grandma said, “she just had everybody call her Sue.” Enigmatic to the end.
Further reading
1967 Ford LTD sedan by J.P. Cavanaugh
1967 Ford Galaxie 500 fastback by Ed Stembridge
1967 Ford LTD 2-door hardtop by PN
Sue reminds me of a saying I once heard…”she’d go bear hunting with a rolled up newspaper and give the bear the paper to better his odds”.
What a nice looking LTD! It’s hard to tell, and enlarging the picture doesn’t work well enough, but it appears there may be an engine callout on the front fender, seen between Sue’s purse strap and leg. I’ve seen a few ’67s with 390s having the engine badge in that location.
Thank you for sharing this picture. There are lots of good things going in it.
I can’t tell if there is a callout or not from the photo, but yes, it would be behind the front wheel and above the trim band. The 390 and the 428 were the only two engines that got the callout badge, and 390s were quite common in these.
Your memory on that seat upholstery does not fail you. There was a fancy little design in the seat back that does not show up well at the wrong angle. I found a decent picture showing one.
Also, according to the brochure, the vinyl roof was optional on 4 door cars, but standard on the 2 door, which was the only way they could fill in the C pillar to go with that small rear quarter window. In your photo taken in the bright light, you can kind of see the original C pillar shape in a barely perceptible shadow.
And Van Wert, Ohio – I know it well!
Hey, wow, you’re right, that slight shadow fits perfectly!
And that filled-in C-pillar is to me where broughamification really began to take a very dark turn. Quite literally I guess, given the lowered visibility and more closed-in feeling inside. The Galaxie roofline is infinitely better looking, in my opinion.
Great recollection!
I had an Aunt of similar ilk. 2 time retired school teacher, never married, She however doted on us boys. Similar terror on the road. This was the early 70’s. Her Delta 88 has 2 speeds, wide ass open or off. She tore up the back roads of NC in that car. My Grandmother forbid me from riding with her, but what she doesn’t know won’t hurt any of us. Great memories
Wow, “Sue” looked pretty good for a great grandma. But an alligator for a pet? WooHoo!
Born in 1889, so in 1971 she was 82! She died in 1981 at 92.
What a pisser! I love how you recall her. Great history of a character not to be forgotten. The car is a cool one, too. But the focus of this essay is definitely Great-Grandma Sue. She looks great in the picture at which time I estimate that she was 82 years of age. I have some corkers for relatives, but they pale in comparison.
My late wife was driving the opposite of this car when I met her in 1980. It was a 1967 Ford Custom with a 289. Very strangely optioned. It had A/C, but no power steering. Four door, white with a blue interior. She sold it before we got married for a few hundred bucks. It ran well, but you needed strong arms to drive/park it.
Thank you for sharing this great family story. Wonderful having such an outstanding and cool, great grandmother. Unfortunate, your time spent together did not overlap more. She must have been so proud, arriving in that beautiful Ford.
Thank you for these two photos and this little story: it is very touching.
Cool story, JIm, and I love the car being a Ford guy.
We see so many vintage photos on CC, and each of them has a story, but we hardly ever get to know them. It’s a delight to get a background on the photo’s subject and circumstances here.
I had to laugh about Sue fudging her age. My grandmother also fudged her age – in her case it was because her second husband was younger than her, which was frowned upon in the 1950s, so she just made herself a few years younger and the problem was solved. Grandma lived to be 106 and was what doctors considered a “super ager.” At some point around age 90, she became proud of her age, which was funny considering that for most of her life any mention of her age was taboo in our family.
Oddly, even though grandma was very adventurous and modern, she never took to driving. She had a license, and even owned a Pinto wagon at some point, but never enjoyed it, at just gave up driving altogether in her 60s.
As for Sue’s pet alligator… Wow!
My most unique relative was my Aunt Eloise who was my grandmother’s sister. My Uncle Amos bought my aunt a new 1967 Camaro SS for her 50th birthday. Many a Summer night my aunt would take me and my two cousins for ice cream and show us what the Camaro could do on Ohio country roads. The last words we usually heard was my Grandmother saying “Lou remember you have kids in the car”. Our response “Faster Auntie Lou faster!”. Granny not to be left out traded her 1963 Galaxie on a 1968 Torino GT.
I visited that Bendix plant in South Bend some 20 years ago and was impressed by the in-house metalworking capabilities.
Nice story! My wife’s Grandfather had a ’67 Galaxie 500 4dr hardtop when I met her in ’70, and he was an old-line German named Georg Schull who believed in taking proper care of things, cars, tools, lawn, house, you name it. He kept his ’57 Fairlane 500 hardtop for 10 years and it still looked new when he gave it my wife’s widowed mother in ’67, no small accomplishment in the harsh Baltimore City environment. He was the kind who wiped off the engine with an oily rag after every drive and changed the oil every 1000 miles. He kept that ’67 for 10 years also, and it was starting to rust a bit in the rear quarters when he was about to trade it in on a ’77 LTD II, when he suddenly died of a heart attack. I have a feeling if he had he’d be less happy with the new Ford if he had.
I’ve always preferred the thin C-pillar and concave rear glass of the 66 LTD coupe, a very sleek combination, in good part because a favorite aunt got one new in the fall of 65. It was Vintage Burgundy as in the brochure cover example but with a painted roof in Raven Black. The combination of sharp angles (those taillights!) and curves of the 66 does it for me. Having said that, your great’s 67 coupe is beautiful. I love the color combination and the 7-Litre style wheel covers. It does appear to have a 390 badge on the fender. My aunt’s car had the two-tone paint, power steering, an AM radio with rear speaker, whitewalls, and not much else as options as Cruiseomatic was standard along with full wheel covers and a lot of nice trim (e.g., a chrome diecast grille according to the brochure I still have). The standard 289 was a smooth runner and had adequate power but the 390 would have been better for a big car. I always liked to park our 1965 Thunderbird next to the LTD, two great examples of 60’s Ford styling. BTW, the aunt’s next LTD – I think a 77 – was in the same color combination as your great’s. Not nearly as good a car as the 66 which she kept for at least ten years.
Did you take this great picture? And how was the LTD still driveable after a dunk in the lake?
I’m sure Ford would have liked the 66 LTD coupe to look more different from the lower-line Galaxie though. The rear window and roofline were elegant, at least.
I was three, so I didn’t take the photo. My mom did. In 1971, she would have been 26. After she died a couple years ago, I got the family photos and discovered this one. I’d never seen it before!
The car did survive the lake. My grandmother kept it for a while, maybe a year or so, and drove it from time to time.
Jim, good point about the need for a separate roof design for the LTD, especially given that the 66 Chevrolet Caprice coupe had its own unique roofline.
Hope you have some more car pictures to share from that family stash. This one is a gem. I keep finding more, too – I inherited hundreds of photos, a good many not in albums so reviewing them takes time.
This early factory photo show they briefly considered the Galaxie roofline for the LTD. I think they made the right decision.
That’s a good looking “Ford”, 2 the curb.
Like Sue, my Grandma Siri was “a terror on the roads.” She was so short she could barely see over the dash of her ’67 Dodge Charger. Every time Siri pulled out of our driveway, she put up a rooster tail of gravel.
My first thought was that Mary Poppins must have traded in her magic umbrella for a Ford. Your great grandmother looked younger than her years.
“My name is Sue, how do you do?”
Great homage to your great great grandmother.
My father had a ’67 LTD 2 door. Those small windows are actually convertible glass, so, along with the filled-in roof covered in vinyl, they did it on the cheap.
Ours had some unusual options, disc brakes, factory in-dash 8-track, and speed-activated vacuum locks , which failed after about 6 months. It happened on a long road trip. The vacuum remained applied to the actuators, and were very hard to pull up, especially for a 6 year old. I really imprinted with this car, since in the summer of ’67 we took a month-long journey from western Canada to Expo 67 in Montreal, continuing on thru the Maritmes and down into New York state and across Pennsylvania to Michigan. My dad was visiting a friend in Windsor when we heard news of the imminent closure of the tunnel and bridge to Detroit due to the ’67 riots. We had to cut our visit short to avoid doubling back to Sarnia. It was this trip that gave a love for motoring and the open road that I have to this day.
The example in the picture has 2 important cosmetic options, the 5-spoke wheel covers and rear-mounted antenna, which give it a real jaunty look.
I had always assumed that these LTDs used convertible glass for the rear quarter windows, but then I looked at a bunch of pictures of both and am not quite so sure. The shapes are subtly different, so either parts of the convertible panes are nestled into the roofline of the LTD, or they made slightly different panes. Common sense tells me that the convertible panes would have been the simplest way to go, but then they were probably expecting a lot of volume for this car and maybe spent the money.
Yes, I noticed those wheel covers right away. I am not sure I ever saw them on an LTD. In my life they were always on XL models and on the occasional Galaxie 500. I still remember scrounging a set for my own 67 years ago, and remember being amazed that the factory chrome lug nuts cost $1.20 each at the dealer parts counter (1977), which was an ungodly fortune at the time.
Optional on any model, even a Custom, if any were ever ordered.
Were those wheel covers available in 66? I have a memory that my dad’s 66 Galaxie 500 had them.
1966-68
They are on the promotional model of the 66 Galaxie 7 Litre I’ve had since new.
The lead picture looks like a scene from ‘The Andy Griffith Show’ with an old friend of Aunt Bee arriving for an extended visit.
I have one of these, same color combo. And my 1967 LTD does have those embroidered cloth seats, 390 f.e engine it rides like a classy lady…
Glad to know my memory is accurate!
Very interesting and entertaining story. My paternal grandmother remarried in 1967 and her husband was the shop foreman for Lafayette Ford in Fayetteville, NC. At the time of their marriage he owned an aqua colored 1967 LTD coupe with 390 with a black vinyl top. Beautiful car.
352’s had the same style
callout on the fender as the 390 and 428.
428’s were rare and 289’s had no fender badge
I really enjoyed your story about your great grandmother. As my wife would have said “She was a pistol!” Her grandmother was much like that.