(first posted 1/17/2018) Few things are more gratifying than seeing greatness rewarded. Especially when the highly coveted recognition comes from a most prestigious entity. Think world renowned scientists earning the Nobel prize, truly talented actors snagging an Oscar, and the 1973 full-size Fords winning Road Test Magazine’s Car of the Year. For ’73 Ford “Super Fans” like Paul and Jason, the Road Test honor is enough to elicit tears of joy.
Or a gag reaction….
Spoiler alert: for many folks, and most especially Paul, the ’73 full-size Fords were a low point for the Blue Oval. Corpulent and sloppy, the big Fords took the worst of Motown to the extreme in one of the final hurrahs of “road hugging weight” for the “everyman” buyer.
And that’s where Road Test Magazine comes in: more than any other U.S. buff book at the time, Road Test devoted a lot of coverage to the everyday cars that were ubiquitous in the 1970s, including the still popular traditional American big cars. While reading Road Test can be cringe-inducing, as the copy is often riddled with typos and content gaffes, it is nonetheless a great time capsule back to another era in automotive tastes and needs.
Strange things happen when you start to judge the full-sized Ford in the context of the times: they actually made some sense for their intended mission. That’s not to say that the big Fords (and their competitors) were logical solutions for everyday transportation needs, and that would ultimately be their undoing. However, as an understandable evolution of an incredibly successful Cash Cow product line, the full-size Ford offered more of everything that American buyers had been conditioned to expect was “better” in a new car. It was the classic Detroit formula of packing a lot of superficial value into jumbo-sized cars that spun huge profits for the manufacturers and earned legions of loyal buyers.
In fact, the 1973 Ford was also one of the last big car lines to be redesigned still using Motown’s classic “bigger is better” approach, before the giant global shockwaves from the 1973 Oil Embargo changed the American auto business forever. Pity poor Chrysler: its all-new 1974 dinosaurs were hatched in the fall of 1973, right when the oil crisis “meteor” hit, dealing them a lethal blow right out of the gate. At least Ford had one prosperous year for its newest giants to thrive in a gluttonous environment fueled by cheap gas and low expectations.
And that was the world Road Test was living in when it selected the full-sized Ford as its Car of the Year in January 1973.
Road Test’s boasting about the quality and impact of their awards is absolutely comical to read. Also, for whatever reason, RT exhibited great disdain toward GM’s new A-Body intermediates as deserving recipients of recognition. Of course, the sad reality of 1973 is that there really wasn’t that much true innovation from Detroit in any form, from any maker.
Like working a “Where’s Waldo” puzzle, finding errors in Road Test copy can be an entertaining pastime. Copy on page 29 erroneously identifying cornering lamps as being available only on Country Squires is but one example—though a funny one, given that an LTD sedan is shown in an adjacent picture fitted with cornering lamps. Whoops.
But now sit back in your La-Z-Boy and let’s get behind the wheel of Ford Division’s finest LTD for 1973.
The LTD Brougham 2-door hardtop tested carried the very expensive (and undoubtedly very rare) optional moonroof, which listed for $495.97 ($2,870 adjusted). The optional remote control right hand mirror was also called out for newness and usefulness—hard to believe that there was a time when such a feature was considered novel.
One of the most incredible benefits of the new 1973 Ford was the gigantic glovebox–400 cubic inches bigger than the one offered in 1972! That’s the equivalent of more than three 2-liter bottles of Coca-Cola! Or could it just be another Road Test typo?
As equipped, the test car would have stickered for around $6,244 ($36,134 adjusted), which was quite a princely sum for a Ford at the time. Most ’73 Fords probably listed much closer to the $4,927.14 ($28,512 adjusted) price noted on Road Test’s spec page when equipped with “desired options.”
Now on to the “Technical Highlights” for the “all-new” Fords to see Dearborn’s state-of-the-art circa 1973.
Other than battering-ram bumpers ready to meet 1974 U.S. Government standards, windshield washers mounted in the wiper arms, more sound deadening and a few other comfort, convenience and theft protection options, there really wasn’t much in the way of breakthrough new features. But did that really matter to the average Ford buyer?
My Granddaddy Will was one of those customers. He owned nothing but Blue Oval products for his entire life, and didn’t think anyone ever needed “more car” than you could find with a full-sized Ford. His 1973 LTD pillared hardtop, in Medium Copper Metallic with a Beige vinyl top and Beige brocade interior, would have seemed almost like a Lincoln compared to the 1967 Galaxie 500 he traded in (the ’73 also seemed more substantial than his wife’s 1972 LTD pillared hardtop). Since he lived in Mississippi, not Marin County, he had no interest in a nimble, driver-oriented machine. Nope, he wanted something big, roomy, soft riding, durable, cheap to run and easy to fix that he could drive hard and put away wet. As much as I personally didn’t care for the car (as a little kid, I remember thinking it was an ugly rust-colored beast), I can now see why it made sense for Granddaddy Will.
The 1973 Fords made sense for a lot of buyers: sales increased 3% to 854,513. Though that total trailed the 978,046 big Chevrolets sold for 1973 (which coincidentally was 3% less than the 1972 results, so perhaps there were some buyers shifting to the new Fords from Chevy), it was still a whopping big number. In fact, the best selling vehicle in the U.S. for 2017 was the Ford F-Series, with 896,764 sold—a number remarkably close to the 1973 full-sized Ford results.
When you think about it, there are parallels between the car market in 1973 and the car market today. Domestic makers have their profits concentrated in certain vehicle classes—this time pick-up trucks and SUVs (gargantuan full-size cars and still huge mid-size cars played that role in ‘73). Then, as now, sales have been rolling along at a record clip. But just as in 1973, clouds of change loom large on the horizon. Back then, the Oil Cartel used their leverage to severely disrupt existing economic models, with profound impact on the automotive industry.
This time, Tech Titans are leading the charge, with the beginnings of an aggressive push toward driverless cars that will reshape the industry once again. Yesterday’s Oil Sheiks proved their strength and power by turning off the petroleum spigots. Now we’ll be bending to the will of the high tech “visionaries,” though they are quick to profess their benign intentions: “we just want to make people safer and provide transportation options for the blind.” The fact that eliminating drive time as a remaining window where consumers aren’t completely tethered, tracked and monetized by devices and big data is simply a minor fringe benefit for these altruistic companies….
Just as the full-sized Ford seemed like an instant relic in the post-Oil Shock era, how will today’s pick-ups and SUVs fare in the new world order of connectivity and artificial intelligence? Why should we tolerate illogical gas-powered style statements operated by fallible humans, when hordes of identical “flawless” electric-powered autonomous transport pods can be available at our beck and call? All we’ll have to do is croak out a voice command: “take me to the nearest pot dispensary” to be safely and effortlessly whisked to our desired destination. We can even squeeze in a few extra YouTube videos on the way.
Freedom, control, self reliance, personal expression, skill, camaraderie and adventure in the real, wild world—who wants that anymore?
So as we begin to bid adieu to the automotive era as we have long known it, I can actually conjure up more sympathy than I ever imagined for the ’73 Ford and the old-school excesses it embodied. The big pig of a car was wrong in so many ways, but it actually was quite effective delivering against its mission of isolation and “lots of car” for the bucks. So maybe the 1973 Ford really did deserve Road Test‘s Car of the Year award after all—as a final, departing expression of what had previously been successful in the American market, warts and all.
Additional Reading:
CC Film: How My Favorite Cars (1973 Fords) Were Conceived, Designed, Developed And Built by Paul Niedermeyer
Curbside Classic: 1973 Ford LTD – Bring On The Bloat! by JP Cavanaugh
Curbside Classic: 1973 Ford LTD – It’s Not Easy Being Green by Jason Shafer
I really have to wonder if Ford mailed a rather large envelope of bribe money to Road Test magazine. Let’s face it – the ’73 Ford wasn’t very special even by the standards of the time. The magazine was usually nonsense-free and gushing over a fairly generic biggie didn’t seem to be their style. If i was to pick a Car of the Year for 1973, I would have picked the Pontiac Grand Prix (or maybe the Grand Am despite its debatable looks).
I agree that in hindsight the GM Colonnade line (including the Grand Prix, Monte Carlo and Cutlass Supreme) were the big news of 1973. But back then these big “standard” cars was where the fat part of the market had been.
I think this choice recognizes that by 1973 there was a creeping dissatisfaction with the huge 1971+ B body cars from GM that no longer exuded that subjective feel of quality that had been a hallmark of GM cars for decades. When these were new they were seen as a big jump in quality in their field.
The 1973 Fords and Mercs were mildly reviled at the time as stubby looking.
The 1975–78 versions have extended fender blades on the same hull to address this perception. They’re about 4 inches longer; wagons are about 2 inches longer because they’re only extended in front.
Exactly. In my formative years I subscribed to that mag – it had to be payola.
Reason, the ugliest Matador ever made won their COTY the next year if I recall correctly.
Road Test demised shortly thereafter.
Road Test was noted for not accepting advertising from car companies. That was its claim to fame when it was launched. I don’t know whether that policy was still in effect by 1973.
Road Test’s domestic Car of the Year for 1974 was the Ford Mustang II. The Import Car of the Year for 1974 was the Honda Civic. I have that issue, and it mentions nothing about the AMC Matador.
In its 1974 New Car Issue, Car and Driver did call the Matador coupe “1974’s best styled car.”
they probably couldn’t get advertising.
maybe it was a Montego that won one of their awards – anyway, their awards went to largely mundane cars
yes, it was
https://i.ebayimg.com/thumbs/images/g/03cAAOSwcaFZHZWq/s-l225.jpg
Motor Trend also chosen the Mustang II for Car of the year in 1974. I wonder if it’s the only time then both Motor Trent and Road Test selected the same choice for car of the year?
Road Test hung on for a while after that. I remember they did an issues that had the FWD GM X-cars.
Road Test expired in either 1981 or 1982.
Oh boy, there will be no living with Shafer now.
I have to say, as one who was paying attention when these came out, that they presented very luxuriously in their segment. A family friend bought one and I spent a week on a summer vacation in it not long after he picked it up. As much as I hated the “fat” styling and the awkward bumpers, this car really did punch above its weight class. The Plymouth felt like a retread from 1969 (which it was) and the fuselage body had never given that feeling of solid quality that buyers wanted. The Chevrolet had been cheapened substantially in 1971 and was not the kind of car that was going to tempt Olds or Buick buyers.
The 73 LTD really did close the gap between what a Ford was and what a Lincoln was. The option list put many of the very same pieces from the Continental into the LTD. Time would show that they rusted badly and suffered many of the failures of prior FoMoCo cars but I can see why they sold so well in 1973.
I dont see how you say the chevy was “cheapened for 1971″the chevy had cadillac looks and looked well ahead of the ford. fords were always well equiped vehicles with leather and very comfortable seats. chevys always looked better and were just as if not more reliable than the fords. the 73 ford is a nice looking car, but miles behind the sleek smooth chevys of the day. and you are right the LTD sure did close the gap in on lincoln with fender skirts they looked like mini continentals,not a bad thing in the day.
All of GM’s full-size cars were cheapened for 1971 as compared to their 1970 counterparts. Interior materials were cheaper, and exterior fit-and-finish was definitely below prior standards – particularly in the fit of the body panels.
Plenty of preserved full-size Fords and Chevrolets from the early 1970s regularly show up at the various Carlisle Events and the big Hershey Antique Automobile Club of America (AACA) fall meet.The full-size Fords really were better on both counts by this point.
The 1971 GM full-size cars were also noted for their willowy bodies, which was addressed somewhat for 1973 (in conjunction with the adoption of beefier bumpers called for by the federal government).
The problem with the Fords was rust, although the full-size GM cars weren’t that great in this regard, either.
I recall that GM was indeed viewed as having “cheaped-out”, as we said then, in early 1970s. Of course, there was the Vega fiasco, but there were other problems too.
You may not recall this, but I do since my dad blamed me when it happened to his Camaro while I was driving it:
https://www.autosafety.org/chevrolet-motor-mounts/
“ On December 4, 1971, General Motor (GM) announced it would recall over 6.68 million 1965-70 Chevrolets with defective engine mounts. The recall covered 1965-69 full-size Chevrolets, 1965-69 Chevy II’s and Novas, 1967-69 Camaros, and 1965-70 Chevrolet/GMC light trucks, all with V8 engines. (NHTSA Recall 71-0235, now 71V-235.)
Engine mount breakage causes a self-perpetuating chain of events. When the left-side mount breaks, engine torque causes the engine to rise up, pulling open the accelerator linkage; this causes even more upward movement, and consequently more opening of the accelerator linkage, until the engine’s movement is stopped by the closed hood. Moreover, the engine’s upward movement pulls the power brake booster vacuum hose loose, thus greatly increasing the force needed to stop the car Also, the automatic transmission “PRNDL” quadrant would shift itself over one position to the right (e.g., from D to L), affecting all gear positions; this meant that the car no longer had a Park position, and could be started in Reverse.
I was lucky when it happened to me; I was in a big (and thank God empty!) gravel parking lot and I was able to fishtail around stomping the powerless brakes until I remembered to turn off the key.
Anecdotally, my friend in college had his dad’s 4-year-old 69 Caddy and once or twice got to use the replacement 73. His dad was very disappointed in the 73, and it was his last Caddy; he switched to Mercedes. To my eye, the 73 seemed visibly cheaper inside and floatier -just less solid. The famous story leading to the exit of the 73 was that his dad was crawling through a construction zone and a hard-hatted worker decided to put his head down and run across the highway. Instead, he ran into the passenger door of the Caddy. Since he was wearing a hard hat, the worker was unhurt…..but there was a huge dent in the door of the Caddy. That bothered my friend’s dad a lot for some reason. It got repaired, and immediately got traded in in a Mercedes.
I eventually broke the motor mounts of the 351 Windsor in my ’73 LTD, but that was most likely from driving like a typical teenager.
Nothing NEARLY that dramatic happened to me… the car just made a loud thunk when I drove it until I got around to replacing them.
Wow that sounded scary!
My Dad was one such buyer, who almost* always was a Chevy man (*he had one Dodge up to that point). In 1973, he needed/wanted to replace the ’68 Impala, and bought his first Ford with this car. His ’73 Ford LTD (regular, not Brougham) was a nice looking (sorry, JP – I know how you feel ;o) 2-door hardtop that eventually became my first car.
His argument at the time for not going with the Chevy was just that… more car for the money and a much nicer car. He however went back to GM in 1977 when he went for the Brougham of Novas… a ’77 Concours (also a 2-door). In that car, the Chevy was more car for the money, as it was a much better deal than the Grenade (and yes I spelled that incorrectly intentionally) that he test drove. He did not buy another Ford again until his 2014 Mustang. I on the other hand loved my Fords and continued to purchase them, with a brief fling with GM W-bodies, only because my wife at the time was a GM tech at a dealer, allowing her access to parts and such, and me access to free labor!
I went back to Ford when we split up with my 2007 Mustang. ;o)
Of course Dad and I are now all about the Honda products. Go figure. ;o)
Well said Rick. I agree that many shoppers in 1973 would have compared the Chevrolet to the Ford and come to the same conclusion as your dad. While the big Fords from this time are far from perfect, they were the ultimate isolation chambers and you got a lot of luxury for the money.
I think this is what Road Test was trying to convey in selecting this car. While other car magazines were very driver oriented and preferred cars that were performance oriented and gave a great driver experience, Road Test seemed to be more for the average guy. He may like cars, but he was interested in carving corners and burning up the strip.
While I have never been one who’s like big floaty cars, one of my friends always did. He was just as enthusiastic about cars as any other car guy, but he had a preference for big soft comfortable cars. And it’s not like he wasn’t exposed to small good handling cars. He actually owned a little VW Golf that he hated. He sold it off for a Caprice with the soft base suspension. It was kind of funny in a way we both had B-body cars at one time but they drove so differently. I always like firm riding plain cars, while he liked luxurious soft riding cars. I remember him actually looking for the softest shocks he could find for his car.
So I guess even though I never really liked these big soft cars, I can understand that there were lots of people who did. And I guess for 1973, if you wanted a big comfortable car to carry your family that didn’t break the bank, it was hard to beat a Ford LTD (unless you lived in the rust belt).
Never will I be one to say I’m right, but if people listened to me more frequently they’d be a darn sight better off.
Or something like that.
Seriously, I have a habit of looking at cars like I do people; all are good in their own ways and you just have to accept their faults and quirks. Once those are figured out, it’s not too hard to work around them and play to their strengths. And, when it comes to the ’73 Ford, it was the Arnold Schwarzenegger of Ford – a lot of brawn, strength, and solidity.
“there will be no living with Shafer now….”
+1 for this one, JPC—-my heartiest laugh of the day!
Sorry, the Ford was outdated from the git-go compared to the Chevy, so Chevy wins.
Of course, I’m judging on style alone – my opinion – but the Ford did have some graceful lines, so I certainly don’t hate it.
At that time, and since the late 1960s, I abandoned my full-size car love and went mid-size and smaller exclusively.
This makes me miss my ’73 Galaxie so much. Yes, it wallowed. Yes, it drank fuel like there was no tomorrow. Yes, it cruised the highway wonderfully when it was straight. Despite being 29 years old when I bought it, I had to do very little to it to keep it running as a DD. I’d buy again…but look very closely for rust.
Over at Motor Trend, they did list the LTD as ‘full size car of the year’. But, the Monte Carlo S won over all COTY. And the S trim had the handling package.
Yes, gas crisis 1 & 2 happened and hurt big car sales, but by 1983, the Panther based Fords made a comeback, and brought in profits. May not have been top 10 anymore, but enough to last til 2011.
And FWIW, Road Test did have Import COTY category. Don’t know what it was for ’73. Anyone?
Mazda RX-3 won Road Test’s Import COTY for 1973.
“And all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
Will Shakespeare hit it on the head, as did Ford with this car in 1973. Not so much in 2018, let alone 1974. This platform lived on past the first oil embargo, but it was but a corpse walking, a zombie if you will. When gas hit $1 per gallon or more, these guzzlers became a liability, but the American marques could not figure out how to build a small car profitably nor how to import and sell their European models for a profit in the USA. I think the same will happen to the current large pickup/SUV market, should oil again become a pricing issue. I doubt that the manufacturers will have a solution in place when that happens as they are abandoning the sedan market as unprofitable, and EVs are still the domain of niche players, not the mass market.
History doesn’t repeat itself but it often rhymes.
It’s telling that the big Fords got a new grille texture for ’74, their midcycle facelift for ’75, and – that’s it. No more pro forma style changes, except for selective blacking-out of the grille pattern. It just wasn’t worth as much as cutting a new grille mold.
That’s especially telling considering how extensive a facelift the Pinto got in 1977, and again (but even more so) for 1979, considering the datedness of its’ own basic concept.
They probably stopped the small changes and put more $$ into the coming Panther platform?
Don’t forget the $$ for the Fox-body along with the coming of the FWD Escort for 1981.
“History doesn’t repeat itself but it often rhymes.”
A line worthy of Shakespeare.
Or Mark Twain 🙂
My Dad had a ’76 in 1980 and a ’78 in ’85; these were the last really big cars he ever drove. They were comfy and roomy, but wallowed all over the road and visibility over the high beltline in the too-soft seats was terrible. Plus they sucked back the gas like a pig in heat.
Having said all that, I’d still take a ’74-’78 Country Squire woody wagon in a heartbeat.
Of course it deserves to be car of the year! It’s a ground-breaking, innovative, design with superb dynamics! I’ve been saying this since 1973, but somehow I was not aware of this obscure magazine’s award. Thanks for the belated news!
Obscure magazine?!?! Paul, please!! Road Test is like the buff book equivalent of the ’73 Ford–outstanding in every way!
same mag gave COTY to the equally insipid Montego in 1972. Ford must have been paying someone.
https://i.ebayimg.com/thumbs/images/g/03cAAOSwcaFZHZWq/s-l225.jpg
A fair endorsement of the strength of these is that from when the first police ’73s went to auction from the (few?) SoCal departments that weren’t all-Mopar-all-the-time back then right up until the last of them were gone in the early ’90s they were THE car of choice for Hollywood stuntmen who were going to crash spectacularly.
In the ’80s it was shockingly obvious – there’d be a hotshot young lawyer who absolutely fit every stereotype of an E30 3-series’ first owner, except he drove a ’73 Galaxie 500, and you KNEW what was going to happen…
73-78 big Ford/Mercs were popular with a local Team Demo Derby event. [Chicagoland Speedway].
They had to impose a “1980+ model” rule for some runs, when they started to have trouble finding 70’s Fords in the 2000’s.
On another note, the driverless Chevy Bolt dash looks like a bad photoshop. Fortunately GM didn’t put a nameplate on the passenger side of the dash or I wouldn’t be surprised to see either Vauxhall or Holden still spelled out on the left side. At the very least I’d expect lots of hand-stitched leather or soft vinyl to disguise the cut-and-shut.
In the context of it’s time, this would have been a great car for my father (born in 1913). Surviving the Depression, WW2 and immigrating, by that time in his life, he would have liked to have a big boat. But, he still had two kids at home, so he went with what he knew was inexpensive to operate. We had just purchased the 1972 Road Test Car of the Year (Mercury Montego) the previous year, so no Galaxie for him!
I didn’t subscribe to Road Test back in the day, so I’m not terribly familiar with it, but I do remember hearing they took no ads from automakers. As others have mentioned, maybe this changed by 1973? Maybe they were stuck with choosing the best of a lame crowd? It was interesting to read their opinions on the Colonnade GMs and their assessment of the late 50’s Packards and Corvairs.
I think you could ridicule any magazine’s “Of the Year” or “Ten Best” choices in retrospect; they’re guessing just as much as anyone else.
“I think you could ridicule any magazine’s “Of the Year” or “Ten Best” choices in retrospect; they’re guessing just as much as anyone else.”
+1!
Just look at some of the stellar picks that Motor Trend has made over the years…. The 1980 Citation and 1971 Vega come to mind here….
Thats a bit harsh, the vega was a great idea and perfect for the time and had a lot going for it,,,it was poorly executed by GM. same for the citation. although im no longer a fan of either motor trend or car and driver(since the 80’s i felt and feel that they dont care for domestic cars and just love european sports cars and sedans. not everyone is looking for a car that can curve nuburgrin at 100 miles an hour. i now read collectible automobile it cost a lot more,,,, but i get to read unbiased articles!!
Yeah, that’s true. The only reason I still get Motor Trend is because it comes for free with the purchase of tickets to their International Auto Show that my Dad and I attend every year. In fact, the COTY issue is still sitting in my briefcase unread, and I got it a few weeks ago. (No spoilers please. ;o)
And to cars that can ‘carve up the Nürburgring at 100+ mph’… yeah, I know what you mean. I love to drive fast, but in today’s traffic (especially here in the Baltimore/Washington area), who the heck can take advantage of a car like that’s performance capabilities anyway?
I have to agree with you Eddie, the Vega was a great concept. As were the X-cars.
In typical GM tradition, the buyers were beta testers and by the end of the run, the cars worked great. At least the old ones ran badly longer than most other cars run, so they had that going for them…
RT dismissed the ’73 Grand AM soley on it’s front end nose, so they were seemingly looking for style first.
A year later, I am sure they were all “cars must get better MPG!” and no way would any full size car win.
I’m sorry, but I really liked my ’73 LTD. Was it a land yacht that handled like an oil tanker? – Yes. Did it suck down gas like a runner after a marathon sucks down water? – Yes. Was it a 3 day adventure to wax its acres and acres of surface area? – of course.
But it was my first car and I loved it. It meant freedom. And I could pile nearly all of my friends inside of it for a trip to anywhere. Sure, there was derision in their comments about my car, but guess whose car was the go-to for such trips to the roller rink or wherever? That right…
To paraphrase the B52’s song Love Shack, “I got me a [Ford] that’s as big as a whale, and it’s about to set sail”…
All kidding aside, I know this car was FAR from perfect, and I know I am looking at it with rose colored glasses remembering my youth, but who doesn’t have fond memories of their first car?
I learned to drive in that car (although the driving school’s Dodge Dart was a MUCH better handling vehicle). I even took my driver’s test to get my license in this LTD. The examiner for my check ride looked at me and asked, “You can parallel park this thing?” – I smiled and put it in on the first shot!
I imagine if I could hop into a TARDIS and go back in time and drive it again, I’d probably scoff at how bad it was compared to subsequent cars I’ve owned with much (and progressively) better driving dynamics. But still, it was a great family car that became my first car, and for that, I will always have fond memories.
The one pictured below is not my actual car, but very close in appearance. Mine had the standard wheel covers and was not a Brougham. The color combination is exactly the same, however. I also did not have the fancy cornering lamps on my LTD.
Was it a land yacht that handled like an oil tanker? – Yes. Did it suck down gas like a runner after a marathon sucks down water? – Yes. Was it a 3 day adventure to wax its acres and acres of surface area? – of course.
One could have said the same things about my parents’ 1976 Oldsmobile Delta 88 Royale hardtop sedan. The Delta 88 probably did get slightly better gas mileage than a full-size 1973 Ford, thanks to the adoption of a catalytic converter, but the acceleration was certainly nothing to write home about. That 350 V-8 was a “Rocket” in name only.
Of course, the real eye-opener from that time was that our 1973 AMC Gremlin with the 258 six and automatic recorded about the same gas mileage as the full-size 1976 Oldsmobile.
That Malaise Show wasn’t just a Ford-only affair.
My mother’s 74 Luxury LeMans with a 2 bbl Pontiac 350 was a fuel swilling pig too. I don’t recall her ever topping 16 mpg on the highway and the thing was good for probably closer to 11-12 mpg in town. My 67 Galaxie 500 with a 390 could equal or beat both ends of that range.
My mother’s 73 Monte Carlo S also had abysmal gas mileage — 8 to 19 mpg in winter, 9-18 in summer. The low numbers were for very short trips around our close-in Pittsburgh suburbs, the high numbers were obtained on the PA Turnpike strictly following the 55-mph speed limit in 1974+ (you could actually travel at that speed back then without causing a rolling bottleneck). The number was lower in the summer because of the a/c running.
The car had the standard Chevy 350 with 2-barrel carb — 145 hp!
Retro-Stang Rick.
Great comment…… I understand perfectly. We never forget our first love.
Thanks Lokki. I keep saying I need to do a COAL series, and if I do, it would start with this car.
I joke about it taking ‘3 days to wax’, but I kept after it, so my LTD was probably one of the few from that era that did not rust out; and they use a lot of salt around here. Maryland drivers are so paranoid about driving in the snow that the SHA dumps tons and tons of it on our roads when they are merely forecasting flurries (it happened just last night as a matter of fact).
The trick to not having a car rust out, is to wash it as soon as possible after the snow event is over…
In fact, why wait for that? Here’s a shot of my Mustang between back to back 20+ inch snow storms during what we called “Snowmageddon” in 2010.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/February_5%E2%80%936,_2010_North_American_blizzard
A brief widow opened up to wash the car and I took it! (always do). The car was only 3 years old then, but it still looks that good at 10+ years and 175K on the clock. ;o)
Great stuff, Rick!
I also took my DMV driving test in a 1973 Ford LTD and aced the parallel parking on the first try. My Dad’s LTD was a big four-door in Maalox Green and it lasted a good long time. I think he traded it in (for peanuts) when my mom wanted a new Audi Fox. Good memories.
Thanks!
Despite its size, it was surprisingly easy to parallel park.
Unlike today’s aerodynamic cars with their pedestrian protection and high belt lines, you could actually see where the corners were while parking. You of course had to account for the big bumpers, but back then, lots of cars had them, so the brail method was an option in a tight space.
Another thing that made parking easy was the incredible power steering in those cars. You could turn the steering wheel with one finger. Unlike today’s much better handling cars, wasn’t it like 6.5 turns lock to lock? For perspective, my 2016 Honda Civic EX-T Coupe is like 2.25 turns lock to lock.
As I stated above, “if I could hop into [the] TARDIS and go back in time and drive it again, I’d probably scoff at how bad it [handled] compared to [today’s cars].”
The Fords always seemed very quiet when new but became rattle traps very quickly.
I marvel at Ford’s marketing prowess, they sold very well despite the competition, largely GM and Chrysler, offering technically better products.
Look at the Falcon – easily the worst of the compacts but the best selling for years until the public caught on. They even turned the Falcon into more hits w/ the Maverick and Granada – which were also dire.
“The Fords always seemed very quiet when new but became rattle traps very quickly.”
So true. When Dad bought our ’73 LTD, he said it was absolutely the quietest and smoothest riding car he had ever owned. Years later after it was my car, it rattled like an old bus when going over the bumps.
That was pretty much par for the course in that era. I remember my parents’ 1976 Oldsmobile Delta 88 Royale developing its share of rattles as it aged.
Perhaps a BOF issue? Unibodies (all of my cars since this LTD) never seemed to have as many rattles as they aged, although they all were never quite as quiet as when they were when they were new.
My 2007 Mustang is probably the quietest of my cars that I’ve kept for nearly a decade… This being the first car I have had for OVER a decade (in about 2 more weeks now.)
Most likely body-on-frame construction, along with variable quality control and the simple fact that cars “aged” faster in those days. I remember that a six-year-old car was considered to be “old” in the late 1970s.
If an owner complained that his or six-year-old 1973 Ford or 1976 Oldsmobile had rattles, the response would have been along the lines of, “What do you expect? It’s time for a new car.”
What really caused the rattles: broken welds or aged bushings and fasteners?
Mary Walton recalled that consultant Jackie Stewart argued, probably in vain, that using bushings to control NVH on the 3-gen Taurus was a cop-out, a sign of lack of engineering integrity.
I’d say the rattles were definitely caused by aged bushings and fasteners. Also for hardtops with their frameless side glass, the windows would no longer stay put when you drove over road imperfections.
Was the ’73 Ford the first use of the ‘wet-arm’ windshield washer? I thought that was a much more recent innovation and am rather surprised that there was a vehicle that had it as early as 1973.
That surprised me too. I know the Fairmont had it; unsure sure why they ultimately abandoned it, since it seemed pretty effective. If it was cost, then why was it adopted in the 1st place, esp. on a budget model like this? It’s not as if customers would walk away if it had a conventional type.
The Escort had a “fluidic” system which spread water from a single nozzle, unattached to the blades. One has to admit, Ford had genuine innovations from their Windshield Washer Department.
I believe most (all?) modern cars have the fluidic system, although 2 nozzles are typically used. They work quite well compared to the older nozzle types that shot 2 or 4 streams of fluid on the windshield.
My ’07 VW Rabbit has two fluidic washers in front (though they don’t spray nearly as wide as the single one did in my ’82 Pontiac), but the rear wiper still uses an old-fashioned narrow stream that shoots straight up, allowing the wiper to smear and scrape half the window until it pivots 90 degrees to the vertical position. Like other cars I’ve had, the fluid takes awhile to reach the nozzles if it hasn’t been used in a long time; unlike other cars I’ve had the wipers won’t move until it sprays which is really nice.
I think the following commenter hit the nail on the head as to why the ‘wet-arm’ wiper system was a failure. Simply put, there was a fraction of a second where the windshield was obscured more than with a conventional spray washer system. With the wet-arm, the wiper spread the fluid over the windshield on the up-stroke, and that’s when vision would be blurred. With a conventional, front spray washer system, the fluid is sprayed as the wiper is coming up, partially clearing the windshield on the upstroke, then ‘again’ of any remaining fluid on the downstroke.
Technically, the wet-arm’ only clears the windshield on the downstroke. It also means that all the fluid/debris is forced down to the base of the windshield as opposed to being moved to the side.
The optional remote control right hand mirror…windshield washers mounted in the wiper arms
I have commented before about the miserable handling of the 74 LTD owned by the foundry I worked at, but never before addressed these two features.
The remote right side mirror was operated by a joystick near the instrument cluster, via push/pull cables that were probably close to 5 feet long. It seemed that the cables had minimal attachment points to anything between the joystick and mirror as the slop in the operation indicated the cables were flexing and squirming around. Granted, the precise control of electric motors used now may not have been available, but a couple more brackets to secure those cables inside the dash would have reduced the amount of fiddling needed to get the mirror adjusted.
Then there were the wiper mounted washer nozzles. Anything near the foundry was immediately covered with a thick coating of oily dust from the sand casting operation. With other cars, like my 70 Cougar or the foundry’s 74 Ambassador a spritz of the washer and a wipe cleared the dust. When I tried to clear the LTD’s windshield, the washer left a thick fan of fluid across the entire windshield, completely obscuring my view, until the wiper made it’s return trip and cleared the mess off. A bit disconcerting to be driving down the road and have my vision completely blocked for a second or two. It’s no mystery why Ford did not continue with that feature.
Great feature, thank you. The articles are both riddled with inaccuracies — the one regarding the cornering lights is clearly related to the situation of ’72, likely recorded wrong in the writer’s notes. (In ’71/’72, you could get the cornering lights on any LTD except the Country Squire, as they would have interfered with the wood trim rails.) Still fun to read though.
As the owner of a ’73 Marquis Brougham sedan, I am definitely a fan of these behemoths. As mentioned elsewhere herein, they were really Ford’s last big car design that was completed with absolutely no regard to overall vehicle weight. They are rock solid — I just love the way it sounds when you close a door.
I think the GM B/C-bodies of the era just seemed too fat/bloated, and the use of cheap interior plastic was very unfortunate. Ford products seemed to just have better quality, more nicely designed (not necessarily good!) interiors, trim line for trim line when compared to Chevrolet and Plymouth.
I’ll have to agree that many parts of RT’s review is rather comical. I always find it interesting when one source praises the quality of a car when that quality is nothing extraordinary.
Forgive my “get off my lawn approach here” but I don’t think I will ever grow to embrace driverless cars. They are certainly a good thing for some reasons, but I’ll never buy one if I don’t have to. I still enjoy the physical act of driving.
I’m double-minded about driverless cars; while some people really shouldn’t be driving anyway, I’m not sure engineers can solve all driving problems with software either, nor do I trust them in the painstaking business of eliminating defects. With avionics software, FAA Certification is a costly hassle, deemed worth it because of the risks.
FWIW, it has been argued that if a driver has to take control at any point, skill atrophy may worsen road safety.
Skill Atrophy… Great comment! – Even now, as a driving enthusiast, when I am backing up my 2007 Mustang (or my wife’s 2009 Lancer), I am so very careful and slow about it, where I used to just whip it right into a space without even thinking about it.
And the reason why you might ask?
Because my 2016 Honda Civic has a back-up camera, my first car so equipped. I’ve gotten soft, man…
We’re all doomed!!! ;o)
Copy that Brendan… and it’s so nice hearing a young person such as yourself saying that about enjoying driving.
But I fear that we the enthusiasts are in the minority, and that resistance is futile. Driver-less pods are inevitable, sadly… but that’s a debate for another day.
Unfortunately retro, that is true. as corrupt as certain states are,we who love to drive are ever so in the minority. im in nyc and i drive with my radar detctor on nearly all the time.i drive a 2001 bmw 330xi and hardly get a chance to really open it up:(
I have no fundamental problem with driverless cars as a choice, for people who physically need one, it’s a positive thing. I’m just skeptical about it being a choice, people are such sheep with trends, and worse yet if this becomes the fodder for the safety propagandists the incentives and subsidation will push us all into one in no time.
My Dad bought a ’73 Country Sedan (the name always bugged me, as it was a wagon), trading in our ’69 Country Squire. It was brown (but a beautiful metallic brown), and being a Country Sedan didn’t have the wood contact paper on the sides.
It was the first of our cars to have air conditioning (as we had a pop-top camper and planned trips to Florida, and living in Virginia at the time, this was undoubtedly the most important option. We in fact almost bought another Country Sedan from another dealer who late in negotiations claimed to have just discovered that our Country Squire didn’t have air conditioning (which was true, but we thought a dealer would find that out even on cursory checkout of the car which we were well past)…so we didn’t buy the bright yellow Country Sedan from Texas Ted Britt, this car was bought at Eustace Merchant Ford instead (my Dad brought me along to help him shop for cars, as was his way, he decided in the morning that he wanted to buy a car and bought the car that same day…he wasn’t one for shopping around on any car I knew him to buy.)
The Country Sedan was actually much better equipped than our previous Country Squire (despite being a down-level model)…besides having Air Conditioning, it was also our first car to have power locks (but not power windows), AM/FM Stereo (radio only, no tape), trailer towing package, and it came with the 400 CID 2 barrel engine. It also had Firestone 500 tires which came close to delaminating on us (they put it up on a lift with less than 1000 miles to put the hitch on it for the trailer and noticed bubbles on sidewall of a couple of tires). My Dad was familiar with radial tires which came on his ’68 Renault R10, and had them changed out to some other brand (American radials were still pretty new at the time) and never bought another Firestone tire after that.
The Country Sedan was very good for long trips, and I was a new driver and helped out with the driving on parts of some of the long trips (otherwise I was the navigator, still enjoy looking through maps). One of my jobs preparing for trips was to pack what my Dad called “the well” which was the under-floor area in the back of the wagon where the dual facing rear seats would have been (but we didn’t have them). The well was quite spacious, I think it might have held about 5 cubic feet or so, and since my younger sisters liked to sleep in the wagon section of the car (probably would be highly illegal today being unbelted but of course was very common for families with wagons to have kids sleeping back there), if we could fit lots of things in the well ig gave my sisters more space to separate, making the trip go smoother. It also had a smaller storage area through a door on the side of the wagon area, the spare tire was on the opposite side.
Of course the fuel crisis struck later that year (I think we bought the car in February or March of 1973) so my Dad wanted to drive the Renault more than the Ford around town. We had the Country Sedan for 5 years, it was traded on a Caprice Classic Wagon (which ended up being our last station wagon). It was a good car, my Mother was the primary driver during the week, she didn’t like how large it was (she called it “the boat”, I guess she equated large size with boats somehow).
One thing I remember best about it was the loud clicking of relays when you used the turn signals…I don’t know if that was due to the trailer towing package or other wagons had loud turn signals, but you could hear the clicking really well. The power locks were equally loud, of course as new option to us we’d play with them and listen to the loud electromagnets engaging with a “thunk” both when engaging and disengaging the locks.
My father’s 76 Monarch Ghia had the trailer towing package and it also had that loud relay. I remember it clicking for the brake lights too.
Check out this autonomous vehicle intersection:
Human drivers wouldn’t be allowed in that intersection. Ditto for driving 100mph on interstates with a single car length between vehicles to increase highway capacity. We just aren’t built for it.
AVs will probably reduce traffic deaths in the US from 40,000/year to 4000/year. Chapters of Mothers Against Self Driving© will spring up in every city, lobbying politicians to get human-driven cars off the road before they kill again. Politicians will compromise by banning meat-servo cars from driving except on Sundays from 10am–4pm, when late in the day you’ll see the old fashioned cars parked at something called a “Sonic” where their drivers will be hanging out wearing leather jackets and complaining about how the world is going to heck because young people don’t have to learn how to drive. And they’ll be right.
I’m watching and waiting for one of those autonomous cars to blow a tire or pop a ball joint at speed in that intersection and the whole damn thing lights up red from the catastrophic pileup.
I came across a series of photos on the interweb some time ago, of a bunch of 75s left in a field in South Dakota. I don’t think they were there to be sold, or delivered to an eagerly awaiting fleet customer. I’ll leave it to your imaginations what their fate was to become. I am not optimistic of their fate.
The technical errors in those articles are occasionally painful. Admittedly, they were far from the only commenters in this period who assumed net horsepower ratings were at the drive wheels — a plausible supposition, but not at all correct.
Ate, they’re at the crankshaft, correct? With all accessories connected and emission controls operating properly?
Yes.
One oddity this article brings up is the curious practice of using a marque name to denote only the large, er, “full size” cars. RT keeps referring to the “1973 Ford” as if that was the only Ford, and Mustangs and Mavericks and Torinos and F-150s didn’t exist. But the manufacturers themselves did this too. Print adverts circa 1963 for the Ford Division would list Ford’s cars as being “Fairlane – Falcon – Ford – Thunderbird”, with “Ford” in that context being the “real” Ford, you know, the full-size ones. GM did it too – I first became aware of it when my parents were shopping for a Nova-size car in 1976 and I saw all the brochures on the wall such as 1976 Chevelle, 1976 Nova/Concours, 1976 Camaro, and one called 1976 Chevrolet that I assumed was a full-line brochure, but turned out to be just for the Impala and Caprice. A year later they advertised the shrunken versions of those as The New Chevrolet. I recall thinking, wasn’t the ’76 Chevette a New Chevrolet too?
When exactly did automakers and car magazines stop doing this? Certainly by the ’90s, the Caprice was just another Chevy and the Crown Vic was just another Ford; there was no sense of those being the “real” Chevrolet or Ford anymore.
Most likely in the late 1970s. The Citation, for example, was initially advertised as “the first Chevy of the ’80s.”
I’m wondering about the optional spare tire lock. Was spare tire theft out of locked trunks an issue back then (or ever)? That seems like an answer to a problem that didn’t exist.
My aunt and uncle traded their Buick in on a new LTD in 1973, because Ford had better styling and nothing GM built could compare dollar-for-dollar from a value perspective. As a child, I remember everyone thought it was a nice car, and I always loved riding in it. It always seemed to be a step-up from the other cars; more like a Lincoln or Cadillac than any Ford should have been. My folks bought a much sportier Monte Carlo in 1977, but the LTD was much more comfortable and could run circles around the Chevy (despite being 4 years older). At any rate, my aunt stopped driving around 1988, and for the next twenty years the LTD sat in the garage except for an 8 mile trip to the dump to haul off the trash every Monday morning.
I got the LTD from my aunt in 2008 with 112,000 miles on the clock. No major repairs have ever been done to the car. The biggest repair it’s ever had was a water pump and starter in 2015. It now has 118,000 miles, and everything works except the clock. I actually drove it to work today….at 70 MPH down the interstate, the all original A/C still blows cold and the ride is silent and smooth as it floats its way down the road.
People may debate the styling and poke fun at the size. Folks can deride the engineering behind the boat-like ride, and criticize the feeling of isolation from the road the 1973 LTD has. In the end, it was a product of the early 1970’s American auto industry and can’t be reasonably compared to today’s cars. But anyone who says they’re not a good, dependable, and long lasting car doesn’t know they’re rear end from a hole in the ground. I know from experience how good they can be.
One of the most serious premature terminal rusters of the 1970s. Suspect you didn’t know, how bad they could be.
As the say goes, horses for courses. I live in tiny Austria which has many winding, narrow roads and artificially high gas prices. A 1973 full size Ford or a Mercury would make absolutely no sense here but on your roads – particularly if you travel a lot – it DOES. And for those who want better cornering and handling, there are harder springs, anti-sway bars and modern shock absorbers (and back in 1973, one could order a police spec handling package).
I’m leery of any publication proclaiming something, “car of the year, top in its class, etc.” In the early 70s I worked at a high volume Magnavox dealer. One year one of its sizes was picked “best” by consumer reports. We couldn’t keep them in stock.
As luck would have it, about a year later they all started coming back, suffering from one problem or another. It wasn’t a good testament to Consumer Reports, but it sure helped pay tuition!
As far as the 73 full size Ford, I did a lot of engine work. The thing I remember were the 5 MPH front bumper. Oh my aching knees…
I’d , long forgotten, but do recall the “ad campaign” for the “73 MT car of the year”.
There were big signs in the “Ford dealer, showroom”.
My aunt/uncle’s “68 LTD” was starting to be a “fix this/that”, ride by late “1973”.
The rust, though, didn’t appear so “prominent” till closer to “75”.
Road Test. For some reason I don’t remember it. Early 70’s I was reading Car and Driver and Road &Track from cover to cover. I’d occasionally glance at Motor Trend, Hot Rod and Rod and Custom but never saw Road Test. Dunno.
Curious how RT patted themselves on the back for their choices being popular in the next year, as if popularity made a good car. And I call BS for the engine and it’s output. A 4250 pound car with the profile of a tank, rated at 171 HP putting in a 17.5 quarter mile and 115 MPH top speed? No, that would take closer to 200 HP. But who’s going to pull the engine apart to check for stock parts and displacement?
Why is it that American’s have such low expectations for the products they purchase. An automobile is likely to be the second most expensive item you may buy behind a house/property?
My father would rather buy the top of line or sportier smaller sized car than the basic model of then the next size up, much to my chagrin as a 188cm skinny teenager.
“Why should we tolerate illogical gas-powered style statements operated by fallible humans, when hordes of identical “flawless” electric-powered autonomous transport pods can be available at our beck and call?”
Well, it is said those who give up their freedom for safety end up with no freedom and no safety. Nothing I see in the current Zoomer generation tells me it understand this. But at 62 years old, I probably won’t be here when they face the bill for their stupidity.
Cars were so affordable back then. A full size, V8 new car costing around 30k in 2018 money.
Compared to their more streamlined 1971-72 models, these looked visually like they weighed a thousand pounds more, and looked as slow as turtles.
The video had a shot of the oncoming car “stopping on a dime.” I think that dime was left far far behind.
My first thought was they ruined their credibility with the ’72 Montego pick, but what other car was new that year?
I didn’t read all that verbiage for a mere Ford, but wasn’t the big story of the year crummy engine performance, not just horsepower, due to stricter emissions standards? Was it mentioned at all?
What I most remember about our ’73 Century was the engine dying at least once after a cold start, and it always feeling congested. That and noises in the cowl over bumps. And the hot vinyl seats.
I began subscribing to Road Test in 1973 when I was 9. I especially enjoyed its publishing the monthly sales figures; much cheaper than subscribing to Automotive News for the same information. I still have some copies. I think it went out of business in the late 70s.
When I was a kid – one of the last cars I would find the least bit interesting were these and the other floating dinosaurs. Since then, my opinion has taken a 180 degree turn, due to facts about this Ford generation of full size cars and Consumer Reports. You see, about five years ago, CC highlighted that these cars were among the highest rated. I never knew that.
My father and his brother, my uncle, worked for Ford during these years and there were more than a couple Ford Galaxie 500s in our driveways. I thought they were awful, but I was wrong. They weren’t. What was awful was the era itself. Car quality was overall abysmal and it is hard to get excited about anything from this era. All the cars looked bloated and stupid. The bumpers made all the cars look dumb.
After the Oil Crisis – which everyone remembers, but no one seems to remember why OPEC turned off our oil – (hint – they hate Jews and were fighting a war to exterminate them), our US cars got worse. The US Federal government felt a need to tell Detroit how to make cars that met higher MPG. So, you got government monitoring our speed limits, our gas consumption and how our cars were made, instead of ensuring that our need for oil was being safely met with increased domestic oil production. The Alaskan Oil Pipeline got the green light, but government believed that it was auto producers and US drivers that needed to be controlled instead of encouraging US oil production.
You couple that bleak 1970s topic with the other bleak 1970s topics, and you can understand how a kid who grew up during the 1970s could feel towards this 1973 Car of the Year. Unimpressed. But wrong! These were proven cars with a lot of good attributes. I just wish I was smart enough back then to have given the Ford Galaxie and LTD line more credit that I did. Yet – who cares what a pre-teen ever thinks anyway?
Dude, your image is of a ’74 LTD, but I’ll cut you some slack. 😉
Yeah – I couldn’t find a nice one of a 73
I’m surprised anyone bought those high, square-backed seats, similar to my grandmother’s ’70 Cadillac (the ’71-2 LTD dash was similar to hers, too). They make reversing a pain. I suppose they make it easier to ignore the brats in the back seat.
Those seats were the ‘bees knees” then!! lol Also so many cars on the lot were equipped with them.
((and they came in several colors; who could imagine?)
When I got my license in 1977, first car I drove regularly was my mother’s 1973 LTD. Green 4-door pillared hardtop, green brocade interior, 400M motor.
My father had a system. As a salesman, he put lots of miles on his cars, so every 2 years or so, he’d give his current car car to my mom and trade her old car (since she rarely drove he figured the mileage wouldn’t look so bad at trade-in).
I liked that LTD; it was big enough for all my friends, had a great A/C system, and it was a tank. Handling was not an option.
Until… 29 days after getting my license, a guy ran a stop sign in front of me and it got totaled. Thankfully, not my fault.
So, the LTD was hauled away, my mom got his ’76 Mercury Monarch, and he bought a new ’78 Sedan Deville. I got a ’63 Chevy II Nova 2-door hardtop so I wouldn’t have the chance to wreck a good car. We paid $225 for it.
The Monarch was a turd, but that Caddy was superb. The Nova took all the abuse I could dish out until we sold it when I went to college. I do miss that Nova.
Anyway, I still have a soft spot for those 70’s Ford land yachts.
My dad bought my sister a 73 LTD Brougham two door with the sun roof.
The story the previous owner gave was that (he was a local late night movie jockey) Chevrolet would sell him a car at a discount in exchange for his promoting the dealer. He always asked for a convertible. Ford began to woo him to advertise for them and offered him the LTD. However, there were no more convertible full size Ford’s that year, so they offered him the sun roof option.
I’d love to have that car today, as it was one of 629 built.
It was a really well put together car that gave us no issues for sure.