Hagerty Inc.
07/23/2024 | News release | Distributed by Public on 07/23/2024 07:17
Final Parking Space: 1975 Ford Elite
What were the signature Detroit cars of the middle 1970s? Personal luxury coupes, of course, and you'll still find goodexamplesofthebreed in the junkyards of the land. Ford was a major player in the midsize personal luxury game, and today's Final Parking Space occupant is a heavily optioned member of the extended Torino family, found in a Denver self-service boneyard recently.
Murilee MartinThe formula for a personal luxury coupe of this era was simple: Start with a midsize platform your factories are already churning out in huge cost-saving quantities, make it a two-door hardtop with a long hood, apply plenty of gingerbread on the outside plus velour-and-plastic plushness on the inside, give it a vinyl roof, and scour your vast empire for available options to fatten up the bottom line. Then give it a name that sounds classy and prepare for sales success!
Murilee MartinGeneral Motors was instrumental in creating the trend that peaked in in 1976 or so, introducing John DeLorean's A-Body-based Pontiac Grand Prix as a 1969 model and (soon after DeLorean became Warlord of the Chevrolet Division) the 1970 Chevrolet Monte Carlo. Those cars flew out of showrooms, and Ford was in a good position to counter them with its own midsize machinery. The Ford Torino and its Mercurized twin, the Montego, had been thoroughly revised for the 1972 model year, and the Mercury Cougar ditched its Mustang roots to become a Montego sibling two years later.
Murilee MartinBetween the Gran Torino coupe, Montego MX Brougham coupe, and Cougar XR-7, Dearborn seemed to have its midsize personal luxury needs well covered. But wait! The Lincoln Mark IV-based Ford Thunderbird had a snout treatment that looked perfect for adaptation to a smaller Ford. This was done in time for the 1974 model year, and the result was the Gran Torino Elite. For the following year, the Elite became a separate model.
Murilee MartinThe overall effect, which included double opera windows and an "odense-grained" vinyl roof, was very Thunderbird-like, on a car that was priced about 40 percent lower than the 1975 Thunderbird and was much easier to park.
Murilee MartinThe interior was more or less lifted from the Mercury Cougar XR7.
Murilee MartinHigh Plains Colorado's harsh climate is rough on vinyl roofs, and the one on this car got peeled off long ago. Here we can see the crude welds and grind marks that lived beneath the vinyl.
Murilee MartinThe build tag tells us that this car was built at Chicago Assembly, Ford's century-old factory that got its start building Model Ts (and which now assembles Lincoln Aviators, Ford Explorers, and Ford Police Interceptor Utilities). It was sold through the Denver sales office, and its paint is Medium Gold Metallic.
Murilee MartinI found registration and insurance paperwork from the late 1980s inside, which suggests that the car got parked 35 years ago and never drove again. It was about 13 years old at the time.
Murilee MartinLooking at the address on the documentation (in a Denver-area industrial neighborhood), I was able to find a satellite photo of this Elite on Google Maps. Sometimes I can even track down Google Street View images of cars I find in junkyards using this method.
Murilee MartinThe engine is a two-barrel-equipped 400-cubic-inch V-8, essentially a stroked 351 Cleveland. It was rated at 158 horsepower. This was an $87 upgrade over the base 351 Windsor V8 ($525 in 2024 dollars). A 460-cubic-inch big-block with 218 horses was available for $292 ($1761 after inflation).
Murilee MartinThe '75 Elite got a C6 automatic transmission as standard equipment, a pretty good deal at the time for a Detroit car with an MSRP of $4767 (around $28,746 in today's money).
Murilee MartinThe mechanically identical yet even more Rococo Mercury Cougar XR7 listed at $5218 ($31,466 now), while the "King of the Disco" Mercury Montego MX Brougham two-door hardtop was priced at $4453 ($26,853 today). Meanwhile, budget-minded Ford personal luxury coupe shoppers could get an ordinary Ford Gran Torino two-door hardtop for $4314 ($26,014) while those with fatter wallets could purchase a snazzed-up Gran Torino Sport at $4970 ($29,970).
Murilee MartinThis car's bottom-line price would have been far more than the base MSRP, though, because it has a generous helping of expensive options. The power seats were $120 ($724 in 2024 dollars), the air conditioning cost $470 ($2834), the rear window defroster was $73 ($440), the "fingertip speed control" (cruise control) was $108 ($651), the power windows were $99 ($597), and so on.
Murilee MartinIt even has a factory AM/FM/8-track radio, just the thing for listening to the hits of 1975 in the proper fashion.
Murilee MartinBecause our own Sajeev Mehta's first car ride was in a 1975 Montego, I decided to extract the radio from this Elite and ship it to him. Will it play 8-tracks successfully? Sajeev will let us know soon.
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