[This is a 2008 re-run of a little meditation on the theme of family genetics: Ford Fox and Niedermeyer]
They say the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Of course that was NEVER going to apply to me and my nerdy, car-clueless Father. He drove boxy Detroit stripper sedans. I drove VW’s, Peugeots and Mercedes. He’s a world-renowned Electroencephalographer– but totally impractical. I eschewed the classroom – but rebuilt cars. I grew-up in the time when political pundits pronounced our cultural chasm a “generation gap.” Except ours was more like the Grand Canyon. Or so I thought…
In 1978, the Old Man bought a bare-bones Mercury Zephyr, the corporate kissing cousin to the Ford Fairmount. It “sported” a frugal four cylinder engine mated to a four-speed stick, sitting on Ford’s “ride engineered” suspension package. We made fun of Dad’s nerd-mobile behind his back, with visions of cooler wheels floating in our heads.
In 1983, I bought a Thunderbird Turbo-Coupe. The dramatic new “Aero Bird” boasted the first fully electronic-controlled (EECIV) turbocharged 2.3-liter four-cylinder engine, a five-speed manual, a “Traction-Lok” limited-slip differential, a sporty leather interior and those big alloys with the odd-sized Michelin TRX tires.
The next time I visited the folks, I borrowed Dad’s Zephyr for an errand. As soon as I sat down in the driver’s seat and closed the door, genetics’ painful reality crashed in on me. I was sitting in essentially the same car as my Turbo Coupe.
It was like that OMG moment when you first say something or make a gesture that totally channels one of your parents. The seat, steering wheel, pedals, dash and stick were all exactly in the same place. Even the Zephyr’s feeble 88hp Pinto engine was scarily familiar. Not only was it the same basic engine, but it rather felt and sounded like it too until my T-Bird’s turbo finally spooled up.
You can run, but you can’t hide from a Ford Fox-body, the most versatile, evergreen and successful platform ever conceived in Detroit.
If my Dad had been a cop, he would have been driving a black-and-white (Fox-body) LTD II sedan.
Had he gone into private practice, he might have chucked his frugal habits and bought a Fox-body Lincoln MK VII LSC coupe.
If he’d left my mother in a mid-life crisis, he would have ignored his inevitable mortality in a Foxy red Mustang GT rag-top. Now that one’s the biggest stretch, since he loathes even the tiniest draft.
More improbably, if Dad had given up academia to become a coke dealer in downtown Baltimore, he would have been doing so out of a pimped-out (Fox-body) Continental Givenchy sedan with gold-plated grille and wire wheels.
If he’d been a little less self-conscious than this son, but equally car-crazed, he would have tossed restraint to the winds and bought an SVO, the most technologically advanced, best-handling American car in 1984.
Finally, if Dad had been what I most would have liked him to be, the CEO of Ford, he would have been flinging a carefully prepped Fox-bodied LX 5.0 sedan around the race course at Bob Bondurant’s driving school. Just like CEO Donald Peterson, the daddy of the Fox platform.
Why the endless permutations of the same platform? In the seventies, Ford desperately needed a new compact platform. But in those lean years, The Blue Oval Boys didn’t have the big bucks they needed to develop all-new front wheel-drive powertrains. So rear wheel-drive it was.
For pistonheads, Ford’s “loss” was a blessing in disguise. Overseen by Peterson, utilizing computer-aided design (CAD) for the first time, Ford’s development team created a light but strong and eminently flexible platform. The modified strut front suspension left room for V8s. The rack and pinion steering was precise. And the four-link rear axle was a big step up from the leaf-spring Falcon chassis the Fox replaced.
In 1978, the clones Fairmont and Zephyr came first (CC here): boxy but light, a bit boring but tossable, honest and ruggedly simple– an American Volvo 240. But it was the next year’s new Mustang that really established the Fox’s legendary genetic variability.
Ford developed the Fox platform for over twenty-five unbroken years, right through the 2004 model year Mustangs. The Fox ‘Stang and its mechanical kin offer today’s enthusiasts a cornucopia of junk-yard parts interchangeability and after-market performance parts availability. An entire industry has grown-up around them; they’ve completely overshadowed their spiritual predecessors, the tri-five Chevys.
Foxes are nothing less than a reincarnation of Fords from the classic flathead era, when swapping Model T frame rails to ’39 taillights– and everything in between– ushered in the hot-rod era.
DNA trumps all. I’ve had to accept that in addition to our Foxes, I share more than a few other traits with my father. But it was probably only because of the Fox’ extreme genetic versatility that we ever shared the same basic car.
Ford sure knew how to pass a platform around without getting a stigma attached to it like GM would by sharing platforms with everyone. Was it less shared sheet metal and greater suspension differentiations? I’ve always wondered how they managed to do better at putting different “frosting” on the same “cake” than GM ever did.
I’m still kind of amazed at what did with the Fox. It was a very basic set of underpinnings tat was suitable for adaptation. But the degree of certain basic hard points was completely obvious the minute you sat down behind the wheel of any of them. That made the Mustang look might boxy and tall compared to the Camaro, but it just didn’t seem to hurt it. Figure… That sure saved Ford tons of development bucks, so they could spend it on the Explorer instead!
Years ago when I worked at an all-night gas station, there was a semi-regular customer who drove a Fox-body Fairmot coupe. It -looked- bone stock. I never asked for details, but it had clearly had some performance mods done under the skin.
The layout of our driveway had customers entering it at about a 45° angle. Soft cars would wallow. Stiff cars would bounce. This one just sort of…. clicked. bump bump… bump bump. No evident superfluous motion. At all.
It’s hard to believe how versatile and enduring this platform was. The Fox-bodied Fords didn’t seem to scream ‘shared platform’ like the K-cars did. And I’m not knocking K-cars; my parents’ 1992 Grand Caravan ES was a nice car, and looked pretty cool for a van with its monochromatic white wheels and body. It had AWD too!
When I used to go to the Conduit, in Queens, to watch the street races in the early 90’s, there was a guy with a 79-80 Zephyr it was silver looked bone stock from 20 ft. When i got closer it had the rims, interior, engine and 5 speed trans from a 93 Mustang Cobra.
That thing was a sleeper.
I’m sure it was pretty easy to bolt those parts on there,
When I get the itch for old iron like this and go looking on eBay, usually I find a Zephyr or a Futura that has been given a Mustang mechanical and suspension conversion. I always figured the most fun would be doing that to a Ford LTD II wagon, that would be a rare beast indeed.
my neighbor has a tapioca brown ’83 Fox LTD Wagon. It has a 460 in it. One platform, many variants. If Chrysler did the K in RWD, this is what it’d look like.
GM did engines well–the 3.8 SFI 3800, the L98 350–and some trannies–THM 350, 700R4, 4T-80 (northstar), Turbo Trans Am/GN, the 403/425 olds/caddy thumpers, the Quad 4.
ford did platforms well–Fox, Panther, DN5 (Taurus), MN12 (T-Bird/Cougar). It also seemed the most stable of all 3 companies in the ’80s.
Chrysler did one concept well and maximized it. It also did innovation well for a time (cab forward, LH/LX, clouds, neons, minivans).
The Fox based LTD was called just that, not “LTD II” ever. The real LTD II is the 77-79 Torino based car. Don’t sully the Fox LTD with that 70’s “Aaron Spelling era” name!
When I was in college, a neighbor of a friend of mine, who lived in East Brunswick, NJ was building a Futura based pro-stocker in his garage.
The 5.0 cop cars were Baby LTDs…
They were LTD LX in American parlance. In Canada, there were also Marquis LTS.
0-60 9.3-9.8
16.5-17 flat quarters.
120-123 mph top speed
About as fast as a ’95 Lumina 9c3, but this was 10 years before. And remember, those are stats good as an ’89 LO5 Caprice–the first big V8 fuelie cop car…a car 5 years later than the LTD LX. (the LTD was a midrange car with a small V8).
At the time, the Dippys and Crown Vics and Caprices were running 0-60 from 10.5-13 seconds, 18 second quarters and 115-118 mph top speeds. Nobody at 119 or better until 1989…
But that little LX was a beast for 2 years.
you refer to the original Fairmont/Zephyr as an american Volvo 240….I had a 78 Zephyr station wagon, and I would say that you hit the nail directly on the head. I drove a couple of other Fox bodies in later years and that 78 wagon was my favorite
I briefly had an ’81 ford LTD wagon with 3.3L straight six and 4 sp auto OD. That thing was junk. If that is what a Volvo wagon was like, I’m glad I never sat in one.
I’d love to use your apple/tree image with permission for my sermon illustration this week & possibly a blog post in the future. You can contact me via email. Thank you so much.
Juliet
Fairmount? LTD II? Double check your work dude.
You just made a correction on a nearly 5-year-old article…