I’ve been hankering for a vintage car for some time, and you all know how I feel about ’71-’72 big Fords. But I’ve got too many vehicles already; five, at the moment. Well, the Acura is Stephanie’s, and the Chinook will go away once the van is converted (which may be quite a while yet). My main drivers are my xB and the F-100, and I’m constantly pondering how I can combine their functions into one vehicle, so as to make room for a classic car. Well, how about having my cake and eating it too?
How perfect is this, and a ’72 Ford, no less. As most of you know, I have something of an obsession with ’71-’72 big Fords, and I came mighty close to pulling the trigger on a cream puff ’72 LTD a couple of years back. But I just couldn’t justify adding another car to the fleet. If only I’d thought of this back then; how perfect it would be to go to the dump in air-conditioned comfort, sitting on those brocade seats.
Of course loading it would be a bit of a challenge, especially from a guy who rails at the high load floors on new pickups. Well, this isn’t really much higher than the typical jacked-up 4×4 pickup these days. Just get a little folding stairway to attach to the back.
And then there’s the issue of dumping. Hmm. Some kind of tipping mechanism ought not to be too hard to figure out. Or maybe a conveyor belt of some sort.
I’m pretty speechless about this one, which was posted at the Cohort by Bernardino Shin, who said “found this in rather Eugene-like Silver Lake, CA”. He must have been reading my mind.
There’s one minor thing about this Ford that intrigues me, in addition to its mighty roof rack. Its wheels have ventilation holes, which for some reason make me think this might be a Mexican Ford. I seem to remember them having vented wheels. Or am I too dazed by this apparition?
Don’t ever pull up at a red light with that thing, you’ll never see it turn green.
What is that, anyway? Industrial shelving supports (like at CostCo or other warehouse stores) welded together and then a couple of those wooden I-beams used in newer homes to form the sides of the “bin”?
It’s certainly interesting and just when you thought the driving dynamics of an early ’70’s American sedan couldn’t be made much worse…
Those look like steel I-beams on the top, yet the car sits at its normal ride height. I’m trying to figure out how that happened.
Replacement stiffened springs, and probably thinner beams than what you are thinking of.
Those I-beams are almost certainly engineered lumber, not steel.
They’re I Joists. They’ve almost totally replaced solid wood joists, and are remarkably light A piece of OSB glued to two pieces of lumber at the top and bottom. Perfect for this job.
The capability to haul 20′ lumber AND a trunk to carry luggage out of the elements AND room for 6 in a package shorter than a pickup. I think this guy is on to something.
If only it had a vinyl top and wire hubcaps it would be perfect.
Well, we don’t want to Brougham it up TOO too much… This looks to be a Galaxie, and not an LTD.* ;o)
* I’d have to see the back bumper to be absolutely sure though.
I think you are correct, the start of the Great Brougham Epoch was a bit before my time so I’m a little fuzzy on some models. Looks like this really is more up Paul’s alley. 😉
My first car (a hand me down family car) was a ’73 LTD as I have stated here before. I always liked the looks of the 71 & 72 better. So having an LTD as a first car, I learned to ID all the big Fords from about ’65 on up, until you got to ’75 – 78 which appear all the same to me. As a little kid (born in ’60), it was easier to tell the Impalas apart, as we had a 66 & 68 before this Ford, and my Dad taught me how to ID all of the big Chevys from ’53 on up until THEY all started to look the same in like 1977 or so.
Personally, I miss all the annual differences. Sure, you still have them, but they are WAY more subtle now, and even then looks don’t always change EVERY year, just every couple of years in most cases.
75-78 LTD’s had no changes, just colors and interior fabrics.
Only in spring ’75 did the US get a ‘recession special’ Custom 500.
You could still get a Custom and a Custom 500 back in 1971 as well – nobody ever ordered those except for fleets however.
We had a 1971 LTD Brougham. I didn’t even know that the Custom model existed until I watched a film in 2nd or 3rd grade (early 1970s) showing them making white 1971 Ford Customs on the assembly line, complete with dog-dish hub caps, framed doors and B-pillars, and a blanked-off center taillight.
>Tomcatt630
Not entirely true. The 1975 LTD Landau had body-colored dividers for the front fender lights.
But the 1976-1978 LTD Landau had bright dividers on the fender lights.
I never noticed that, tonyola. Thanks!
I wanted a 1978 Landau in Midnight Blue SO bad back then to replace my aging ’73, but realized that in a way, I had a cooler car. Mine was a two-door hardtop, and by 1975, the two door was festooned with a B-pillar with that dumb little window. So I kept the ’73 and waited until I saw my first panther. At the time, I wasn’t impressed, so I ended up buying a Fairmont Futura instead in 1979 (in the aforementioned Midnight Blue), which eventuality led me out of my brougham infused malaise.
Silver Lake is in L.A., and it’s two towns (boroughs?) over from Beverly Hills. Imagine the views a reaction video to this cruising down Rodeo Drive would get…
That would be fun in a windstorm on the top deck of the Fremont bridge here in Portland.
Nah, the Glen Jackson is more fun in a windstorm.
The Glenn Jackson, or the I-205 bridge as it is otherwise known, is well known for being the first bridge to feel the gusts from the Columbia Gorge. It’s great fun especially when a combination of ice, incline and wind make getting to Vancouver a 2 mile long carnival ride all by itself!
I would refuse to drive that car here.
This is the perfect answer to the dilemma I witnessed at Lowe’s the other day: a customer trying to load composite deck boards into his Prius.
You’d be surprised what will fit inside a Prius. It’s no van but it is one of the largest hatchbacks around. With the back seats folded down I’ve had 8 foot lumber fit completely inside. (Photo from Prius Chat)
Bah. I could carry 8′ studs in my New Beetle! Tore up the soft-touch dash, though.
Kind of an extreme solution for inoperative windshield wipers, don’t you think?
That’s a Galaxie 500 who would had been at home in Cuba if the Cuban revolution happened a decade later.
Btw, I wonder how the 1971-72 Galaxie/LTD 4-door sedan, 4-door hardtop and station-wagon would had look if they had kept the front-vent windows like the 1969-70 models?
looks like either the Chevy truck wheels in the 80s or the Chrysler road wheels of the late 70s.
Some by the book CHP Officer will ticket this for being registered out of class…..
-Nate
“And then there’s the issue of dumping.” A heavy load and a quick JERK of the steering wheel should solve the problem.
How about a hard stab on the brakes? In either forward or reverse gear.
All the practicality of today’s four-door crew cabs, plus a 17 foot bed!
When Gator McCluskey moonlighted as a contractor….
“I’ll be damned if I ever did see that low bridge Harry said to watch for, Maude”.
This car is ‘top drawer!’
I’m going to call the wheels as Chrysler over “Chevy van” because of the Chrysler’s Ford compatible bolt pattern.
The framework… although detail is fuzzy I’m going with Palmer-Shile pallet racking.
5 lug on 4.5″ bolt circle, as used by Ford, Mopar, and Jeep/AMC.
I know this because I had to source some 14″ wheels with this same bolt pattern for my utility trailer recently (I found some which came off of an early 1990s Ford Ranger pickup).
But, it’s not so through and through clear cut.
For example, in ’73 big cars switched to 5″ bolt circle.
Ditto for “police” option on mid-size cars.
The construction of the overhead rack indicates the owner is not particularly concerned about access to the engine compartment.
That is some engineering work on that car! I wonder what springs are on it to carry a load?
Three of my buddies had CJ5s back in the 70’s, and two of them built similar structures to carry canoes on top of their Jeeps for float & fishing trips. 3/4″ round stock about 3″ long were welded to the corners of the bumpers, and 1″ or so box steel would fit over them and they were secured with pins, so the rack could be removed by two guys when not in use. Worked like a champ!
Wish I had a photo of the setup, pretty cool.
I’m sure there’s an engineering solution that would make this like a slide in camper, jack it up and drive the car out. Only use it when you need it 🙂
Proof, once again, that Ford’s big car line of the 1970s was the pinnacle of all things automotive.
Third World innovation in Silver Lake, CA.
Gotta love it!
Never forget that Silver Lake, like all of SoCal, is full of Mexicans and other third-worlders….though I doubt such is the case with this Galaxie. Mexicans are VERY much Chevy people. Instead, I envision a Hawaiian-Shirted, graying Hippie driving this thing….and there being some sort of bumper stickers advocating for legalization of narcotics and saving whales.
? You don’t know many Mexicans then as close tp 1/2 of the Blue Collar ones love Fords .
I often have this conversation with Mexican tradesmen : “? why are you driving a Ford truck ?” and they shrug and tell me ‘because I think it’s better ‘ .
I have lots of friends living in Silver Lake, it’s more an Artist’s/gay community than Hispanic enclave .
-Nate
The writeup & comments above are all highly entertaining today!
As long as the car’s driver, as well as others in traffic and even bystanders, never get injured by this, I’ll smile and admire the owner’s ingenuity.
(BTW, those sure look to be larger-than-stock tires.)
Paul, I wouldn’t know a thing about the vented wheels and possible south-of-the-border heritage, but I’ll post two items for amuseument:
1. Leisurely-paced Mexican ’72 Galaxie ad (wedding scenario): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GOu1wH_7Ls
2. Mexican ’72 Galaxie catalog for someone to translate (music/volume perhaps not to your taste): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=II35VEZLuE0
Yeah I think those are larger than stock tires which is masking just how far the load is causing the vehicle to sag.
All y’all are completely misconstruing this car’s history and intended purpose. That, ah, structure was added by the Consumer Reports people in preparation for tests that would conclusively prove* how desperately were needed stringent new roof-crush standards and their attendant foot-wide A-pillars. The tests never took place, at least not with this car; seems the head CR wonk saw it and said, “No, not like that…outriggers! I said outriggers!” So this car was discarded via the ordinary used-car market with some version of this “utility rack” story.
*Ordinarily I’d say “demonstrate”, but that’s for lowly, y’know, science. Here we’re talking about the Gospel; Consumer Reports doesn’t run advertising,** you see, so…!
**Except the cover-to-cover advertising for CR’s own products and services, but that doesn’t count because reasons.
I’m glad we had this little talk.
This is one that got away in 2007. A ’73 Ford LTD, pillared hardtop, special order. It belonged to a famous Lancaster, Pennsylvania businessman/entrepreneur (and relative) who also happened to be a Mennonite minister and inveterate car guy. Mennonite officials were restricted by the church as to superfluous car options such as “anything-but-black” exterior paint and interior, radio, a/c, power windows, whitewall tires and full-size wheel covers. It was required to be self-effacing.
Through the years, this gentleman had many high-horsepower Fords and Packards—all black with zero amenities. Ironically, the church did not consider running-gear options on the embargoed-option list, so this particular Ford was ordered with the high-torque 460 4V engine, SelectShift Cruise-O-Matic automatic transmission, heavy-duty battery, 80-amp alternator, heavy-duty suspension, optional rear-axle ratio, appropriate high-performance black side-wall tires and the requisite dog-dish hub caps.
I had a chance to buy this magnificent low-mileage car in 2007, but I declined (wife), and it was sold at auction in 2007 along with numerous other cars in a collection.
Haha, that’s my pic! I couldn’t place the year at all until I searched a bit and found Paul’s article on the ’72. This is the rear:
Yeah if you got a load of gravel, or were taking stuff to the dump the way to unload is with a conveyor belt of some sort. I’ve got a load handler for my pickup which is essentially a one way conveyor belt for unloading your truck. Works great for spreading gravel on a driveway if you have a helper that has enough strength to start it moving with a full load. Creep forward while the helper cranks and put down a strip of gravel ~4′ wide.
In a bizzaro CC effect I noticed a high cube van yesterday that had a big rack on the top of it and it was loaded with a big stack of 2x8s that were either 16′ long or two stacks of 8′ back to back. It immediately made me wonder what a pain it was to load or unload them and just how top heavy it was. The scary thing is that it is one of the narrow SRW versions.
Someone told me (too late, alas) to tie a chain to an old tire and throw it in the front of the bed of the truck (chain hanging out the tail) before loading up with tear-off shingles. At the landfill, they simply hook the chain to a tractor and pull (most of) the shingles out in one go.
We did it the hard way, by hand.
The old tire thing is new to me. I know people that do the tarp thing for light loads like brush to the dump and I’ve seen just a big rope used. Back in college you could sell your Rainer beer bottle back to the local recycling center and of course they also bought scrap metals of all types as well as cardboard. Their cardboard unloading area had a large metal pole at the back for the guys that did it for a living. I think the loader scooped up most of the cardboard or at least moved it off to the side so that the rope could be retrieved.
I’ve also loved these Fords since a saw Wjite Lightning back when I was a little kid. I’d love to find an intact driveable one to replace my beloved ’67 Ford Custom 4 door ( 390, 3 speed with overdrive ) of which gave to my brother, & it was killed by a hit & run late one night. I miss that car.
Reminds me of another, much earlier effort to maximize vehicular car space. Same principle, only with a greenhouse-like canopy for weather protection.
Not sure of these are even comparable to modern roof racks and roof boxes.
I believe that contraption is to run the car on wood or coal gas. A common expedient during WW 2.
I did see a similar roof rack to the LTD on a ’63 Bel Air. Back in the early 1980s
I’d love to see that thing run a slalom! Yikes!
Those wheels are Chrysler 15″ “Road Wheels” minus the trim rings and center caps.
But notice how similar the GM truck wheel was?
I always figured that they were stamped om the same die.
They are just similar they are the same line of wheels from Kelsey Hayes just different enough to fit their respective applications. The Magnum 500 of course is the most famous of cases where KH sold wheels to both Chrysler and in that case Ford.
hmmmm… not falling for this Paul fella’s trickery; he got me hook, line and sinker on that green LTD.
Great set up, as long as you tow a forklift for loading and unloading and keep it under 90 MPH around corners.
Looks like a railroad bridge!
Love the Top-Loader title. For those unaware, Toploader was the terminology for a stout 4-speed transmission from Ford in the sixties and early seventies, so named because the access plate for the transmission’s inner workings was through a plate on top, unlike most other transmissions where the access plate was on the side.
Just when I think I’ve seen everything….The top structure aside, I like this generation of full-size Ford. I had a 71 Custom (previously owned by a priest) when I worked at my first small town radio station. A couple years later I stepped up to a 75 Custom 500 ex RCMP car with the big 460 V8. Both were great highway cars, but my preference would be for the 71 with its clean lines, dependable 302 V8 and huge interior cabin.
The contrast between utility (full length cargo compartment), and lack thereof (how does one access the engine compartment or trunk?) keeps me coming back to this one. It reminds me of my father, a mechanic who nevertheless drove decrepit vehicles in the twilight of their lives maintained on a shoestring budget.
To this day I am amazed that he found ways to fit our family; mom, dad, four kids, plus way too much stuff, into overcrowded and overloaded vehicles that made it to the destination most of the time.
The subject of this essay reminds me of one of his innovations-roof racks made from pallets secured to the drip rails-idiosyncratic, and likely unsafe and of questionable legality but clever and functional. One difference is that dad would not have blocked access to the trunk, where the tools and spare tire resided, or to the engine, which would likely call for his healing ministrations at some point in the trip.
Interesting solution to what must have been a very specific problem.
Interesting how he has some good cross-bracing, but nothing to deal with fore-and-aft movement, which might come in handy if he hit the brakes hard!
Good point, and it makes me think that maybe this wasn’t a craft so much for transportation of building material as a mobile scaffolding at a job site. IOW, a way to get the sheets up to, and affixing at, an exterior second story as opposed to using, say, a couple of ladders.
This dude with the Galaxie has the most efficient possible set-up for hauling 4 dudes and their snowmobiles up a mountain. It can easily hold 4 snowmoblies + ramp + 4 guys. He’s got it all figured out. Far more efficient than this kind of set-up I see at least once a year;
That is nice, looks like a lot of work to get it up and down at home but once (if) you make it to the mountain just back into a snow bank and drive right off.
Yeah generally the preferred method for loading at home is snowbank as well. I want to know how this guy got the sled up there without scratching the windows. Probably put some plastic sheeting on the bottoms of the skis while friends stop it from sliding off. A team effort for sure.
Tying down a 600 lbs machine to the wheel arches seems the sketchiest part of all. I can’t see how a cop wouldn’t pull it over.
DARPA project?
Too Little
Too Late
Removable
Stranger things can happen
A stranger things did happen, just yesterday, I saw “that” car.
Brown? check.
4-door? check.
’71/2? check. (I know the difference, wasn’t being that observant)
Rooftop Straddle Carrier attachment? ….eh, no. lol
I said wryly to my usually car-talkative 40-something passenger:
“Gator must be here…”
There was no reply so I figured that neither the Ford nor Gator registered with her and I let it go. Lol
Neat to see the repurposed antiquated Palmer Shile rack in the roof rack.
Art Community
Atlas Shrugs
Stinkin’ flashbacks!
lol
Reinforced mid/rear chassis