(first posted 8/23/2015) Some regard the 1978-83 Ford Fairmont and Mercury Zephyr as dull and boring, but to me I see these Fox sedans and wagons as being one of the cleanest and neatest designs of their time. Our Editor-in-Chief has described the Fairmont/Zephyr as being “that very rare honest car“, and this absolutely applies to the styling as well. Strip away the bright mouldings and the vinyl roof – the latter of which fortunately has been omitted from this example – and you have a simple, three-box shape with minimalist detailing. No it doesn’t look particularly racy or athletic, but it is neat. Of course, these are just my two cents.
The more gingerbread that was added, the more the purity of the design was diluted. The early Fairmont front was perfect, while the quad light set up of Fairmont Futuras and Zephyrs is a bit too blocky. I feel a similar thing happened with the full-size Caddy of the time: 1977-79 models had crisp front detailing, but 1980+ models weren’t as elegant.
If I have one complaint about this design, it’s that the wheels are a little too inset, as though the body is too big for the track. And the Fairmont Futura and Zephyr Z-7 coupes are considerably less clean and a bit oddly proportioned compared to the two-door sedan.
Other than the Fairmont/Zephyr and the Mustang, though, early 1980s Ford design sure could have used some magic. The first Panther LTD/Crown Victoria is something that has been critiqued here before, and I don’t regard it as a thing of beauty, either. Mercury’s adaptation had better detailing but of course the proportions remained the same.
The ’81 Granada/Cougar was more harmonious than the ’79 Panthers, and was almost as clean a design as the Fairmont, but suffered from delusions of Town Car grandeur with its semi-bladed front fenders and tall grille.
As for the ’83 LTD/Marquis, I think it’s a wonderful design but I feel as though the design might look better on a slightly larger chassis, particularly with a longer wheelbase and wider track.
I think the Fairmont was one of those rare, clean designs, devoid of stylistic flourishes like unnecessary feature lines or over-the-top coke bottle contours or any other faddish design element. What are your thoughts? Do you love it or hate it? Did you think the ’81 Granada and ’83 LTD were an improvement?
Related Reading:
Curbside Classic: 1981 Mercury Cougar – The Only Two-Door Sedan Cougar
Curbside Capsule: 1983-86 Mercury Marquis – The Zephyr Goes Aero
The Fairmont and Zephyr are cars I appreciate now more than I did when they were new. As the article notes, these cars have a clean, functional appearance that has worn well over the years. The entire Fox platform was certainly a breath of fresh air at the time.
In those days, virtually everything was optional, so a Fairmont or Zephyr could be a stripped, barren transportation device or a loaded, nicely trimmed family sedan. I remember riding in a relative’s new 1978 Fairmont sedan. He was very tight with his money, so his new Ford only had an automatic transmission, AM radio and power steering as options. It was definitely barebones transportation.
These cars did not initially compete with the Chevrolet Malibu. There was a $638 price differential between the base prices of the Fairmont and the Malibu, which is the equivalent of roughly $2,500 today, after adjusting for inflation.
GM and Ford were downsizing their line-ups at different paces – and different starting points – in the late 1970s. The Fairmont and Zephyr were designed to replace the Maverick and Comet as sensible, no-nonsense compacts. The Malibu was a downsized intermediate. Later, Ford did upgrade this platform to become a competitor to the GM intermediates. The downsized Thunderbird and Cougar debuted for the 1980 model year, followed by the Ford Granada and Mercury Cougar for the 1981 model year.
The 78-83 Fairmont was a somewhat clean looking sedan if sparsely equipped on the exterior, had better interior space utilization and because it had rack and pinion steering felt a little more spry on the open road. But that is where the love affair ended. The only engine worth anything resembling performance was the 302 V8 and about 1-2% were so equipped. The 200 six was a dog in my car and almost dangerously slow in grandpas 1980 wagon. The doors were so lightweight that one had to be careful opening them up with any wind about. The glass was as thick as a dime(probably to keep weight down) and resulted in loads of wind noise. Road noise was terrible on any example without the deluxe insulation or decor interior group which made it tolerable. The 3 speed automatic was okay but it was tied to a very weak rear end which blew in both my 62K mile 1979 and my grandfathers 1980 with 90K miles. Interiors were mostly trimmed in what can best be described in an unfinished low rent plain look with a flat uncomfortable bench seat, a very minimal amount of gauges and that god forsaken horn on the stalk which was an accident waiting to happen. Finding any example bucket seats was nearly impossible and only the loaded woodie wagons in my area seemed to have the interior decor group with much nicer looking and sitting seats.
The dash vibrated on both of our cars going 55 MPH which was the national speed limited back in the day. This was apparently resolved after 1981 with extra dash support beams. Higher speeds usually brought about loads of noise and lots of wind buffeting around the doors. The trunk was big enough but very very shallow until 1981 when they redesigned the gas tank and lowered the trunk a bit for much needed depth. Tires were usually very small 175/75R14 and these cars were useless in the Winter even with snow tires unless one loaded up sand bags in the trunk killing off what space was available.
The windows also fogged up terrible during the Winter and it took the defroster all it’s worth to keep them visible. The rear window had a useless blower motor but Grand dads wagon at least had the electric defogger that worked much better.
Not the worst car I have driven or owned but far far from the best. Any of my G-body GM’s were a revelation in comparison and neither me, grandpa or my father went back to Ford to this day.
Not making any judgments here, but found this interesting:
http://testdrivejunkie.com/1981-chevrolet-citation-vs-ford-fairmont-comparison-test-drive/
Note: in the intro to this video, the announcer states that these will be the biggest cars available by 1985. Aren’t we glad things turned out the way they did instead?
I’m a bit of a Fox junkie myself 🙂 , owned 9 so far including 3 Fairmonts. Love the simplicity and the ease of modification. Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, made for Fox Mustangs up to the New Edge 2004’s will fit a ‘Mont, right down to the Cobra IRS setup!!! And they’re lightweight, too. Easy-peasy to make fast 🙂 .
I’ve always been a Fairmont/Zephyr junkie myself. I don’t know why, as I’ve never owned either one, nor did anyone in my family.
I had the pleasure of turning a clean $300 ’80 2-door Fairmont into a very capable road-circuit and AutoX car. Ran this from ’01-’09. It had a cheap dash, but the chassis was very robust, and factory performance parts readily available (Turbo Coupe and HO Mustang are common platforms) plus a huge aftermarket.
My alum head 5.0, T-5 trans car weighed 2900 lbs! Great cars to hot rod!
This 1980 Ford Fairmont was even considerably lighter than the slightly smaller 2015 Ford Fusion (its spiritual successor) by 423 pounds: 2900 pounds Fairmont and 3323 pounds Ford Fusion.
Growing up, we had a 79 Zephyr wagon that we bought lightly used in 1983. 6-cyl, black exterior on whorehouse red interior with the same slotted wheels as on the bright blue example above. It was a knockout looking car. We sold it around 1991 with 80,000 miles on the clock. I have never once seen another example that looked exactly like it, neither in real life nor in old brochures. Makes me wonder how that particular car came to be. Wish I had pictures. If I could find it again, I would buy it in a heartbeat. It was a great car!
I drove one of these, once, back in the early ’80s. Hated it.
The quality of fit and finish was poor, everything felt cheap, and it was an utter slug. As I recall, it had Ford’s insipid stalk-mounted horn, which I’ve always loathed with the fire of a billion burning suns.
I simply cannot understand the like folks express for this vehicle. To this day I cite it as my primary example of a “non-car.” It simply did nothing well whatsoever, in my experience.
What more can be expected with the Fairmont and Zephyr models since they picked up where the Maverick and Comet left off at least in North America and through 1979 in Brazil. These new back then original Fox Bodied Cars were supposed to be like a no frills compact/mid-sized replacement to the Maverick and Comet while the Granada, Monarch and Versailles were comparatively upscale to those two. The Maverick and Comet were to the Plymouth Valiant/Duster/Dart and AMC Hornet/Concord/Eagle as the Granada, Monarch and Versailles were to GM’s Nova, Ventura/Phoenix, Omega, Apollo/Skylark and Seville and Plymouth Volare’, Dodge Aspen and Chrysler LeBaron. In addition supposedly, the Fairmont and Zephyr were to GM’s Malibu and LeMans and the Dodge Diplomat and in Canada the Plymouth Caravelle.
I had an 82 Fairmont and loved it as my first used car purchase. It had problems due to it being wrecked, but the overall car was great – roomy, and the trunk had been reworked to have more capacity by moving the gas tank and lowering the trunk floor.
I’d buy one of these new if they still made them.
The sedans would look better without the extra window in the C pillar. Surely, someone broughamified it with a padded vinyl roof covering the window, but I’ve never seen one.
What you describe is what the 1981 Granada/Cougar were – broughamified Fairmont/Zephyrs.
We replaced my wife’s 1980 Chevrolet Monza with a Zephyr in 1983 in this beautiful two tone pewter color. I can’t remember which was slower, but I think the 2.5 Iron Duke was a tad bit quicker.
Back to the looks of these cars –
At a time when big bloated sedans that barely fit four comfortably, were common – Ford brought out these two cars, the Fairmont and the Zephyr.
So, in a world filled with tubby Torinos, slovenly Satellites, porky Colonnade intermediates polluting the road, along with even larger full size cars, we end up seeing Ford release cars that look like the boxes other cars came in. It was a visual shock. It was risky, but necessary for Ford to start from scratch with the Fox body cars.
While the Volvo design had been around a decade by that time, no US manufacturer tried to copy it. The Valiant/Dart and the old AMC Rambler American came the closest, but those designs were old and obsolete technically.
The Fairmont/Zephyr didn’t copy the Volvo – the Volvo was better looking, better proportioned and heftier looking, but then, it was a good $4,000 more than either the Fairmont or Zephyr. A bigger trend was the GM full size cars that were a phenomenal sales hit. When those cars arrived, and then the Fairmont/Zephyr in 1978, it was obvious that the 1970s died and were buried, styling wise.
As the purveyor of nasty looking broughamified Torino variations, seeing Ford bring out the Fairmont/Zephyr was quite a visual revolution.
The Fairmont/Zephyr was also touted as being a car with CAB/CAM computer design. Along with the Mustang/Capri, the Fairmont/Zephyr were designed to be light and offer a variety of small engines.
These cars are very important for Ford. They hit the ground being a bigger success than the Panther the following year, and helped support Ford during their near bankruptcy a few years later, at least until the success of the Escort/Lynx. The Fox body was to Ford what the KCar was to Chrysler years later. By the time the Taurus arrived and blew away sales charts, the Fox body dominated Ford/Mercury/Lincoln to an embarrassing degree.
Fortunately for Ford, the Panther gained popularity as the economic recession eased by 1983.
Ford, with the Fairmont/Zephyr/Mustang/Capri was admitting to the auto market that their earlier products were crap. I completely agree with that.
A fine and fitting update of my Grandfather’s 1960 Falcon 4 door; with a much better automatic transmission.
Besides possibly sharing older axles and reducing parts costs, are there any real advantages to having a narrow track on a wide body?
I had a 78 Fairmont Futura. It was all black, black bumper and all stick-on trim and badges were removed. Sharp looking car, got stopped many times by people wanting to know what it was. Alas, the rust worms started to work on it. Oddly the first place was rust thru from the inside of the A pillar.
My dad traded a 1972 Mercury Monterrey 4 door with a 429 4v on a 1978 Mercury Zephyr 4 door with the 302 withe the abominable “variable venturi” carb. The Zephyr handled okay and seemed almost as roomy as the Monterrey. It was reliable enough.
I’m always amazed at how Eastern European, American cars looked in the eighties. I also see some AMC styling in the rear quarter view.
Reminds me of the K car
Other than the extra pane of glass in the C-pillar, I’m not sure what is particularly Volvo-inspired about the Fairmont. Volvo didn’t copy the FIAT 130 Coupe sheer-slab styling used by the Fairmont until the later 760GLE. On the other hand, Ford had been building clean and boxy Tauni, Cortinas, and Granadas in Europe and the UK for years.
The reason for locating the horn on a stalk was to do away with the clock-spring. Back in the ’70s and ’80s, Ford still used parts that were manufactured in first world countries, and a clock spring cost enough on a per-car basis that it was worth gaslighting the customers into doing without. Airbags made the worst manufacturers install clock-springs anyway, and so now horn buttons are where they belong on every car.
That horn button reminds me of the one on my 1960 Renault Dauphine. The Renault also had a little switch on the column so you could choose between single and dual horns. Would like to see something like these built today. RWD, in line 6 – easy to work on. Roomy, not expensive. Too bad, so many of these were painted in that “puque-mist” color, especially base level Fairmonts.
I’ve come to appreciate this clean design. In the day, I was a brougham-ized callow youth, and appreciated dreck such as the Pontiac Grand Ville. Even in an era of brittle plastic, every
interior bit and piece of these seems designed do de-gas, fade and crumble ASAP. The interior bright work was of the quality of a model car bumper. Still, the design offset the Mustang II horror …. somewhat. And a 200ci I6 designed for the 60 Falcon? Oh, my.
I had many Zephyr and Fairmont rentals, and I really really disliked them, both in looks and in driving quality. I think all of them were 4 cylinder cars except the last one, which seemed to have much better power than the others. I thought the design was hideous then and still do. The first one was beige inside and out, the last one was white with a tan interior, I think. I had that first one for 10 days and I drove it over 1200 miles, and the only positive things I can say about it, is it didn’t break down and the A/C worked well. It needed alignment when I picked it up, and needed it more when I gave it back, the potholes were hard to miss.
I guess the main thing I came away with was it strengthened the dislike of Ford products that I already had. I like their present stuff a lot better than ever before, but I have never bought a Ford product. I did think about buying an F150 about 18 years ago but ended up with a Ram 1500, which I was very happy with.