My piece on the ’70 F-100 should rightly have been COAL #17, following as it did the brief piece on my father’s ’64 T-Bird. So we’ll get back in chronological order with the vehicle that replaced the pickup – which became my first new car. But first, we need to wrap up the pickup’s story. As you will realize a bit further on, that’s unfortunately an intended pun.
While back home during the spring and early summer of ’74, I needed to make the F-100 usable as my cross-country moving van. The first priority was to enclose its eight-foot cargo bed. Since a new (or used) truck cap or topper was financially out of the question, the local Pennysaver was once again pressed into service. A classified ad indicated that a gentleman not far away in Boonton, NJ had a homemade truck cap for sale.
A phone call confirmed that the cap was sized for an eight-foot pickup bed. After inspecting the item, I haggled the seller down to $40 (I was still a starving art student, after all) and drove the newly-enclosed F-100 away with a redneck-inspired wooden topper with gray exterior paneling, jalousie side windows, and a flat roof rendered relatively water-resistant by a copious application of tar. Fortunately, no photographic records exist showing this monstrosity.
With no immediate job prospects after graduating from Art Center in September 1974, I loaded up the F-100 and proceeded back east without incident, except for a dead battery outside of Salt Lake City (on a Sunday, of course). As soon as I got back to New Jersey safely, the cap, having served its purpose, was dismantled and unceremoniously disposed of at the local landfill.
Shortly thereafter, the F-100 was advertised for sale. We needed to thin the family fleet and I had grown tired of fueling a pair of thirsty V8s (the F-100 and the Mustang) at the then-outrageous price of $0.53 per gallon ($3.83 today, suggesting that gasoline pricing hasn’t quite kept up with inflation).
The F-100 surprisingly attracted little interest, just a few lookers who focused only on the corrosion beginning to appear on the front edge of its bed. Fate intervened late one fall evening, however. Neither Dad nor I remembered hearing the actual crash, but we were both jolted awake by the following silence. The pickup, which had been parked in front of our house, had sustained a high-speed left rear corner impact from a mid-1960s Chrysler four-door hardtop. The impact pushed the F-100’s cargo bed into the cab, and pushed the entire truck (which had been parked in gear with the emergency brake on) about twenty-five feet, finally coming to rest and just missing a roadside telephone pole.
As a result, the unbelted Chrysler driver made involuntary contact with his car’s windshield. Not fully coherent, he complained to the police of having shards of glass in his eye but seemed otherwise not badly injured. He was taken away in an ambulance and the non-driveable Chrysler was soon flat-bedded away, leaving us to call the insurance company later that morning.
The F-100 was deemed totaled, and in due course, Dad received compensation from Allstate. With the insurance proceeds and some cash from my variety of odd jobs, it was time to begin the search for replacement wheels. In late 1974, my post-OPEC car purchase priorities were significantly better fuel economy, smaller size, better handling, and decent visibility.
My initial suspects included the then-new Mustang II and Mercury Capri, but my car-designer genes rebelled at the former’s grotesque re-interpretation of the model’s iconic styling cues, and while I found the latter to be sportier as well as a decent handler, its interior felt claustrophobic with poor outward visibility.
These were the first two models I considered. Not in love with either, I broadened my search. (Source: oldcarbrochures.com)
What to do? One of my frequent Sunday-morning jaunts to local car dealers ended up at Gardner Motors, then-owners of Volkswagen and Porsche-Audi stores diagonally across the street from each other on Bernardsville, New Jersey’s main drag. Though one of my best friends in high school had owned a VW Beetle, I couldn’t quite see myself in that retrograde shape, and Volkswagen’s water-cooled revolution had not yet arrived.
Unfortunately for me, the VW Scirocco hadn’t been introduced in the U.S. quite yet. (Source: Bring a Trailer)
On the other hand, Gardner Porsche-Audi had a single dealer-demo (and not for sale) Audi Fox on hand. Since the Fox’s 1973 U.S. debut, I had become a fan of its purposeful and trim exterior design, and buff-book road tests typically scored it among the winners among the new crop of small, fun-to-drive imports then challenging the sporty-car norms in the U.S. market.
The brochure was available, but the cars themselves were in short supply during the fall of ’74.
Not long thereafter, a test drive was secured, with the salesman whipping the demo Fox through the on- and off-ramps of nearby I-287 at speeds that would have put me into the weeds in the ’69 Mustang (let alone in the F-100). I will sheepishly admit that when it was my turn to take the wheel, the salesman (who was also the dealer principal’s son) had to remind me that the Fox’s floor-shifted manual gearbox included another gear available beyond third.
After the test drive, I was sold. I put down a deposit on May 30th, 1974 and just over four months later, I was informed that my car had finally come in.
The sales invoice. The dealer had traded cars with a Massachusetts Audi store to find a Fox in my first-choice exterior color. My first new car had 324 miles on its odometer when I took delivery.
Fortunately, I was able to drive away in an Atlas White Fox, my first choice, though I had been asked to provide my second-choice (Agate Brown) and third-choice (Maroon) exterior finishes just in case… and will you be trading a car in, Mr. Hansen? What’s that, a ’69 Mustang? Sorry, we can’t take any American V8s in trade right now; you’ll have to sell that car yourself. Such were the realities facing buyers of economical “foreign cars” in the fall of ’74.
If my first-choice color hadn’t been available, I could have written about my “quick brown fox…”. It’s probably just as well.
There’s much more to tell about the Fox, which turned out to be one of the longest-serving vehicles in the family.
Related CC reading: Curbside Classic: Audi Fox/80 (B1) – The Foxy Mother Of The Modern VW/Audi Era
There is nothing like the bad timing of graduating from school and ready to start adult life just in time for a nasty recession when nobody is hiring. I did the same thing in the recession that followed.
And there is nothing like the excitement of ordering a new car and having to wait months for it. I eagerly await the next installment, after knowing at least three people who owned Foxes. I got to drive one of them, and it was a revelation to me. This would have been around 1984 or so, and the car was from the late 70s and getting a bit on in age and miles, but I will never forget that brief drive. I can see why these were so appealing when they were new!
J P,
Yes, bad timing indeed, but it eventually turned out as planned, it just took awhile longer than initially anticipated. There will be more written about the Fox, so stay tuned!
BTW, as the kids say, props to you for daring to make a major career change and carrying through with it. I’m still playing with (and writing about) cars, after nearly fifty years at it…
In my case it was “HS” and college both. I was able to relocate to a more prospering location.
You got my full attention when you said the longest serving car in the family lol.. I was just a little kid but vividly remember the whole country being swept up by Audimania in this period. There was really something special about them despite the fires or what Consumers Reports would say.
Car Invoice:
Leatherette Interior – A phrase out the late 70’s.
Please make sure you describe this in detail in the follow up so that the current generation ( X & Y & Z ) can appreciate.
They think all car seat interiors are made from recycled soda pop bottles. =;-)
Thanks – I’ll be sure to mention that!
1970s Audi: “Death by the Nickel and Dime”.
more like the $100 and $200.
Yup.
Excellent article, and I await the next installment with bated breath! One small correction: VW did have its first water-cooled vehicle on the US market for ’74, the B1 80/Fox’s slanted-roof sibling, the B1 Dasher/Passat. My parents bought their ’74 Dasher immediately upon release and kept it until ’81, by which time rust had invaded its Rallye Green flesh. They loved it so much it spawned their purchase of at least nine more Audis & VWs over the following 25 years,. I learned to drive in them, loved their dynamics & efficiency, and now drive your Fox’s direct descendent, a B9 Audi A4 with 6MT.
Oops, somehow the Dasher slipped my mind. Odd that it did, since the VW store was right across the street from the Audi dealer. Glad to hear you’ve kept the Audi faith all these years. I’m afraid that many left the brand after their first 1970s experience…
Can’t wait to here more about it, as I had a 1975 Fox 2 door.
Back in the summer of 1979 my Dad pulled up and parked next to his cousin’s Agate brown 74 Fox at their summer cabin. As soon as I stepped out of the air conditioned comfort of our 73 Grand Am sedan, I could smell the coolant fumes wafting out of the engine bay. He said “the aluminum engine” wasn’t very reliable and was prone to overheating. He might have been jealous of the better handing that the so called European influenced Pontiac promised but lacked. The superior fuel mileage must have stung too.
I lucked out when I graduated in 1977. The local defense industry which was huge in the Bay Area, Lockheed and FMC plus many smaller subcontractors, was torpid post-Vietnam. But Silicon Valley, a term not yet in common use, was booming as consumer companies like Atari and Apple were taking off. Though it ended up being another five years before the computer industry lured me away from automotive.
That brochure cover. Today, you’d get your head chopped off!!
How the public mindset has changed.
I always get the seventies’ Audi Fox confused with the rather craptacular, late eighties, Brazilian-built VW Fox and never quite understood VWoA’s rationale for reusing the name (at least in those markets that had previously sold the Audi Fox).
Probably because the VW Gol (not “Golf”) of Brazil, which they rebadged as the Fox for the US market, was built on their BX platform derived from the same B1 platform as the Audi Fox (née Audi 80) with some later B2 bits mixed in, and the Marketing department determined that residual sentiment was more sweet than sour around the Fox model name here, so they decided to reuse the name as an implicit link between the technically-related old and new models.
Similar to my New &4 Fox. But it was maroon with a Black Interior. One of 3 at Parktown Porsche Audi near St. Louis in April of 74. I was a year out of University and had a good job with a local architectural office. I also wanted something with better MPG and also looked at the Mustang II and the Capri, but I knew of Audi, basically through a neighbor of my parents having an Audi 100. I liked the Fox (80) and bought the Maroon one, the others being Silver and Yellow. My 68 Cougar XR7 was taken in trade with no drama. (I often wish I had kept that car, but it was the times). Total price was just over 4 grand, and it included a dealer installed AM FM radio. Never had any issues. just regular maintenance. It was the first of 3 Audis, a new 4000 in 80, and a new 4000S in 86,
The closest I came to driving a Fox was when I was driven off to a summer camp in Castine, Maine when I was 13, along with a few people who were strangers to me but were cool to have around and talk with on the long drive from the DC area. Our car was an early VW Dasher fastback sedan, light blue (maybe the turquoise shown here) with charcoal “leatherette” interior. It was stunning just to ride in, a world apart from the small cars Detroit was building. It just oozed quality and careful design, had comfortable seats, loads of room for people and stuff, great outward visibility, reasonably quiet and smooth riding. It looked plain in the photos I’d seen, but felt luxurious in person and up close.
The only apparent difference between the early Fox and Dasher was the roofline and logo. Who was Audi? They sold only two models in the US, the 100 and the new Fox, and they had no rep at all, much less an upscale image. Yes they were German, but it was a Volkswagen clone (actually the VW was an Audi clone, but I didn’t know that yet). An Audi Fox had as much cachet back then as an Opel Kadett, which was also German.
I bought a ’73 SAAB 99 in Verona Green, a new car leftover, in Spring 1974 for $4200. I believe I got a far better deal! A friend got a ’74 Fox and had nothing but trouble with it. The SAAB was dependable but an accident took it out a few years later 🙁
In ’74 I had a Datsun 710, a co-worker I met 6 years later had bought a new Audi Fox. By the time I’d met him it was pretty rusty, the next year the seat went right through the floor. Interest rates on loans were high in the early 80’s but a bit lower on new cars; he replaced it with a first year Ford Escort wagon.
About that same time, my 710 was also pretty rusty, also I slid out on some black ice on the way back to parents (I’d moved 4 hours away for a job), didn’t trust light RWD car so started looking for FWD, and ended up with a ’78 Scirocco. Little did I know that within 2 years I’d moved from the snow belt to central Texas (so really didn’t need FWD).
It started my train of VWs, I’ve owned only that brand since ’81. I have an Uncle who bought a new Audi 4000 in 1984, he has said it was the best ar he’s owned.
I’m looking forward to the next installment to hear how the Fox became one of your family’s longest-serving vehicles. When I became aware of these early Audis in the 1980s, Foxes were already pretty rare, and I don’t recall talking to anyone who owned one. I eventually bought a used 1981 Audi as my first car – a great car, but in retrospect not the best choice for a first car.
I love seeing the original invoice for this one. Interesting that they wrote the Model as an “80 2 Dr. Sedan” even though it wasn’t marketed as the 80 in the US.
My mind keeps going back to the leatherette upholstery on the invoice. Not for the material but an upgraded interior for $45 ?
I realize in 2024 currency it would be more but still the thought of an interior upgrade for just 45 bucks blows my mind.
Amazing, given todaze LACK of color choices, to again see a nice array of colorful choices available (then) for a vehicle! Both of my wifes’ Super Bugs were “CLEMENTINE” quite like the fruit of the same name! 🙂 DFO
Freinds had an Audi badged Fox pretty sure it was late 70s, nice car to ride in but it burned huge amounts of oil, the cost of rebuilding the engine was double what the car might fetch on the market so it was traded on a Nissan Pulsar. VW group parts are ridiculous prices, always have been here
Quite possible it did not need an engine rebuild. There was the valve stem seal problem that became a recall. Fairly simple fix by the dealer. Remember it well because I was a service writer at a VW dealership at that time. That problem did not help the brand’s image and sales.
An Audi from an era when Audi still made c a r s, not posing packs.
My dad had a 1970 Audi 100LS. I remember in 1975 my father, mother and myself in an Porsche/Audi dealership somewhere in Los Angeles looking at a brand new 1975 Fox wagon. I was about 5 years old and I recall the salesman using me as the hard sell and trying to persuade my dad to buy it for my sake. Of course I wanted my dad to buy a new car! Well, I guess my dad wasn’t having it and he did not purchase the car. It wasn’t much later though he did buy another, this one was a 1976 Audi 100LS
Here, to compare, the MY 1974 Audi 80 (Fox) body colours for the German market:
I remember looking at these with suspicion .
As it turned out in spite of some having endless troubles they were pretty good cars and super fun to drive .
Sorry to hear anyone here got sucked into buying an Audi 100LS, lemons from the jump .
-Nate
I had a friend who had a Passat of this generation. Quite a change from the gas guzzling muscle cars we were used to. it was spacious, reasonably quick and very economical. A few years later I started my journey with Audi’s. 40 years and eight Audi’s later, I’m still impressed!
I found the old Audi dealership based on the address on the invoice and brochure. Looks defunct, but have a suspicion it was different auto dealers as time progressed. Also, the area must be somewhat prosperous.There’s three bank branches within eyesight of the old dealership.
https://www.google.com/maps/@40.7189912,-74.5648285,3a,75y,117.64h,77.61t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1si9gaVmlNBcyY596D-FBYfA!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu
Nicely told, and tempting us to follow the next instalment.
Intrigued that the advertisement and colour chart refer to the “Fox” but the invoice refers to an “Audi 80”, which what we Europeans think it was.
Ugly or not, it sounds practical and highly desirable. Not to me, because I don’t need a pickup truck, but I’m sure there are people out there who read this and were just seething with jalousie.