Our 1973 Ford LTD - A Special LTD And My Sister

Image from the web, color adjusted to reflect author’s memory.

It was 1976 and my dad needed to buy a decent used car for my sister Sandy. You see, she’d recently gone through a divorce and landed on our doorstep with two of her three children.

Back in the day, everyone had that guy. You know, usually named Johnnie, who guy owned a service station where you’d buy gas, oil changes, tires, and even find that perfect second-hand car.

So my dad was telling his guy (who was, incidentally, named Johnnie!) how much he wanted to spend on a car for Sandy. True to form, Johnnie had the perfect car: a 1973 Ford LTD Brougham two-door. My dad arranged to have the owner come by the house.

Upon arrival, my dad was surprised to meet a local TV celebrity, Jerry Beck. He hosted the All Night Show, where he’d show movies, regale viewers with fun pokes about the movie, and generally have fun.

Jerry turned out to be a fun man, and he told Dad his history with the LTD. In Columbus, we had a large Ford dealer, Graham Ford, and Mr. Beck was given a car to drive in exchange for advertisement.

Starting in the late 1960s, he always drove a convertible. However, by 1973, Ford had stopped making full-sized convertibles. So Mr. Beck threatened to drop his sponsorship and go to Jack Maxton Chevrolet, where he could get a new Caprice with the drop-top feature.

This wasn’t an excellent option for Graham Ford, as the advertising was beneficial. So they called Ford. They were told that, for 1973, they would be offering a sunroof option but that not everything was ready. Still, the dealer took a chance and had one built to show Mr Beck.

(I can personally vouch that this was a custom build because I used to roll back the interior headliner to lubricate the sunroof mechanism. There, in factory crayon, were the words “1973 T-bird roof”).

LTD Brougham 2-door hardtop with sunroof option. Image from the ’73 brochure.

I would learn many years later that this was, in fact, a rare car indeed. Ford made just 629 with the sunroof option. It was a very nice car that I was supposed to get someday. But then, my sister Sandy happened, and it was all downhill!!

Sandy treated cars like a pair of socks—use them with little care, throw them away, and start over. In just three short years, she managed to crash the LTD twice, make the 400 sound more like a spoon in a disposal, never wash the car, and even drove it at highway speeds in second gear until it overheated the transmission. That made it smell kind of like a ruined gourmet meal!

I recall one incident –and believe me there are many more– was the day she came up to my room at 4:30 in the afternoon. She asked me if I could help her with her driver’s door because “It wouldn’t latch…”

Thinking it was a simple situation, I grabbed my can of WD-40 and headed out to the driveway with her. She had been T-boned and the door was pushed in so far that it was touching the side of the driver seat. Stunned, I asked her what had happened. True to form the first words were “Don’t tell dad!” Then she admitted that she was lighting a cigarette, not focused on her driving, and pulled right out in front of somebody who was only a few feet from her.

With the help of the seat belt, I got the door tied shut until she could get it to the dealer for repair. She then asked Dad nicely if she could borrow one of his cars and he loaned her his 1976 Cadillac.

At the office that day, Sandy came back from lunch and told my dad, “There is something wrong with the turn signals…” Dad went out to find she’d broken the signal lever off

Heavily angered, Dad told her to find out how much longer the work on the LTD would take. Sadly, the dealer responded, “…another two weeks”. Dad then told Sandy to instead drive his 1967 Ford Country Squire, which I had written about here.

Our ’67 Country Squire. Family photo.

That was the wrong choice. She was driving me home from babysitting one night –maybe on the second day she had this car– and promptly hit the ice and slid into the back end of a Ford pickup. She then backed up and continued driving!

At the traffic light, there was a vast and furious man banging on her window, yelling: “You just hit my truck, and you’re going to pay for the damages!”

She calmly told him that she was only a few blocks from dropping me off and that she’d be right back. He followed her. Upon their arrival, that was Dad with rockets ignited!

…

The final straw came when the LTD was only two days from delivery, and Dad sent her on an errand in the Cadillac. You guessed it—she broke the signal lever off a second time!

I heard him say, “Sandy, you will never drive any of my cars again!” By the way, he stood by that!

So there you have it—a local celebrity, a rare car, and you’ve got to meet my sister, Crash!

The LTD was sold the next spring after my dad had Johnny go through it. Yeah, it was too well-worn by then.