(first posted 10/17/2012) Let’s stop beating around the bush with such polite descriptions of the ’70s as The Great Brougham Epoch, The Faux Luxury Era, The Loose-Pillow Era, The Malaise Era, The Bordello Era, et al. In truth, the decade was The Stupid Era. How the hell else to explain this roof design: Two stupid fixed panes that in no way way line up with or relate to each other. It’s as though PPG called up Ford and said, “Hey, we’ve got a couple hundred thousand little window panes in two odd sizes, and we really need to get rid of them. We’ll make you a deal.” and Ford replied,”Yeah, send ’em on over. We’ll make ’em fit somehow.” And so they did. Incredibly, Ford actually managed to top that stroke of genius with what must be the stupidest name ever coined: The 2-Door Pillared Hardtop. How stupid did they think we were?
Seriously, they paid designers good money to come up with this? Why not just do like GM and have one big rear window, never mind that GM’s should have rolled down. And what did Ford’s designers call that little vertical mail slot? The Gun Slit?
With that in mind, let’s have a little contest in the comments section. Your challenge is to come up with a clever marketing-ese name for said slit, as Ford has, too conveniently, omitted its description in their brochures. Simply “2-Door Pillared Hardtop”? How about “Many-Pillared Hardtop? It’s too bad ‘Colonnade’ was already taken; it would be much more apt description here. After spending decades telling buyers that “hardtop” describes a coupe or sedan without pillars, this is really stupid, Ford–why not just “coupe”?
Maybe it just needs a padded vinyl top…well, that’s a bit better, if only for the psychedelic effect (even though that era had ended 10 years earlier). And that young couple: Don’t they represent the typical 1977 LTD Landau buyer just perfectly? “Hey babe, let’s just quit our jobs and travel around the country for a year–in our new LTD Landau. The seats are so wide and comfy, we’ll never even need a motel!”
Pretty sad, from the company that gave us one of the classiest and longest-lived pillarless roofs ever to grace a two-door hardtop. Virtually unchanged from 1957 through 1963, it beautified virtually every Ford model lineup as the hallmark of Ford’s best design idea since the 1939 Continental.
Even the Mustang’s roof was only a minor variation on that theme. I’m getting away from stupid, though.
That’s more like it. In the same way Ford used that classic roof for many years on many models, Ford’s brilliant front-end design graced just about everything that bore Henry’s name during the ’70s: The generic Ford-mobile. I guess the designers were too busy cobbling up the next great Landau roof. Or maybe a new Brougham emblem. Or the Granada ESS, or Mustang II King Cobra. It’s all in the name, stupid.
My father bought one of these things new in 1975. Time has not made my memory fonder- it’s a bloated, tacky, tasteless embarrassment of a vehicle now just as it was even in 1975.
Should have been PILLORIED for all the ridicule…
Uh oh, now your stomping on my turf! I had a Dove Grey 78 2Dr LTD Landau from 2002 to 2006. It was a great car. Paid $600 for it. I found nothing at all wrong about the roof line. And mine had the half vinyl roof also. Enjoyed many trouble free trips between home and Dallas/Ft. Worth in it. It was still a quiet smooth riding car. I shoulda kept it.
The concept of the window-in-the-b-pillar appeals to me for some strange reason. The execution, though, is horrid! How much harder would it have been to make it the same height as the windows on either side of it? Come on, Ford. The one in the T-bird looks intentionally smaller, with its own shape–this one just looks careless.
Omitted from the 1975 full-size Ford brochure due to an editing error:
“We’ve torn the LTD a new glasshole. Two, actually. One on each side.”
THIS is the article that got Paul the opportunity (sentenced?) to drive the Subaru 360.
JPC said it a few years ago, Ford hardly had a lock on ungainly rooflines in the mid-late ’70s.
I think two things were at play; stylists may have tired of the traditional two door hardtop after doing it constantly for about 25 years, and sometimes their experimentation was rewarded. A third factor may have been anticipated Federal roll over standards for stronger roofs that never materialized.
The ’73 GM Colonnade coupes epitomized the rewards of new rooflines on volume mainstream cars. Ford had a hit with the “opera” window.
My dad brought home one of these LTD coupes – a dealer loaner car when his LTD was in for service. It was white with a red vinyl top.
I do recall thinking the little center window was rather strange at the time, but got used to it. It did look a bit better with a vinyl top treatment, and stylists of the time definitely styled some vehicles with vinyl decoration in mind – the take rate on vinyl decoration was so high at that it was fair for them to assume how the typically equipped car would look.
The window treatment does not seem that bad to me. As with the Catalina and Delta 88 coupes from 74-76 they were pretty obviously trying to limit blindspots while meeting the then feared rollover standards. To do these conflicting things while also not scaring away the mature brougham loving LTD market was a challenge.
This was a rather raucous thread. The picture of the younger couple with the LTD on the beach is drawing attention. People do not believe that this couple would drive an LTD. Even in 77 probably true, but sad. And just as true and sad no matter what window treatment Ford came up with.
I was wondering about that, especially as a foreigner. I can see older traditional buyers continuing to buy full-size even when it became over-size, but would a young couple have bought one of these? Or would they have rejected it as being Dad’s or Grandpa’s car, and gone for a (not all that much smaller) intermediate?
Not sure it was size so much. The Panther that replaced these lost 8 inches of wheelbase and 500+ pounds and the age of the owner only went up. The next generation just did not want this type of car, and did not want it from the big three domestics. It is probably the same in Australia, with the few still buying Comodores and Falcons being much older than those buying Corolllas and Mazda 3s.
I’m posting this to brighten your day a bit, and run counter to young person bias against this car.
First, nobody really expected a 16 to 25 year old to buy a 1977 LTD Landau – it was a reasonably expensive luxury car. The demo for the most part simply could not afford to buy and gas up such a vehicle. The trust fund babies may have been buying BMWs, but it was on daddy’s dime.
Plausibly, the couple is around 30 years of age, and they probably have kids spending the weekend with grandma and grandpa. They may have been driving a Pinto and a LeMans a few years earlier, but now the paychecks are getting better and there are two additional occupants with (yes, in 1977) baby seats to consider.
The same physics that drive Explorer, Expedition and F-150 sales today are the ones that drove LTD sales in 1977. People that need space buy the big vehicles that fit their needs. Heck, my dad bought his first full size car in 1968 at the age of 33 and his second, a 1976 Ford LTD at 41. Not exactly a withered greybeard.
Anecdote: The young man that lived next door with his parents left for Vietnam and served his time there. His 1970 Camaro spent the time under his parent’s carport.
When he came back, he married rather quickly, got a decent job, and bought a 1974 Ford LTD Brougham with most of the trimmings.
As the “Mythbusters” would say: PLAUSIBLE
The window treatment looks like a few truckloads of miss matched windows arrived at the Ford plant. When the supplier was informed the pieces were not built to spec, the glass manufacturer said, “no charge dispose of them as you will”.
A bean counter told the stylists and production line to install these pieces in to what was to become the 1975 Ford 2-Door Pillared Hardtop.
It’s a good looking car, but seriously? A “pillared” hardtop? I thought hardtops weren’t supposed to be pillared.
OK, I’ll take the challenge. How about the Ford LTD Oriel Window Coupe? Totally agree this was the stupidest roof treatment of the era, with the 77-79 T-Bird and the 75-78 Mopar C Bodies with the padded landau treatment as my #2 and #3.
Three stupid ideas on one car: frameless door glass, an opera window and fixed rear side glass. Triple crown winner.
When in doubt add moar ! Just like the 70s.
But there is all that “road hugging weight” to compensate.
Regarding the naming contest – how about “Ford LTD Conversion Coupe?” Given the variety of mismatched windows in custom vans. . . It also would definitely need Lincoln’s thick shag carpeting in a burnt sienna color, with matching orange metallic paint and perhaps a gold vinyl top with matching square graphics fading out along sides. Or, it could just be brown. Add some swivelling seats from a Cutlass to add a little more bling and bang for your buck. An insulated center console for dockside fishing. And lastly, a velour barf receptacle. In all seriousness, though, vans are still b*tchin.’
I think this is a fine looking LTD — mags and all — in the top-most pic. All the elements (including window, imo) blend together quite nicely. If the small window was even, it would have a bus-like appearance, but I agree in that it looks better with the vinyl roof. Also the photo-shopped images in the comments really help with my imaginings (it was like magic! And poof they appeared in picture form when my brain needed help the most…)
I think the window is purpose-designed for the car. Without it, it would be a lesser vehicle — perhaps Ford Pinto? Much like the large Chrysler sedans of the 70s with their extra vents on the dashboard differentiating them from an A, F, or M body with their lesser vent numbers, perhaps Ford designers were saying the LTD was longer (thus more desired) car than its lesser brethren — kind of like a subliminal aesthetic signifying superiority and something more special.
I’m beginning to wonder whether there’s a size beyond which the two-door coupe design simply just does not work, no matter what window treatment you throw at it.
Thank you for pointing out the idiocy of the “pillared hardtop” name. It is an oxymoron like “4 door coupe”. I have gotten into many online arguments by folks claiming that these were true hardtops “because Ford said they were”. And yes, this was one of the dumbest roof designs of the ’70s. The ’77-’79 Thunderbird’s roof was even worse. Ford made some really ugly cars in the ’70s. GM and Chrysler had much better styling during that dark era.
“4-door coupe” would actually mean a vehicle with 4 doors, but a sloped rear roofline like a coupe. So, pretty much every sedan we have today, if you can’t sit in the rear seat without hitting your head, is a 4-door coupe.
I kinda like it . How about Tudor Twilight Hardtop? Ranks up there with Mongolian Civique or something like that which I believe was a proposed name for the Edsel.
I nearly gagged at the supper table when I saw the picture of the big grey LTD.
Another reminder how bad styling was during the latter part of the seventies. Funny how sometimes Ford stylists could come out with great designs and then…not. I always call this period a dark time in domestic automobile design and engineering. This is further evidenced by the 78 Córdoba now in my possession.
Once the ’71 Eldorado coupe appeared, every pretentious car had to have an opera window, whether there was a place for one or not. Ford latched onto that affectation as bad as any.
Come to think of it, didn’t the Mazda Cosmo have the same goofy window configuration?
And here it is!
If you’re looking for a stupid name for a car roof, I’d say, “hardtop convertible” from the mid-1950’s for pillarless cars whose roofs didn’t go down is even dumber than the pillared hardtop the author cited.
From the tone of these comments, I suggest we call it a pilloried hardtop.
Once again, Paul and I agree on a car.
Google Toronado XSR and tell me the LTD 2-door pillared hardtop is the stupidest design ever… lol
Ford managed to make a 4 door sedan look better than a 2 door! The kick up at the end of the rear door, the quarter panel crease accenting the raised rear deck…
You can even see better from the 4 door without the ‘rollover strength addition’.
If I had to have a 2 door Ford from 1975, I’d have bought a 351 Granada Ghia or a Ranchero.
Here’s the catalog for 1975: https://www.classiccarcatalogue.com/FORD_USA_1975.html
And yes, the 1974 2 door hardtop from the year before looked better. They should have just left it alone.
Toronado XSR
So much road-scraping weight!
I actually like this car quite a bit.
Luxo-boat with cool wheels.
Why not?
‘Hardtop’ was all for marketing and style. If car had frameless windows on the doors, it was still a ‘hardtop’ per Big 3 marketing executives. Buyers who could vividly remember 1955 in 1976 still thought so, too.
Slightly tangential, but with the mention of PPG, it’s notable that Ford did have its own glass plant in Nashville during this period.
https://www.nytimes.com/1958/06/19/archives/ford-motor-opens-huge-glass-plant-at-nashville-big-glass-plant.html
It’s now owned by a Japanese glass company.
https://www.glassonline.com/carlex-acquisition-of-ford-glass-plant/
I remember seeing this roof style and pretty confused about it. The mini pillar window was ridiculous. Intriging, but over the top.
The Consumer Report on these Fords recently presented here at CC reveals that these were good cars for this era. I always thought they were overwrought and gruesome, and I have had to adjust my view of them.
However, the Mercury line was more attractive in my opinion, and I find these Fords unattractive. This roofline didn’t help.
I’m a bit late to the party, but let’s see if we can’t top 200 comments.
Attached is a shot of the folks ’76 Ford Custom. I thought that it was a pretty decent package for the day with a 351M, air, AM/FM. It was a great cruising car, with the only net being the basic bench seat which was set too low and could be a strain on the back when going distance. Looks are subjective, but I didn’t recall it being more hideous than the contemporary cars in that period.
Back view.
A final look taken in the wrecking yard after the folks beat any and all goodness out of it.
Since it has two opera windows, they should have called it “Duet.”