I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen one of these single-eyed LTDs, which were only made in 1979 and 1980 (as the LTD S). And checking the brochures implies this one is a ’79, as the ’80’s fender blade lights are solid amber, not white and amber like these. A first year base LTD wagon; despite my lack of fondness for these in general, I’m very happy to see this survivor still on the road.
My lack of fondness? I’ve gone over this so many times, but the original Panther came off looking like a cheap Chinese knock-off of a ’77 Chevy B-Body. As in, back then, not now, as the Chinese have gotten dramatically better at both imitation and styling. One of the worst transgressions was using the same doors as the sedan, and then continuing that plane to the rear instead of tapering it back in. The result is a hugely empty wheel well.
Here’s a closer look at that issue. And those dreadful door frames! Not only do they not seem to fit into the roof, but they’re so heavy and clunky with that second layer of trim on the body. The longer I look at these ill-fitting and poorly designed doors, the less I can believe that these came from Detroit and not Poland. Yuck.
Here’s the original. Pretty embarrassing, given the two-year lag Ford had in coming up with a proper and cohesive downsized design.
There’s plenty more stylistic fodder with which to denigrate the early box Panther; but I already covered that in this post here, our Design Shoot-Out of the ’77 Chevy and ’79 LTD. No need to speculate on the overwhelming winner.
Enough of all that styling stuff; this wagon has long transcended those petty issues. A little tape has helped it do so.
Yes, this survivor has led a long and hard life. And it’s acquired a green door interior panel along the way. That’s not exactly in keeping with the typical old Eugene beater of not having a door card at all.
And what’s on its rear window?
Can anyone identify these, and their purpose? To hold the window in place because of some malfunction?
I wonder what’s under the hood. The standard engine was the “5.0L”302 V8, with the Variable Venturi carb. Are there still fully-functional VV carbed engines on the road? Is this one of them? Or has it more likely been swapped out along the way? For a base wagon, the likelihood of it having the optional 5.8L 351 are not great. But at least the transmission was still the smooth-shifting three-speed Selectshift automatic. No herky-jerky AOD yet.
Whatever it is, it’s still chugging away. And my hat’s off to that achievement.
regarding the tailgate rear window , the contraptions on each top corner appear to be old school hardware store spring loaded screen door catch/ closers. the center mounted piece appears to be epoxied to the pane of glass and uses a flip bail metal rectangular loop to engage with the broad hook screwed into the sheet metal at top of the opening. i have an IKEA extension leaf dining table that uses these exact catches to hold the movable halves together when the expansion leaf is not in place. provides a measure of leverage to pull things tight.
Both of my grandparents had box panther sedans. I always thought that they were very frumpy, thank you for helping me understand why. Regarding the AOD, these were clunky, but noticeably in our 1990 pickup with a 302. The 88 town car shifted smoothly despite the AOD.
My biggest peeve stylistically was the severe inset of the door frames and glass.
As though they designed to accept storm windows.
Back in the day, some people in the trades, or doing small/light delivery, bought low-end station wagons as sort of the last bastion of the Sedan Delivery.
I worked part time for a guy who did very high end office supply sales and delivery. Around 1981 he bought the most stripped-out Oldsmobile Custom Cruiser one could buy. He’d gone to a Chevy/Olds dealer looking for the cheapest Impala wagon he could find. Instead, they offered him the Oldsmobile for an even cheaper price, as it had been sitting on the lot forever. No idea why the Custom Cruiser was ordered by the dealer that way. Nobody who wanted an Oldsmobile wanted one that was so stripped.
Back in the early 1980’s my employer had a 1979 LTD wagon as a “company/fleet” car. While it didn’t have wood on the sides or any fancy/luxury options, it did have the 351 V8 mated with the 3 speed SelectShift automatic transmission. It was reliable, smooth, and at least relatively powerful. The LTD held up very well despite the abuse it received; being driven by a couple of dozen different drivers on a regular basis.
My employer later obtained a second company car — a 1983 Caprice wagon. While it had a variety of nice comfort and power options, compared to the LTD, the Caprice was a complete dog. The Caprice’s transmission continually shifted back and forth between 3rd gear and overdrive — to the point where our maintenance department put a big warning sticker on the dashboard advising to never put the gear selector in OD unless we were driving on an interstate highway. Especially when fully loaded, the Caprice struggled to climb the many hills in the area without downshifting to 2nd gear.
The ’79 LTD that Car and Driver tested was one of these base models – the first photo I’d seen of them – and I was surprised to learn that most LTDs had the four-eyed face. I prefer the base car’s front clip, which fits the car better and also has more of a ’70s Ford look than the GM-copying front style most of these had.
The Canadian Custom 500 used the single-light grille setup in 1979-80, not sure about ’81 which was its last year.
Who in 1979 expected the Panther platform would still be in use in 2012?
I worked for the Province of Saskatchewan from 1979 to 1982. We had a stripped 1981 Custom 500 wagon with the single headlights and a 351. Got a lot better gas mileage than our 1978 Chevrolet Bel Air wagon with a 350. We also had a 1978 Plymouth Fury wagon with a 360, I never got to drive it so I don’t know how it was on fuel. However, I was normally assigned a 1978 Fury sedan with a 318 4 barrel that got way better gas mileage than anything else we had, at least when the Lean Burn was cooperating. Someone with the Central Vehicle agency said that the 78 Fury sedans had the lowest operating costs of all the cars in the fleet including the Volares, Novas and Fairmonts.
As I’ve mentioned before, I and many Canadians, associate these dual headlight Panther LTDS, with Terry Fox, and his Marathon of Hope. With the inaugural marathon held, from April to September 1980. His run ending near Thunder Bay, that September, as his cancer returned. The OPP police escort cars across the province, were either these single headlight LTDs. Or Impalas. The single headlight noses on these LTDs, shown in the background for several minutes at a time, on the nightly news.
I was in grade school at the time, and would have agreed wholeheartedly with your assessment. The styling on these was weak. Unrefined, too square, and generally quite bland. The exterior cargo area, also appearing too long, and boxy. Underwhelming.
+1 Daniel M., that’s the first thing I think of, too. Powerful memories of these cars shadowing a true Canadian hero.
What an ugly old badly whipped dog .
The L.A.P.D. ran these box sedans a few years, I was amazed Ford put out such an underwhelming vehicle .
I wonder if some movie car company might use this in a fire / explosion scene .
-Nate
The separate parking lights in the grille always puzzled me: Did Ford stylists see a need to break up the expanse of cross hatching between the headlights?
At least the Australian 1979 LTD P6 Town Car had style. It was not just a plain box with extended appendages for bumpers at each end, even though it looked like a Cordoba from the front!!
Does it count as the CC Effect that I saw an earlier generation (I think maybe ’73ish) Country Squire on the road last week? Like the featured car, it was an old beater, driven by a scruffy looking guy with a cigarette hanging from his lips. But I appreciated that this 50+ year old car was still on the road.
Single-eye LTDs were built thru the end of ’82. In 1983, all Panthers LTDs became Crown Victorias, instead of just a top-line trim level. With this, they had the 4-eye setup.
While I cannot contest anything Paul wrote describing the Box Panthers, I remember when they arrived and my impression of them back in 1979. THEY LOOKED BETTER THAN THE OLD FORDS. Polish? Yes, I did see an Eastern European design vibe there. The door frames looked like doors to a refrigerated wagon, thick and chunky with double bright trim. The severe squareness of that wagon did not have any clever design. The wheel wells didn’t fit. The whole look did look like a Chinese knock-off, BUT I liked it better than the 5000+ pound padded barges Ford made the previous decade. The 1979 Box Panther wasn’t where it eventually ended up by 1995 in looks – but the proportions were there. Back then, I actually had hope for Ford. First, the Fairmont & Mustang, then the Panther and Escort. It finally looked like Dearborn wanted to stay in business. Ford fell to 4th place in 1981, but their renewal was ready for the next step – Taurus.
Paul, the wagon has tail lights that looked totally screwed on like they were bought in the Soviet Union. The Panther worked because instead of trying to pass a 5000 pound car off as sleek, the Panther, with its Eastern Block fashion sense, showed styling that for the first time, appear purposeful. Like a tractor. That was good.
I really wanted to like these wagons, but could never get there. By the final years (ending in 1991) they looked better in some respects, with a smoother front end and some of the corners smoothed off. I remember wondering if I should look at a leftover 91 after learning that the wagons would disappear for 92, but they seemed pricey to me. And my less-than-satisfying experience with the powertrain in my 1985 sedan didn’t help. Any desire I had for one of these wagons went away after I got a load of the 1992+ E series Club Wagons.
I don’t know, to me the final years looked much worse. Yes, the front ends were cleaned up and rounded off some, with the bumpers neatly tucked in. Which then made it appear so jarringly different from the back end of the wagon, which retained all of its angularity, including that straight-cut bumper sticking out the sides of the car — a complete disconnect from front to rear.
I understand of course it wouldn’t have made sense for Ford to retool a lot of new rear end parts for such a low-volume vehicle. But could they not at least have integrated the new narrower rear bumper?
My dad had the Grand Marquis, which is based on the same platform. My biggest gripe was the side view mirrors being placed so far back on the doors, even though it no longer had those vent windows. I presume that was the reason for such a design.
Slainte!
My Dad owned two Ford wagons in a row, a ’69 Squire and a ’73 Ranch wagon, both bought new. I know he bought the ’73 to avoid the GM wagon clamshell tailgate, which he disliked…that of course went away on the ’77 GM downsized but “full sized” wagons.
He was in the market for what turned out to be his last wagon in the fall of ’78. Part of that might be that wagons seemed to go away, in favor of mini-vans in the early 80’s but our family was also growing out of them…my twin sister and I were out of school in ’80, just my two youngest sisters remained at their home, so need for a wagon was no longer there. And their pop-top camping days were pretty much over, Dad liked a big car even to pull the pop-top (which was 20′, pretty big for a pop-top) but I didn’t have much vacation my first years of work, and I was his partner setting it up (we pretty much had a drill going, we could set up or down pretty quickly) but my sisters weren’t much interested in camping as they got older, also they’d moved from Vermont to Texas, and with no air conditioning they figured their camping days were behind them.
Still in ’78, Dad wanted another wagon. He looked at these, which had just come out. I don’t know what it was, but Dad decided to defect to GM instead, buying a left-over ’78 Caprice Classic wagon. I guess he could have gotten a leftover ’78 full sized Ford wagon, maybe it was the worse gas mileage that concerned him (his ’73 wasn’t great with the 400 2bbl). Not sure, maybe the ’79 offered the 351 (which he’d also had in the ’69, but probably with less emissions equipment).
The Caprice Classic was probably the nicest car he ever owned (he never bought a luxury car, this was about the closest to one). It only had the 305, but of course it was much smaller than the Ranch Wagon. Today it wouldn’t seem very plush, but back then most things were options, even if you bought the top trim package. His had A/C (not too common in Vermont yet), AM/FM stereo, power windows and locks (the Ranch Wagon had power locks but manual windows, this was his first car with power windows). Probably had trailer towing package (not sure)…and deluxe gage package (with vacuum fuel economy gage). Dad didn’t want the 8 passenger seating, he preferred to use the space in the back for storage, without the seat padding it was a bit bigger. It was the only car he bought out of the showroom of the dealership (Shearer Chevy on Shelburne Rd in South Burlington).
So he missed the Panthers completely. After the ’78 was in an accident he replaced it with an ’84 Pontiac Sunbird (a big mistake…it was likely the worst car he ever owned). He then got a ’86 Dodge 600, then qty-3 Mercury Sables in a row, followed by qty-2 Chevy Impalas in a row (my sister has his ’06, the most recent one). No more wagons, and FWD from ’84 on for him (he’s gone now).