Irony is a difficult word to define, but so is “hipster.” Yet the two seem to share a comfortable coexistence when it comes to automobiles. I’ve occasionally wondered if my choice to daily drive a 39 year old diesel sedan and penchant for confusing T-shirts puts me fully into the hipster category.
The answer is significantly easier when it comes to this straight piped American sedan with imitation period bumper stickers and a healthy dose of patina.
Before we get into the curious modifications this particular example has received, let’s discuss the underlying car. The second generation of Ford’s swanky full sized LTD has had no end of ink spilled over it, so I’ll be brief. This particular car started out as a stylish green over green LTD Landau, the top trim level from 1975-1978. All these years later, it’s still sporting its original wheel trims.
Now whether its relatively intact original appearance a good thing is the subject of much debate. Many CC authors have heaped quite a bit of hate on the refreshed second gen LTD two doors in particular for their lack of oomph to accompany a curious downgrade in styling grace. Whatever you think of the car, there certainly is a lot of it, and that makes an impression. That shock power is channeled well in today’s car. It’s an ironic take on one of the most malaisey broughams of an already excess-prone bunch.
This particular example was clearly a clean, original car before its seemingly recent path toying the line between art car and hot rod. It has some recent auxiliary gauges but otherwise looks like it could be a mere 5 or 6 years old rather than 45+.
The owner must have spent a long time curating this excellent selection of semi-period correct ironic bumper stickers.
I’ve danced around the particular modifications to this LTD until now. The most obvious visual transformation is this ironic take on the brougham look with a heavily SpongeBob inspired floral patterned roof. I’ve spotted other cars that received a house paint refinish, but this LTD is much more artful than most.
We need to talk about this. The flappy capped straight diesel exhaust. Diesel? How do I know?
The main clue is the massive “diesel fuel only” sticker on the driver’s side C pillar (barely visible in the photo). The suspension riding a little high in the front is also a giveaway for a lighter engine swap.
Since this car also had stickers from a particularly ambitious student racing organization, I knew I’d find internet documentation of this car. Sure enough, a Grassroots Motorsports build thread provides our answer. It was given a Mercedes OM617 Turbodiesel swap exactly like in the 1985 Mercedes-Benz 300D I pulled to the curb to gawk at this beast. Being familiar with that engine, putting it in a car over 500 lbs heavier than what it was meant to power is a bit ambitious.
This LTD strikes a certain chord with me. On one hand, it’s a fairly intact old full sized boat with an excellent patina. On the other hand, it’s a joyously irreverent middle finger to the environment and the haters alike. This car certainly jives with the energy of the scrappy Atlanta, Georgia neighborhood in which it was spotted. What do y’all think?
For a detailed write-up on this car, why and how the conversion was done, and how it’s been used, here’s the link to the full story:
Related CC reading:
Welcome Gray!
Yikes. It’s a testament (or something) to variations in state motor vehicle laws that this LTD is allowed to both wear plates and be parked on city streets. Don’t try that in the Northeast.
Well, maybe Vermont…
Thank you for including the link to the Grassroots site, as it’s after reading that where I start to appreciate how much fun these folks had in creating that thing. I have to say (after what the creator says) that driving it sounds/looks next to impossible, but for the situation that he created it for, it also sounds/looks like a heck of a lot of fun.
Aside from the potential for it to be loud, there’s nothing obviously wrong with it. The donor car never had a catalytic converter but the LTD did. I’m curious where the law falls on that. Regardless, diesels in Georgia don’t have to be inspected so it’s all academic.
Thanks for letting me know you enjoyed the post. It’s my first here but it won’t be my last.
Well, it’s definitely not getting registered in California. But even here in Massachusetts, because of age, I think it’s pretty much good to go. Last week when I had the 48 year old Volvo inspected, the inspection mechanic (roughly 30 years younger than the car) asked after affixing the sticker if it was “a diesel”. Clearly she never looked under the hood…because she didn’t need to. 🙂
(yeah, I probably need to get to that valve adjustment too…)
Yes, reading the Grassroots Motorsports link is essential (as Paul notes, below).
And I definitely look forward to more posts!
I think this would fall into quite the gray area in Mass. Essentially the qualifier for engine swaps is that you can’t put something in that would increase emissions for a given vehicle in its year of production. However, anything 15 years or older is emissions exempt, except for an obvious “gross polluter” (visible noxious smoke from the tailpipe).
Here the pipe isn’t at the tail… lol
Not getting the point of this car. Guess if you’re very bored and have nothing else to do…….
I encourage you to read the full story via the link I’ve just added at the end of the post and here:
https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/build-projects-and-project-cars/the-ltdiesel-hippie-road-furniture/254184/page1/
Well, it certainly rings a bell in Uruguay. For many years, the diesel swap of cars that were not older than 5 years was an industry. It’s been too many years, but I remember an LTD with a Perkins 4.203, which is way worse than the OM617 for this application. Of course, the whole point was to lower fuel consumption, speed and agility be damned. American full or mid sizers were typical, but by no means the only receivers of the swaps. The only concession to drivability used to be exchanging the automatic for a 5 speed with a truck like gear lever. Yes, they looked terrible.
Thanks for sharing this interesting car, Gray.
The OM617 turbodiesel is reasonably thrifty for a big five cylinder but with diesel frequently being much more expensive than gasoline here, the savings just don’t make sense.
Historically, Americans seem to prefer more power with the same fuel economy whenever engine technology gets better. I’d like to see a little more thriftiness return to our market.
Weird… I’d think a GM/Olds diesel swap would make a lot more sense, IF one could find a good late “improved” one and stomach putting GM power into a Ferd. Then again…
More torque is what this needs. And I’d hope none of my cars would look like that after only 6 year! 16 maybe, but 6….? Even back then it’s have looked better than that!
The age comment was supposed to be limited to the condition of the interior. It’s honestly more intact than a lot of couple year old cars I see driving around though.
The OM617 turbodiesel is pretty slow to gather momentum off the line but you’d be surprised how well it pulls at the right spot in the rev range.
This is a bit of tomfoolery that warms my curmudgeonly heart.
Good for this guy, frittering away the time and resources of his youth at such absurdly fun pursuits. I think everything about this is awesome.
He’s going to need a generous supply of homemade window cleaner.
I always loved Ford’s emerald green interiors from the late 70s!
Behold the “FordCedes!” Good on the guy and his friends that created her!
This reminds me of a small paperback book that I bought when I was a teenager and still have on my library shelf: “Practical Engine Swapping” The first line of the book goes something like this. “Yes, you can swap a hemi into a Honda Civic, but is it practical?” 😉
If the donor car weren’t from 1978, my first thought would, once again, be ‘Havana’.
I’m not entirely positive this qualifies as hipster level, either. Seems like that ethos is way more minimalist. I don’t think I’ll ever think of anything else as the ultimate hipster-mobile as a bare-bones, early-sixties Ford Falcon. In that regard, a late seventies LTD, even with Mercedes diesel power, would seem like an extravagance.
These are the same people that subject themselves to riding ‘fixie’ bicycles which require a definite technique to stop, i.e., skid to a halt since the pedals will always be in motion with the rear wheel.
If you read his forum posts (see the link Paul provided) it was all tongue in cheek exercise which got started because (a) he didn’t want to recondition the original engine and (b) the OM became surplus to requirements on account of an SBC swap. That, and there were a couple of events for low buck cars he wanted to do. It obviously makes no sense whatever otherwise; at the very least to obtain some semblance of “performance” you’d need to have it mated to a manual box with ratios complimenting this engine’s characteristics. These engines CAN, in fact, be modified to about 200 hp (and more but then reliability suffers) which should be enough to allow the LTD to cruise at 70-80 mph all day with acceptable acceleration for merging into a highway, overtaking etc. That, however, is a completely different matter…
Interesting .
I find it sad that the 1960’s inspired roof graphics have been co – opted by Sponge Bob . I don’t mind that character, just the change in meaning .
Anyways, back to the car .
It’s clean and apart from the exterior paint seems in VGC, if the owner likes it and it drives okay no reason why not replace an ailing emissions choked engine with an OM617, *if* it’s from a S Klasse or a newer than mid 1981 W123 it’ll have a peppier turbo charger that will make it get right along *if* it’s properly tuned, I can’t imagine this old Ford weighing more than a ponderous Mercedes S Klasse four door sedan and those weren’t slow .
I know bupkis about Hipsters, the local ones don’t care one whit about how their vehicle runs, it’s all just front and who gives a care about front ? .
The shortie exhaust makes it look rather foolish but again, if that’s what the person paying for it wants, who’s to say no ? .
I’m off to read the linked article and hopefully gain some knowledge .
-Nate
Diesel swaps into anything were popular in NZ, the favourite engine pick was the RD Nissan turbo or not, they are kinda gutless for a diesel 6 but they run on nothing and are reliable.
I think this is pretty cool. Having owned (yea I admit it) 77 LTD Land Cow, this engine has to be much better than the 400 ours had.
The irony to me is how many GM diesels were converted to gas-the exact opposite!
Great article
FYI: the word is “jibes”, not “jives”.
Also FYI: back in the 1940’s “jive” was a euphemism for marijuana.
I don’t know if this would have a chance of passing thru the Calif BAR or not. I used to be up on it and got a car or two thru. It used to be the engine going in had to be no older than the vehicle, and every single bit of OE equipment had to be there, intact and working. If you dotted your i’s, crossed all your T’s and it passed smog for the year of the engine, you were in! My dealings with them showed them to be extremely tight, but not chicken^^^^. Subtle, but significant difference.
Unless they deleted the EGR, which is common, the only piece of equipment this car is missing are the two factory mufflers, which aren’t really part of the engine assembly anyways. I’ve heard it and it’s not actually very loud, so it genuinely might pass as-is. No catalytic converters to worry about on a diesel.
Being a turbodiesel, the turbo does a pretty effective job at muffling the exhaust all by itself. I know some guys in the local VW-Audi enthusiast scene who straight-pipe their turbo engines (diesel and gas alike) for a sportier note that still isn’t very loud, and I gather the modern Fiat 500 Abarth gets its delightful exhaust note from a similar approach.
“it’s a joyously irreverent middle finger to the environment and the haters alike.”
After reading the Grassroots article on this car linked by Paul above, it’s hard to get a bead on this. The car is a glorious project by someone scrappy, knowledgeable, and enthusiastic. Coal roller or not, I respect that, and I don’t get much of a sense of him showing a middle finger to anyone. The bumper stickers? Who knows.
I’ve never personally liked the “middle finger to everyone” approach. There’s iconoclastic irreverence, and then there’s emotionally-immature provocation. I’ve been seeing a LOT of the latter in recent years and now there’s a certain six-figure electric truck that seems to be a straight-from-the-factory-floor expression of it. I won’t accuse this LTD owner of any of that.
Long may this Merc-hearted Ford chuff and clatter.
I’d prefer the 78 LTD 460 we took in trade over 40 years ago from a retired statie – Police package . Acceleration was not too incredible off the line but pretty strong over 35 ish. Very clean car.
The movie “Uncle Buck” comes to mind (yeah, I know he had a Merc).
Well, my Dad rather than my Grandfather owned one of these, 50 years ago, and I guess had there not been issues with gas supply maybe 50 years later I’d own one as well. Didn’t appreciate them when they were new (and common) but have since come about. I was working at Hertz as a transporter in ’77 and ’78 but never drove one of these full sized ones (the LTD II as well as Thunderbird were common rentals from our location; back then Hertz specialized in Ford; guess they really can’t now since Ford really no longer sells cars (other than the Mustang which I think of as a specialty car)). Funny thing our location also didn’t seem to have Pintos nor Mavericks, but Granadas and (in ’78) Fairmonts were also typical fare. Even more interesting I don’t think we had any Broncos or similar though we were in the snow belt in the wintertime, though a heavy RWD car seemed to suit most people OK I guess back then.
I know these take a lot of flack, but they were really comfortable cruisers, and (as I get older I really appreciate these) you don’t have to squat down to enter or exit them…they are (at least for me) about ideal for ingress/egress. Yes they did slather on the questionable luxury stuff on some models, but you could also get very comfortable cloth interior (I’m a big fan of cloth especially in the sun belt where I live). For awhile you could even buy base models that didn’t have all the plush stuff but were still the same space and height wise.
Seems like ’78 was the end for the really big “standard” cars…maybe luxury models held out for a couple years more before also downsizing. And yes, these probably really were a bit too big, with the early 70’s bulk retained in the final year as well. But you could do a lot with these, with lots of trunk room and reasonable passenger space, and ability to do some towing as well. But they still had the pretty low-tech V8s that didn’t give great mileage, wonder if one with modern (maybe truck) engine might get OK mileage (the Crown Victoria was a bit smaller and it got pretty good mileage for a V8, guess because these might be a bit lower than a truck with similar engine.
Anyhow, age and wear and tear (plus rust in some places) have done in most of these so they’re an unusual sight, at least where I live….I think these might have a similar image problem to a minivan, in that most even older people would prefer a crossover or SUV (or truck) since it has “possibility” of a less sedentary lifestyle than one of these, but if these still were sold new, I’d likely consider one, image isn’t really something I care much for versus something that just fits my needs (albeit at an advancing age).