Ford Maverick -

[Number_35]

Originally Posted By: Olas
Originally Posted By: Virtus_Probi
Originally Posted By: Shannow
Originally Posted By: Donald
I always thought the original Maverick was a wanna-be or poor man's Mustang.

Didn't they name the Pinto a Mustang at one stage ???

The Mustang II was a sorry POS that bore a vague resemblance to a two door Maverick/Comet.
I remember being out at recess in grade school and some kid running around yelling about the principal having a new Mustang...a bunch of us ran out into the staff parking lot to check it out. We searched high and low and couldn't find it, finally one kid pointed and sadly said, "I found it..."
It was a nasty looking piece of junk. I can't remember if I said it, "THIS is a MUSTANG??"

There was a hatch version that did look a lot like a Pinto, forgot about those!


EDIT - this is from wiki, so take it with a grain of salt...info about the '75 Mustang II with a new optional V8.
'"With oil crisis memories starting to fade" Ford needed a V8 in the Mustang II to return "performance to respectable levels." The engine bay was re-engineered to accept the 302 cu in (4.9 L) V8 option for the 1975 model year, with revised hood and header panel. The engine was limited to a two-barrel carburetor and "net" 140 hp (104 kW; 142 PS). Since Ford's Mexican division never lost the V8, they assisted in the modifications.
Testing by Road & Track "recorded zero to 96 km/h (60 mph) in 10.5 seconds, and a top speed of 171 km/h (106 mph)." The Mustang II's 302 cu in engine became Ford's first officially designated metric V8 Mustang; it was called the "5.0 L" even though its capacity was 4.942 L.'
Wow - 140HP/104kW and a 10.5 second 0-60 from a V8.



140 HP from 5 litres and 8 cylinders?!? When did Ford employ blind retarded engine builders with paralysed hands?
We commonly see 80-100 HP/l with 1 atmosphere. What did they get so catastrophically wrong?
These engines were still carbureted, and were laden with air pumps and all sorts of doodads on the carburetor in an attempt to reduce emissions and still maintain adequate driveability. HP ratings took a kicking. Torque ratings remained fine. This 'malaise' era lasted until fuel injection replaced these very complex carburetors. A confounding factor is that around this time (c. 1970) manufacturers were required to state net HP at the wheels rather than the more impressive HP-at-the-flywheel figures.

 

[Number_35]

Originally Posted By: Virtus_Probi
I'm amazed that Ford would bring this name back, as the old US Maverick was just an abysmally poor vehicle in the '70s.
My parents had a '66 Mercury Comet (same thing) that was OK, the yellow paint had dulled to the point that it looked like crayon or chalk on metal but that wasn't unusual for cars that weren't waxed regularly back then. At least that car lasted long enough for me to remember it when I was a boy in the early to mid '70s.
They then had a Maverick and a Comet, both of mid '70s vintage, and it was good to have two since one was usually out of service for some problem or another. Dad could usually fix things well enough to get them back on the road so they weren't in the shop all the time, but they were not much fun to drive and the '76 Comet they bought new was especially bad because it didn't have power steering. I can still remember my mom grunting and crying out in frustration as she tried to maneuver that thing at low speeds, and even I found it to be a bit of a chore to crank that steering wheel in a parking lot. The first car I bought didn't have power steering, either, but it was a breeze to drive in comparison. Dad seemed to be out with the bondo almost every warm weekend patching up those rustbuckets, too.
Dad offered me my choice of one of his three cars (two were his and mom had passed away, but he kept her car) when I graduated college and I immediately told him I wanted his '76 Nova, which seemed like a Caddy to me compared to those sorry Fords. I knew dad was sorry to see his Nova go, but he bought himself a used Marquis not long after that and he thought the world of that car.
I moved back to Chicago to join Motorola in the early '90s and was amazed to see that a guy there was still driving a Maverick...I felt like I hadn't seen one of them in years at that point. That tells you something when the last model year was '77, 15 years later they were true rarities on the road. This car actually looked really nice and I'm sure it was only the owner's love, hard work, and skill that kept it going until then.
In '76 I was in college and working part-time at a newspaper. The company bought two new pool cars, a '76 Maverick and a '76 Nova. There was no comparison - the Nova seemed light years ahead in refinement, steering, handling, ride, etc. This in spite of the Maverick being a 302 V8 and the Nova a 250 inline-6.

 

[Shannow]

Really appreciative of the way that this thread has progressed.

Lots of personal experiences. Thanks.

 

[quint]

I had a 1977 Mustang II with the 5.0 2bbl back in the mid-80's. The engine and trans were stock, but the rear end had swapped gears so it was a torque beast. It would rip the tires from a standstill for as long as you held your foot down, sounded good, and accelerated like rabid dog up until about 60 or so, but as soon as you hit 80-85 mph, you were absolutely done accelerating. Something was always needing attention, and you could almost hear it rusting. I see them at car shows from time to time, and I'd love to have one again for old times sake. But they were pretty miserable little cars. Just like most other stuff of that era.

 

[PimTac]

Couldn’t they come up with a new name instead of rehashing the old ones?

The Maverick was junk.

 

[Sierra048]

I used to drive my parents late sixties Mercury Comet. I actually forgot about that car. It certainly wasn't memorable, but for a new driver without his own wheels, it was certainly better than nothing. I was really hoping I could snag my grandparents 1963 Ford Falcon but that didn't pan out so I ended up with a wrecked, hand me down, held together by bondo, 1963 VW bug instead. It was still better than nothing.

 

[Virtus_Probi]

Originally Posted By: Number_35
In '76 I was in college and working part-time at a newspaper. The company bought two new pool cars, a '76 Maverick and a '76 Nova. There was no comparison - the Nova seemed light years ahead in refinement, steering, handling, ride, etc. This in spite of the Maverick being a 302 V8 and the Nova a 250 inline-6.

I moved from Chicago to Dallas not long after dad gave me the Nova and I'm not sure I would have felt comfortable taking either the Maverick or the Comet on that drive. I actually made the drive three times, I was lounging around after graduation waiting for my job to start and my dad came up to me in a very agitated state and said I needed to get my car insurance straightened out before I moved. I told him I thought I could just call, but he was very insistent that I needed to head down there and take care of it in person. This was pretty crazy, but I started to think it would be fun to head down there and find a place to live, get furniture, explore, etc. A friend drove down with me and it was pretty fun, but we got in a huge fight on the way back (he wanted to drive and my dad made me swear to the heavens that I would not let him) and didn't talk to each other for months after that. I lounged around home for a few more weeks and then moved down with what little junk I had piled in the Nova.
Of course, once I got to work I figured out that my company would have put me up in a nice hotel for up to a month while I found an apartment...I was actually a little jealous of my coworkers who took advantage of that. Dad had lived within a 5 mile radius except for going off to war from '42-45, so he didn't know anything about making a big move for work...he was also around 70 by then and I think he was starting to get just a bit senile, with emphasis on the paranoia that can accompany it.

A memory about the Maverick my parents owned popped into my head, I was home from college on winter break and driving way off to the NW suburbs to meet a HS friend at his parents' new house. It was snowing a bit and the wind was really howling, and I was forced to roll my window down every so often to pay tolls. I was really cranking fast to get the window back up at one toll, and, of course, the mechanism stripped with the window still about halfway down. I still wanted to see my friend, so I finished the drive out despite being super cold and even getting a little wet and drove back home later...at least he drove me around when we went out near his place.
I thought dad was going to be really cheesed at me, but he just said those cranks were total garbage when I showed him and I think he even had some spares on hand because he had stripped them before.

 

[Jim K]

Ford is getting rid of half their cars . I am not in the market for gas eating SUV`s.

 

[PimTac]

Originally Posted By: Jimkobb
Ford is getting rid of half their cars . I am not in the market for gas eating SUV`s.




Ford is getting rid of more than half their cars and not all SUVs are gas guzzlers. Times have changed.

 

[MCompact]

My parents had a 1974 Maverick LDO V8. Garbage. My girlfriend in law school had a 1975 Mustang II V8. Just as horrible.
Both cars encouraged me to work hard and get a good paying job- so that I would NEVER have to drive automotive trash like that again...

 

[hatt]

We had several Mavericks around. Yellow propane powered I6. My brother had a Maverick Grabber! My sister totaled a couple 302 Comets complete with air shocks in the back and Keystone Classics mags.

 

[Virtus_Probi]

Originally Posted By: MCompact
My parents had a 1974 Maverick LDO V8. Garbage. My girlfriend in law school had a 1975 Mustang II V8. Just as horrible.
Both cars encouraged me to work hard and get a good paying job- so that I would NEVER have to drive automotive trash like that again...


Ha!
So they were positive forces in your life... ;^)
The amazing thing is that the Mustang II sold really well when it first came out...people wanted cars with decent gas mileage and I guess the Mustang name still had some resonance. Guess it didn't take too long for people to figure out they were pretty shaky...

 

[PimTac]

I remember a lot of cars like the Maverick back in those days with huge rusted out holes in the back end. Lots of tape and plastic helped.

 

[Virtus_Probi]

Originally Posted By: PimTac
I remember a lot of cars like the Maverick back in those days with huge rusted out holes in the back end. Lots of tape and plastic helped.

BONDO!!
My dad became a whiz at slapping this on with a putty knife. He didn't even bother to try to paint it after a while, it wasn't worth the effort.

Well, I guess bondo wasn't really of much use if the hole was huge...dad would start slapping it on as spots started to rust through and he'd end up with some strange matrix of metal, rust, and bondo over time as he patched more and more small spots.

 

[Virtus_Probi]

This photo is pretty much the 1970s US in a nutshell for me...

 

[Silverado12]

Originally Posted By: PimTac
Originally Posted By: Jimkobb
Ford is getting rid of half their cars . I am not in the market for gas eating SUV`s.




Ford is getting rid of more than half their cars and not all SUVs are gas guzzlers. Times have changed.


Yes, my wife's Jeep Cherokee gets 26 mpg average. It does just shy of 30 on a trip.

 

[Shannow]

Here's Oz's mid size offerings in 1975...

Chrysler Centura...available in 4, and 6, up to and including the Oz grown 265 c.i. (in E49 Charger trim, triple webers, that was good for 224 rated kW). Although 1975 was ADR27A, with the engines being emasculated with EGR and spark advance control.

Ford had the Cortina. 1.6L 4, the 2.0 Pinto engine, and 200/250 6 cylinders.

Holden had the Torana 1.9 (Opel) or 2.0 (Holden) 4 cyl. 173 or 202 c.i. sixes, or 253/308 V-8s.

 

[CR94]

Originally Posted By: Shannow
Really appreciative of the way that this thread has progressed.

Lots of personal experiences. Thanks.
I'd say too much confusion, misinformation, and foggy memories in this thread to address.

 

[Silk]

That Centura is a Hillman Avenger - I can't imagine how they would've gone with a 265 in there, they had enough trouble coping with the 1.6. I don't think we got the 6 cyl MkIII Cortina, but we had them in the MkIV, nice well powered car. They used a different front subframe from the English ones, and the 4 cyl version was the last Cortina we saw, as NZ production was focused on the Telstar.

 

[Silk]

This is the Australian MkIV Cortina 4 cyl...you can see the 4 badge. It had the cut back firewall for the 6 cyl engine, and the different subframe. Kiwi plate, and towbar on a 4 cyl are the giveaway for a NZ car. Oh, and the flags.