Ford Maverick -

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Definitely not the Maverick most of us are familiar with in the US:

1976-Ford-Maverick.+-+3.jpg
 
Originally Posted By: Silk
Whaaaat !!!??? That was the Safari for us, with the TD42.


We got petrol ones too...there's heaps of them on gas, but pretty sure they were aftermarket, just a LOT of them.

I doubt Ford would have used Safari here, following on from the Hillman Hunter Safari and Valiant Safari wagons.
 
Originally Posted By: 2015_PSD
Definitely not the Maverick most of us are familiar with in the US:

1976-Ford-Maverick.+-+3.jpg


I had one a few years older, vintage 1970, with the 200 I6. It had the worst transmission of any vehicle I owned. I picked it up as a beater to get me to and from college. The transmission was a C4, which were usually pretty good. This one would shift from first to third and skip second gear completely. I kept it a while, cleaned it up and sold it and made some $$ in the process. I couldn't be bothered with a repair or getting a rebuilt transmission. A pan drop, band adjustment, modulator, and filter replacement didn't work. The guy I sold it to kept it for many years without having it repaired.
 
Originally Posted By: Shannow
Originally Posted By: Silk
Whaaaat !!!??? That was the Safari for us, with the TD42.


We got petrol ones too...there's heaps of them on gas, but pretty sure they were aftermarket, just a LOT of them.

I doubt Ford would have used Safari here, following on from the Hillman Hunter Safari and Valiant Safari wagons.


I worked on Maverick's in the 90's as a Ford dealer mechanic, they were good vehicles. The LPG ones were definitely aftermarket installations. Interestingly, the petrol engines still ran carb, and a points distributor.
 
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.
 
My parents bought my sister one of these for $300 to drive to high school in the mid-70s. 3 in the tree/slant 6, it was a tinny little car, sort of the sad offspring of a Pinto and a Mustang or something. Yuck. Being the older brother I was highly pizzed as they never offered to buy me a car. Wisely.

1976-Ford-Maverick.+-+3.jpg
 
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 ???
 
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 ???


I do not remember that. But for a few years the size of Mustang changed and it was much smaller. Eventually they went back to basically the original size and its been that size since.
 
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.
 
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When I was a kid, my gorgeous, older than me next door neighbor had an orange Maverick. Then she got a dark green Mustang II. Even at 14, I told her she should have kept the Maverick.
I think they make cool hot rod raw material. They built a pretty cool one on Gas Monkey a while back.

There's a guy here on Long Island in one of those fastback Mustang II's all pro streeted with a narrowed rear, cage and blown 302. Neat little car.
 
Originally Posted By: 2015_PSD
Definitely not the Maverick most of us are familiar with in the US:

1976-Ford-Maverick.+-+3.jpg

a friend of mine bought a nice one for his daughter to drive to school. Don't have to worry about her friends driving it because none know how to shift a on the tree. That was his plan.
 
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?
 
Originally Posted By: Virtus_Probi

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.


That's it.

Was kicking around car yards in our nation's capital in the late 80s, and one of the dealers had a black "Mustang"..had fake gold Cobra on it by his own admission.

Thought that it looked totally Pinto..from an Oz perspective, having seen only ONE of those mustangs IRL, and zero pintos.

My Colorado would beat it to 100km/h
 
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 ???
Yes, no, sort of. The Mustang II was based on the Pinto - I think it used the Pinto chassis, and, in base form, the same 2.3 litre pushrod engine. It was sometimes referred to as the "Pintostang". The Pinto carried on in parallel. I think the last year for both was the '78 model year.

The Mustang II was actually quite a marketing triumph - Ford's prophets had apparently foreseen the 1st gasoline crisis in the US, and introduction of the downsized version of the Mustang for the '74 model year coincided perfectly. Small cars were "in", and the Mustang II was in hot demand. I think the Mustang II was Lee Iacocca's brainchild.
 
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