On the subject of cars, here's a pic from a brochure for an upcoming auction in Dallas. I'll take one of each

Doug

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But he still cussed Henry

To me, he might have even been a tad hypocritical. He disliked the way the Mustang had grown so large. But nearly every other model did the same thing. The Fairlane grew significantly from the early 60's up to its morphing into the Torino. That seemed to be a marketing ploy - get the new family guy into something mid-sized and affordable, and then, after a few years, when he's ready for something new and larger for his growing family, sell him that same model which is now a foot longer and 500 pounds heavier

Anyway, I've seen lots of models move to larger platforms over the years.

All that said, I agree with Lee - by 1973, the Mustang had become a turd

Doug

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Just think how many units would have sold if that 200 hp 6.6L 455 had put out horsepower like engines did before the (edit) before California ruined it for the rest of us!

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You old guys had all the fun

Seriously, growing up with all the late 60's hardware being sold, I anticipated that, by the time I turned 16 (in 1977) that I would get to enjoy some of that stuff. Instead, I got plain-jane, low-compression, unleaded, knocking-n-pinging crap

I looked in one book for 1973 which listed Ford having 4 different 351 Clevelands, and two 351 Windsor versions, and I don't think any one of them made over 140 horsepower

It was the mid-80's before we started seeing some truly good stuff again from Detroit.

Doug

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The 6.6's were still fun In those small cars, they could push you back in the seat a little bit. But, no doubt, a 1970-ish motor would have had twice the power.

Doug

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To their defense, they had California's emissions laws, the EPA's leaded fuel laws, the Arab oil embargo, and Carter's huge inflation issues to deal with. Even as some of the issues subsided, they had a long lasting effect on the industry and on consumers. It's a wonder Detroit didn't start selling mopeds. The Chrysler K car wasn't much more than a moped, but it saved the company.

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I'm lucky. I grew up with some dedicated car lovers. One friend and his dad loves 442's and have restored several. A pair of brothers are AMC fanatics and have restored many Javelins and AMX's. They still race a couple of AMX's, one of which was on the cover of Hot Rod, or maybe Popular Hot Rodding in the 80's. It was a launch shot at the Beach Bend drag strip in KY, IIRC. Everybody loves Mustangs, Camaros, and Chargers. These folks took the road less traveled and showed that some cool cars came from more than just Ford, Chevy, and Dodge.

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I think my criticism of Detroit in the 70's was that they seemed to have been caught off guard by many of those changes, as if maybe they had been hoping that the legislation might not be enacted or might be deferred.

For example, the 5mph bumpers looked like a 5-minute engineering hack job. Until the late 70's models started appearing with the fared in bumpers, all cars looked like they had cow catchers on them

Why wasn't that cosmetic fix already worked out when the new bumpers were introduced in 1973?

In the case of the unleaded fuel changeover, I can give them a little more slack. The sensors and electronics technologies weren't there yet. But it was quite clear that something other than vacuum diaphragms and bimetallic actuators were gonna be needed if they were gonna have cars that didn't sound like vacuum cleaners sucking ice cubes when you stood on the gas

Doug

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My neighbor at the end of the street had his 55 Chevy wagon in a four-page spread in Hot Rod magazine. It was fun watching him resurrect scrap heaps into show cars. He brought home a 36 Chevy which looked like it'd been out in the rain for 30 years. When he got all the rust off the B pillar, the wood underneath was exposed !!

Anyway, I don't think he ever knew what an impact he made on me.

Doug

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I've been hunting for the picture online but I haven't found it yet. It may have just been an article covering the races with a photo inside. Thirty years have made things hazy. The brothers race a solid red AMX and a R/W/B one. I think I remember the pic being of the solid red one, both are 69 models, iirc. I did find a R/W/B launching on a Hod Rod cover, but it's a guy from up north.

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