1976 Ford LTD Country Squire

Seller now even lists this as a Ford 'clone "!

http://www.hemmings.com/classifieds/dealer/ford/unspecified/515171.html

Although we do have photos where the headlight covers close.

 

I sent the dealer this information, as I cut quotes from the previous discussions and sent them to him:

Hello Nick -
>
> I appreciate the response. There has been discussion on your car on
> one of the wagon forums, and it's brought up some interesting points
> and questions about your (quite nice!) red Ford wagon. I thought it
> would be easier to incorporate their comments with mine, to see if this
> was indeed a mix of more than one car being put together by a previous
> owner. Mind you. we are not picking apart the car, but there are some
> good questions being posed, and yes, there are some conflicting
> comments, making this all the more interesting!...
>
> -Steering wheel looks wrong for 1976.
> -...not too sure about the blacked out grill.
> -That's definitely a '70 - '74 steering wheel. Also the interior door
> handles are from a '73, and the emblem on the tailgate looks like it's
> from a '74 (the '76 emblem would be similar to the hood ornament).
> -That is a 73 instrument cluster - speedo + fuel needles and clock
> hands
> are white, they changed to red in 74. As already stated, 73 steering
> wheel and door arm rests. Looks like a 73 2.5 mph rear bumper too.
> Appears to be a 73 with a later model nose but...... But stated vin
> decodes as a 76 ???
>
> -That steering wheel looks like the ones in all 4 of my 78 and 79
> Thunderbirds. It was the base, not deluxe wheel.
> -Not even the correct hubcaps. And there is a lot of mishmash going on
> here
> -Country Sedan is right; that's a '73 instrument panel. It still has
> separate oil pressure and coolant temperature warning lights. By '75
> they'd reduced these to a single "engine" light.
> -...but as of '75 all the LTDs had two-spoke steering wheels with the
> ends
> turned down -- as opposed to the earlier "straight across" style seen
> in
> the photos for this car. I assume this was for improved visibility of
> the instruments. According to the brochure, even base LTDs in '76 had
> the "deluxe" steering wheel.
> -It also has 1973 seat belts, where the shoulder strap clips into the
> lap
> belt latch. Definitely something very wrong with this one. I would
> hazard a guess and say the headlamp doors don't work, either, as the 73
> did not have them.
>
> -Those are 73 Full wheel (not deluxe) covers.
>
> -Something strange about this car. I wonder if it is a '73 with a
> '75-76
> clip and titled as a '76? Too many thing about it are screaming '73
> model.
> -It's not a '75 front clip. The front marker light/turn signal
> housings
> on the '75 LTD Landau/Country Squire have body colored bars separating
> the segments. This car has the '76 - '78 style marker lights with
> chrome bars and the '75/'76 hood ornament, so, unless there was some
> mixing and matching of parts in the front clip, that indicates a '76.
> -Notice the '73 speedometer, in mph only! They were mandatory mph &
> km/h starting in 1975, IIRC.
>
> -I think Country Sedan may well be correct that this is actually a '73
> with a '76 - '78 front end. There are too many '73 parts on the car
> for
> it even to be a '76 with many replacement parts.
>
> -It also has a straight bench front seat. Per the brochure, Country
> Squires in '76 had a "flight bench" seat with center fold down armrest.
>

His response to my inquiry:

Thank god its a consignment and we don't own it then! Thanks for the input
Patrick.

Nick

Hence the "clone" reference in his updated ad! Thought you would get a kick out of that!

 

How funny! LOL!

 

Honestly, this is one of the best-looking Seventies Ford wagons I've seen for sale in a long time. A red Country Squire with red interior - my wife's nightmare color combo, but one of my dream combos, as far as wagons go. It's just so stinkin' expensive! Were it $7,500 or less, I'd be looking at it real.

 

The seller's got some 'splainin' to do.........
Then again, he could have bought it that way from somebody else and know nothing about all the parts mish-mash.

 

My fear is that if the VIN on the dash doesn't match that on the frame and other parts of the car, there could be difficulties titling the car. I know it's 38 or 41 years old, but in my state, at least, there would be all sorts of hoops to jump through if such an irregularity ever came to light.

It's certainly a nice enough looking vehicle, but for car show purposes (which is what I do with cars that age), it would suffer under more stringent judging due to its lack of authenticity.

By the way, my '75 CS doesn't have the dual scale speedometer, nor do my '76 CP or my Montego (and the Montego was built for the Canadian market). Looking at my brochures, it appears that the dual scale speedo may have been introduced on the '78 models. They were certainly installed by '79.

 

78 was the first year of the metric speedo/odo here in Canada. Our 75 Dart had both Imperial (predominant) and Metric (little wee blue numbers). No idea about when the dual calibration came in for the U.S. market, though.

 

Interesting news on this one....

It appears that movie/TV star Sarah Jessica Parker is the new owner of this wagon. She and the wagon were just featured with Jerry Seinfeld on his 'Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee' web show.

http://comediansincarsgettingcoffee.com/sarah-jessica-parker-a-little-hyper-aware

 

You're right, Marshall. Clearly the same wagon, but classic car aficionado Jerry Seinfeld could not find a 1970s American woody wagon to bring to New York for this bit closer than St. Louis, where this (much less than mint!) Country Squire was for sale? I don't get it. :confused:

Still - a nice comedy segment.

 

Everybody remember this: that shade of red interior is known as "Porno Red" over on Fullsizebronco.com.......