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The Green Lean Machine - 1974 Ford LTD Leaving the GGG


Junkman

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Thing is, it's not a bossman's car at all.

If you take the most average American dad of 1974 and then find another one, who is even more average than the most average one,

you have found the man who bought financed it new. He lives in a godforsaken place called Bareass, Missouri and the highlight of his life

is having a night out once a year in - say - Abilene, Kansas, at a bar where he has a drink, which means exactly that to him.

He would sip on a tin of diluted water for one and a half hours, then say gosh, that was fun, I'll do that again next year.

Oh, and he voted for Nixon.

 

Eddy has his boss's car. Danthecapriman his supervisor's.

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Thing is, it's not a bossman's car at all.

If you take the most average American dad of 1974 and then find another one, who is even more average than the most average one,

you have found the man who bought financed it new. He lives in a godforsaken place called Bareass, Missouri and the highlight of his life

is having a night out once a year in - say - Abilene, Kansas, at a bar where he has a drink, which means exactly that to him.

He would sip on a tin of diluted water for one and a half hours, then say gosh, that was fun, I'll do that again next year.

Oh, and he voted for Nixon.

 

Eddy has his boss's car. Danthecapriman his supervisor's.

Haha, Bareass! Is that actually a place or did you make it up?

 

I actually have your average dads dads car. Mercurys were always old men's (and women's) cars.

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Haha, Bareass! Is that actually a place or did you make it up?

I made it up.

Real places in America are either named after the last Indian killed there, or the guy who killed the last Indian there.

 

I actually have your average dads dads car. Mercurys were always old men's (and women's) cars.

Unless they were doctors, in which case they drove Buicks.

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I think I bought this a little.

 

Green Motoring, all 224 Inches of it!

 

35307061103_f206a34f9a_h.jpg

 

35946425982_c3ad30799d_h.jpg

 

 

1974 Ford LTD with the 400M 2V, older Stateside resto with some shonkyness attached, the cigarette lighter is working, hence it has no Blues.

Collection will not commence immediately, in fact, the seller in all fairness gives me the chance to flog some of my chod to be still unable to accommodate it.

 

OMG, what have I done?

Thanks God I'm not reponsible for my actions, otherwise I'd be fucked!

Just seen this.

 

 

Fucking hell. You awesome bastard.

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You do realise that 1970s cars have a negative carbon footprint now?  They've long since repaid the resources that were used to make them, simply by surviving so long.  If you want to warm the globe, JM, you will have to find another way, like buying a new Prius.

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Thing is, it's not a bossman's car at all.

If you take the most average American dad of 1974 and then find another one, who is even more average than the most average one,

you have found the man who bought financed it new. He lives in a godforsaken place called Bareass, Missouri and the highlight of his life

is having a night out once a year in - say - Abilene, Kansas, at a bar where he has a drink, which means exactly that to him.

He would sip on a tin of diluted water for one and a half hours, then say gosh, that was fun, I'll do that again next year.

Oh, and he voted for Nixon.

 

Eddy has his boss's car. Danthecapriman his supervisor's.

I have never read a better description of what the American dream is.

 

Congratulations on purchasing a huge slice of it.

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I have never read a better description of what the American dream is.

 

Congratulations on purchasing a huge slice of it.

 

Thank you!

 

From 'The Insolent Chariots' by John Keats, published in 1958:

 

 

65% of our population consists of the upper-lower and lower-middle classes and, naturally, this represents a vast bulk of the nation's consumers.

Since market research also shows that women do 80% of America's buying, it seemed obvious to [...] Detroit that this "Middle majority woman

is the target you are supposed to hit."

 

National advertising usually portrays the American woman as a pretty (but not too pretty), intelligent (bright, but not brainy) well groomed (but far from chic)

female (but not unduly macromastiac) engaged in some interesting (but not unusual) situation. Such advertising is just throwing fish to the seals,

because the fact, naturally, is that the majority of our womenfolk fall into the upper-lower and lower-middle classes, and hence are apt to be somewhat

paunchy, mentally myopic drabs with straight hair. This Judy O'Grady works harder than the Colonel's Lady, keeps a dull routine, is happy only with

familiar things and tends to view the world outside her cage as dangerous and threatening. Her imaginative resources are highly limited and this is

very important. Her emotional life is highly restricted and repressed, spontaneity is very low, she has a strong moral code that presses in on her

most of the time, and she feels a deep sense of guilt when she deviates from it.

Whether these assumptions are correct is entirely unimportant. What is important is that Detroit is spending a lot of its customers' money - yours

and mine - to build a dreamboat that will be simultaneously pleasing to a leacherous goat and acceptable to a woman that Detroit privately envisions

as a dull, repressed, unimaginative, blowsy fright.

Thus, we now begin to see why Ford Motor Company spent millions of dollars to find floor covering that duplicates the rug in the average woman's

living room.

 

[...]

 

Life in Detroit must take on magic hues when the problems become so involved. Imagine what fun it must be to be a Detroit designer, and know

that you have to design a symbol of aggressive masculinity for the man, and at the same time contrive to keep the contraption from outraging

the sensibilities of the repressed nag whose opinion will probably determine the sale.

How do you market something that is a symbol of speed, sex, wealth and power to Pop when it must also appear unimaginative, unspontaneous,

routine and unexciting for Mom?

Detroit's answer to date is that you, as a designer, need not do anything well.

First, you start with a basic shape - an oblong over four wheels, with a smaller oblong on top, like a matchbox on a shoebox. You do not depart

from this basic pattern lest you trend into the area of the unique and the unfamiliar. Then, you put breast shaped bumps on the bumpers and

a gaudy stern on the thing to tintillate Pop. You shove Mum's rug inside. You load the car with with enough power to to make Pop think he's

the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, and you put a plastic pad on the dashboard to let Mom know she won't crack her skull when

the power brakes catch.

 

 

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How weird to think that car was once considered fairly normal.

 

Forgive the slight thread detour, but this!

 

Yes, once upon a time a car like this would have been considered fairly normal. Does that not show how mankind is in many respects regressing!?

Why can we make and use such awesome huge cars then 20 or 30 years later look at the utter utter shit on sale now. I mean come on ffs! We're going backwards. What the hell happened!?

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I remember visiting my folks in Canada in the early 80s.   Their pastor had an LTD like this.   Yep, they were normal.   As normal as a 1.6L Cortina in Tawny Beige metallic with a tan interior was over here.   Old guys drove 'em, old ladies drove 'em.    

 

Going backwards?    We have disappared up our own arse.

 

Awesome purchase, Junkman!

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I think I bought this a little.

 

Green Motoring, all 224 Inches of it!

 

35307061103_f206a34f9a_h.jpg

 

35946425982_c3ad30799d_h.jpg

 

 

1974 Ford LTD with the 400M 2V, older Stateside resto with some shonkyness attached, the cigarette lighter is working, hence it has no Blues.

Collection will not commence immediately, in fact, the seller in all fairness gives me the chance to flog some of my chod to be still unable to accommodate it.

 

OMG, what have I done?

Thanks God I'm not reponsible for my actions, otherwise I'd be fucked!

 

 

 

Ooh fuck me sideways. If that had been a 1971/2 Galaxie or LTD, I'd be your bestest ever mate. 

 

Still 101% heroic though. Well scored.

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Glorious.

Does the Junkwoman approve? Or know?

 

She was laughing her arse off.

 

Mind you, she's from a farm in Nova Scotia, so she doesn't get the concept that they are somewhat exotic over here.

For her, it's the most normal thing to buy for a normal dad, so she finds it funny that exactly I would buy something like this.

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A glorious barouche like this requires a wardrobe of scratchy synthetic fibre clothing in a variety of dull earth tones and a soundtrack rich with wa-wa pedal. The temporary guardian of this tremendous locomotive deserves an award of some kind, the Order of Distinguished Shite Ownership; it will look like a Feu Orange air freshener to the uninitiated but will be made of swarovski crystal and faux carbon fibre.

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