Oh my Jesus, what a turd. I had a '76 ltd 2 door with a 400, and it wouldn't pull a sick whore out of bed. What in fuck's name did they think that pos was gonna do better than the polara?
My parents were not "car people" in the least. Cars are appliances. The Polara was in pretty sorry shape by late '77, and to be honest, it was fairly junky for not being that old. Armrests falling off, glovebox that would open randomly, rearmost seatback half detached, and other nagging little problems signed the death warrant.
Funny thing about it: they did
live to regret that purchase. At no time during that LTD's life (and I do mean life--we were the only family ever to own that heap) did it ever achieve double-digit fuel economy. It averaged right around 7MPG, which was alarming since the fuel gauge never worked. It broke the day after we got the car and was never fixed, try though the dealer might. Every time you turned the key it was a crapshoot as to where the gauge would be. If Mom started the car and it read less than half, she'd top it off. That thing must've run out of fuel 30 times by the time we got rid of it, always with the gauge happily reading more than half a tank.
At 227K miles, a bright light that read HOT lit on the dash, and my sister apparently felt the car was paying her a compliment so she smiled and kept going the 25 miles home. I put coolant in it and it didn't go far for a while, so Mom didn't notice what I assumed to be a blown head gasket. Sure enough, a week later Sarah had it out at camp again and overheated it on the way home, cheerily noting the huge cloud behind her the entire way. More coolant, then Mom took it somewhere. I was in the garage working on my bike when she came back. She went in the house, and couple minutes later it started belching steam out the driver's wheel well and making a sound like a Canadian goose stuck in Chicago traffic. This went on for a good 2 minutes.
The same dealer that got the Polara gave Mom $250 trade on the LTD... with a blown head gasket, cracked head, and cracked block. It was in their back lot for about a week before it met its doom in the same jaws as the C-wagon.
And, in the classic fashion of colossal mistakes coming in threes, that $250 credit was applied to a shiny new red base-model 1984 Escort four-door. :doh: That car is a thread unto itself... and the last Ford my parents would ever own.
