The Fairmont was Ford’s successor to the popular Maverick compact. It arrived in 1978 and retired in 1983. I remember driving one of these as a rental car back in the day and noted how unremarkable it was. The Fairmont wasn’t a bad car, but it could easily have been the poster child for the Malaise Era in U.S. automaking. This 1980 edition developed transmission problems that were never dealt with, so it’s been sitting for many years. Strictly cheap wheels, this Ford project is in Winnetka, California, and is available here on craigslist for $450 OBO.
In the late 1970s, Ford gave you plenty of smaller car choices. The Pinto, the Granada, and the Fairmont, which was positioned between the two. Mercury got in on the bandwagon with a rebadged Fairmont called the Zephyr. Under the skin, the Fairmont used the universal Foxbody platform that Ford developed, so it was no longer a Falcon derivative like the Maverick. When the Fairmont finally ran out of gas, Ford replaced it with a front-wheel-drive car, the Tempo.
This Ford has been sitting for at least four years. That’s when the seller put new tires on it as part of a plan to get it back on the road. As you can tell from the photos, that never happened. We’re told it has a six-cylinder engine, which must be the 200 CI inline-six Ford has used for years, paired with an automatic transmission (which may still need work). The car was parked with an odometer reading of 89,000 miles.
We’re told the body is solid, though the brown paint has largely succumbed to the Sun. It’s a 2-door coupe, so it was the sporty edition of the 1980 Fairmont. The title is no doubt MIA, so you’ll have to be okay with a bill of sale. Which will be fine if your goal is to use this as a parts car rather than to restore it. The chrome trim around the headlights not seen in the photos is still there somewhere. What would you do with this 46-year-old Ford? And thanks for the tip, Jack M.!
This is actually the Fairmont Futura, distinguished by being a two door with a unique roof line. You don’t see many of these (or the 4-door) too often any more, but I remember you couldn’t go a day without seeing a half dozen or more. And though this has the ubiquitous six, a V8 was offered also in some years.
Acres of vinyl upholstery and faux wood grain, but remarkably in good shape. Drop in a 5 liter and a new trans and call it a day. I thought it might be a Futura too.
Gotta make that distinction between a 2 door Fairmont and a Fairmont Futura. This car was originally supposed to wind up as the 1980 Thunderbird until Ford looked over the fences and thought the Bird should look more like a Monte Carlo. Hmm…
Strange then that the 8th-gen T-bird doesn’t look anything like a Monte Carlo? Though you’re correct that this design originated as a proposal to replace the 7th-gen T-bird; there’s photos of styling bucks to prove it, looking pretty much exactly like one of these with T-bird nose and tail ends and a bird emblem on that basket-handle B-pillar.
I suspect what happened was, execs may have decided that the styling, intended to provide continuity from the 7th-gen T-bird with a similar roofline and B-pillar, actually just highlighted what a step down it would be from its predecessor in size and prestige. So they decided instead to make a stop-gap 8th-gen T-bird less obviously comparable to its predecessor while a more radical new T-bird could be developed, namely the 9th-gen “Aerobird”.
However, the design proposal itself was nice enough on its own terms, and would have lent well to a possible Ranchero variant — eventually realized in the limited-run Durango conversions — which would make some market-positioning sense as a Fairmont derivative (not so much as a T-bird derivative), so they decided to make it anyway, just as a stylish personal coupe version of the Fairmont gaining some cachet from its T-bird resemblance, rather than as a T-bird losing cachet in comparison to its predecessor.
What’s up with that engine? Looks like they have string and maybe zip ties all over the place, holding it together?
You’ll probably see this Futura on the drag strip. Hopefully NOT with an LS swapped into her.