The Ford Maverick was the successor to the company’s first compact, the Falcon. As it had done with the Mustang, Falcon underpinnings were also under the new econobox, which debuted five years to the day after Ford’s pony car. The seller has a mld-run 1974 Maverick 4-door sedan, which is said to have only traveled 45,000 miles. Located in Wyandotte, Michigan, this survivor can be found here on craigslist for $3,500. Rocco B. brought this tip to our attention.
Ford peddled the Maverick for eight years, retiring the car in 1977. The Granada was its intended successor but was positioned a bit more upscale upon its debut in 1975 (so the cars were on the market at the same time for three seasons). Some 2.1 million Mavericks were produced, making it one of Ford’s better-selling products. The name resurfaced in 2022 as a compact pickup.
The seller’s car has a 250 cubic inch inline-6, possibly an upgrade from the 200 that was in my 1966 Mustang. Options may have been few, including an automatic transmission, power steering, and possibly factory disc brakes up front. We’re told it runs and drives great and was a daily driver until not long ago. The seller lists a few of the newer parts, such as the seat belts (why?), hoses, brakes, and the heater core.
Some dents and dings are here and there, but no big deal if a cheap ride is what you’re looking for. The front bench seat has some damage that a blanket conceals, but the back seat appears practically new. This Ford might still be in the seller’s employ if he/she had not gotten a pickup that may better serve their needs.
Ford and Volvo could surely successfully re-package the same car.
Case-in-point the Volvo 444/544/1800/122, and the early Falcon/Mustang/Maverick and the Granada and probably the Fairmont too for that matter.
Seems the engineers in those days could rest on their laurels, but the body designers were going full throttle every year.
“Something in my eye, you know it happens everytime”,,some folks complain about how much they dislike their mother-in-laws, well not me. I had the most wonderful mother-in-law( that didn’t transfer over to her daughter for some reason) she worked at Sears in Milwaukee for like 52 years and was awarded the longest working Sears employee, she had a Maverick 4 door. It was indeed a step up from her Vega, and drove that Maverick from the nort’ side to the sout’ side, about a half hour ride, every weekday. I remember it had, like many Fords, poor heat, and quite a sight to see this old lady all bundled up driving a rusty Maverick. She never complained, unlike her son-in-law, and I miss her dearly.
These cars were about as generic as one could get. Simple, dependable, economical cars, hold 6 people and never failed, and barely a shred of electronics. Oh how did we ever survive? Because there were people like Ma, that rarely complained and drove Ford Mavericks. It was good enough, that’s how.
Fun observation Rex, the engineers were just tweaking, the designers kept busy.
The Maverick was simple and generic but its styling was actually clean and somewhat sporty-looking, even in four-door form. Well until the big bumpers arrived.
One of my best friend’s Moms drove one of these – also a 74, 4 door, and brown. Hers had a 302. Basic reliable car for sure.
In an attempt to even up the feld and make the cars more competitive to each other, the National Hot Rod Association fiddled with the rule book in 1974 and decided to have different WEIGHT BREAKS for cars running different engines in PRO STOCK, depending on the cars having a wheelbase of 105 inches more of less. If the car had a wheelbase of 105 inches or more, it got lighter weight break then a car with a shorter wheelbase under 105 inches even though both cars had identical engines. As a result ‘Dyno Don Nickelson and Bob Glidden both bult new cars with 366 C.I. Ford Cleveland Motors using 1970 Mustang bodies for the 1974 season. But the most interesting of those new ‘LONGER WHEELBASE CARS’ was the Gapp & Roush 1974 Maverick 4 door sedan that became known as the ‘Tijuana Taxi’.
Pro Stock was super back then. Door Slammers
if you were a family man-single earner with kids in the mid 1970’s – this was the car for you. Cheapish-big enough for a family of 4-5, mostly reliable as a malaise car can be.
It’s a 4 door maverick you can’t make it cool if you need to pull the drivetrain and put it in something else
We had a ’74 Maverick just like this one, except robin’s egg blue inside and out, when I was born in ’76. This was my mother’s car; my father drove the big ’71 LTD.
I have a few enduring memories. One is when I was 4 or 5, the muffler fell off when we were leaving my mother’s friend’s house, so she turned up the AM radio to drown out the noise. Nicolette Larson’s “Lotta Love” was on and I still think of that when I hear that song. We also only had lap belts, so when my mother would have to stop short, she would throw her arm across my lap. Lastly, when we traded it in for a ’78 Datsun 510 around 1984, the trunk had already rusted out to the point that you could see right to the ground behind both rear wheels. Connecticut winters did not do it any favors.
Still, a good car, and one to this day my father says was one of the best he’s owned.
So why didn’t you get another Ford?
Gas Crisis #1 most likely. In 1973, when OPEC shut off the oil spigot to protest US backing of Israel in the Yom Kippur War with Egypt, the price of gas doubled, from $0.30 a gallon to over $0.60 a gallon, and even the Maverick was seen as a gas guzzler compared to the sub-compact foreign imports, such as the Toyota Corolla, Nissan Sentra and VW Beetle, four-cylinder cars all. The Pinto and Vega came out just before the gas shortages hit, and sold well initially until both cars well publicized flaws began to appear.
The second gas crisis, caused when Jimmy “The Peanut” Carter admitted the deposed Shah of Iran to the US for cancer treatment in 1978, caused prices to double again, from $0.60 a gallon to over a dollar a gallon, when Iran shut off the oil tap in protest! The gas pump totalizers only went as high as $0.999 a gallon, so until new gas pumps could be installed, the pump would display half price, and you had to double the price to get the correct amount to pay!
I had a neighbour when I was a boy who drove a Ford Maverick 2 door. Since I was way too young at the time to drive a car, I don’t know what they’re like to drive or own. Some people might say they’re awful cars, unreliable pieces of junk, while I’m sure others say that they were awesome cars they wish they still had today.
I took my driver’s license road test in one, and you can place my name firmly in the “awful cars” category! It beat walking or riding a bike, but that’s about all it did!
What made it an awful car?
This one is a slight upgrade from Mom’s ’72, with a proper glove box in place of that cheesy package shelf and IIRC, three-point seat belts finally making an appearance in place of the abysmal separate lap and shoulder belts Mom’s ’72 came with. The 250 I6 was decidedly underwhelming, but a V8 swap in one of these is child’s play, as are front disk brakes, both welcome upgrades. If the budget could stand it, I’d be tempted to put a full aftermarket frame under it, to ditch the shock towers and improve engine access. If you keep the towers, don’t forget to cut holes in them so you can grease the replacement control arm bushings when the “permanently lubricated” ones from the factory fail, LOL!
P.S. The original Craigslist post has been deleted.
As to why these cars were so awful, let me count the ways! More body roll than a surfer beach wave, with enough body roll to scrape the door handles in every turn! Four-wheel, manual drum brakes, totally devoid of road feel, grabby, that took forever to dry when wet and high pedal pressure all of the time, with a crazy high brake pedal in any case. Power steering so devoid of feel that the entire steering gear felt like it was shot full of Novocaine! The one-barrel carb was the only game in town, as the intake manifold was cast as part of the cylinder head, so no upgrade is possible. The high belt line, combined with the low seating position, made you feel like you were driving from inside of a bucket, and the slippery vinyl bench seat made wearing a lap belt mandatory, to keep you from sliding halfway across the front seat in a turn, LOL! Finally, they seemed to begin rusting almost as soon as they left the dealer’s lots!
To be fair, the V8 versions might have been better, but I’ll never know, because I never got to drive one with a V8 in it! V8 versions at least came with power front disk brakes as standard equipment, so they probably stopped better, but as to everything else, I’ll stand by my comments! Yes, many Mustang parts were direct bolt-ons, but any car that you have to spend hundreds, if not thousands of dollars to make handle acceptably, can’t be a very good car, by definition.
Typical for Craigslist. They never keep ads up for very long. I don’t expect it to be up forever (more than a month). But most ads I’ve seen seem to only be up for a week before being removed.
I always hated that the Mav never got the love it should’ve, especially in early “thin-bumper” form. The styling was to my eye crisp & the potential was always there to make a quarter-mile terror with a little imagination. Yes the interiors wrote the book on plain-Jane but the cars were as honest as anything else made in that class at the time. The biggest thing I always remember them for was rust…you could almost watch the process of corrosion take place, even in temperate areas.
I’ve always said the guy who wins the battle against corrosion would potentially be the richest man in the world until some company steals or cons him out of his invention.
The battle against corrosion has been won, and the weapon against rust is called carbon fiber, LOL! The Alfa-Romeo 4C Coupe and Convertible were made almost entirely of carbon fiber, so they will never rust, but with an $80k price tag brand new, they are out of reach for most of us, LOL!
I would’ve gladly bought a Ford Maverick 4 door sedan if there’s a well maintained and carefully driven example.
If only the Maverick was available as a station wagon. I’d buy one. Its predecessor, the Falcon was available as a 4 door sedan, 2 door, and station wagon. Why the hell not the Maverick?
Why not, indeed? I assume that the question was rhetorical, not really expecting an answer, but you’ll have to ask Ford’s marketing department why not. Maybe with the sub-compact Pinto wagon below it and the Torino mid-size wagon above it, Ford felt that there was too much overlap and not enough of a business case to justify a compact wagon on the Maverick platform. Just sayin’.
It’s certainly possible. I would’ve bought a Maverick wagon or a Mercury Comet wagon if available.