We’ve only seen seven 1970 Ford LTDs here on Barn Finds over the years, and none of them were a 4-door sedan as seen here. I think I actually prefer the 4-door body style in this car over the fastback-styled 2-door, but that’s just me. Maybe because my uncle had a red LTD sedan with a black top. The seller has this one posted here on craigslist in Zephyrhills, Florida, and they’re asking $10,500. Here is the original listing, and thanks to T.J. for the tip!
This is quite a find. A rust-free LTD with hidden headlights that stay closed, a former Arizona car that isn’t all burnt to a crisp inside and out? You could probably do a lot worse for $10,500 than buying this LTD as a nice weekend scenic drive car for nice two-lane roads, windows down to show the hardtop body style. Or use the cold air-conditioning. Either way, I would love to own this one. This is the last year for the hidden headlights until 1975. Here’s a brochure showing the 1970 Ford lineup.
It’s a bummer that the seller didn’t pull this LTD out for photos, but they covered most of the bases, so thanks to them for providing such nice photos in a challenging situation. They even opened the trunk lid to show how solid it is in there. The front license plate shows McSpadden Ford-Lincoln, which is located in Globe, Arizona. It looks like it’s now McSpadden Motor Company, and they have around 10 locations, but none of them jump out, so I’m not sure. There is no website that I can find. The Globe, AZ location comes up as Courtesy Ford. Bob_in_TN is basically a PhD in locating historic dealerships; maybe he can shed more light on this company.
This doesn’t look like an interior for a 56-year-old Arizona car to me; it looks almost perfect. Even the dash doesn’t appear to be cracked. The seller says the paint, top, and interior are original to this Arizona car. The back seat looks equally nice, and you can’t beat a nice brocade seat fabric in my world. They say that the AC is blowing cold, so that’s a bonus.
The second-generation LTD was made from 1968 for the 1969 model year until the end of 1978. This super clean engine is Ford’s 390-cu.in. OHV V8, which was rated at 265 horsepower, backed by a three-speed automatic. The seller mentions a completely rebuilt brake system and this sure looks like one of the nicest ones left. Would any of you consider a 1970 LTD with, gasp, four doors?! I sure would.
Very nice!
I’ve always liked the 4 door hardtops, they have a great profile.
Agree. In the 1960s, on the full-sized lines, the four-door hardtops often seemed the most accomplished designs.
This is in impressive condition. And I’m kind of surprised. The LTD is a nice car, but you’d think that a Lincoln or T Bird would have received this kind of care, but no, a 4 door hardtop. Which, at least to me, is kind of special. I’d be very happy to own this.
Very Happy to care for this one.
Would be a real joy to have an LTD in this superb condition.
I bought a ’67 Ford Custom (P.I.) in 1977 as my first car – excellent driver for years- and at 10 yrs old it was no where near this nice as this 56 year old girl.
Buy the nicest example you can find, we always say… well here it is.
Insurance will be a fraction of any late model and all that room inside + monster trunk.
Very Nice!
Nice clean LTD. The soft yellow paint looks good on this model. Should be an easy-to-live-with cruiser.
Dealership: I did notice that if one looks back to 2022 in Google Maps, the dealership which is now Courtesy shows up as McSpadden. And newer pics show a temporary “Courtesy” banner. So this is likely the sales dealership building. Especially considering that the building does look “old” (but not “very old”, i.e. it isn’t a downtown brick building).
I like it, it’s easy to forget how comfortable these land yachts were to drive I think it would be a nice cruiser $10,500 I don’t know a bit much.
One of the quietest cars I ever drove. A/C on, cruising at 80 and no noise! Fantastic driving car, especially on the highway!
Great price for a great car. 100% worth it.
Dad bought a ’69 LTD 2dr with the same powertrain as this one back in the mid-’70’s. A light foot on the highway would yield 20mpg but a heavy foot off the line left some tire residue. This is a stunning example of fine motoring. As I have said before, has everything you need, nothing you don’t, and a turnkey (ouch!) proposition. Oh, and great colors, too!
My grandmother’s car. Hers was green with the white top. That car would scoot. However, vaporlock in the summer was bad.
Lovely LTD. I like the yellow without the usual green interior. Four door hardtop was less common then and almost extinct now. Would love to drive that no feel power steering.
I utterly LOVE this car: I WANT it! The more common 1969, upon which this was based, was ugly in the rear, but they made it lovely for 1970 and classed-up the mostly unmodified front. I wonder which radio this one has? The Bendix AM/FM stereo unit was awful and trouble-prone owing to “cold” solder connexions. FM selectivity would be totally inadequate for to-day’s crowded band, and the undefeatable A.F.C. would make matters worse, constantly switching to a stronger adjacent channel!!! The plain A.M. radio sounded barely better than a portable transister radio, and with about the same miminal station pull-in power; though I never saw one of those needing service. The “AM-stereo 8-track” radio was by far the best, with tube-like pull-in power and full-blooded rich high fidelity sound. But you had that huge clunky 8-track deck sitting right where a middle-front passenger’s feet would want to be. Warning: WHERE this radio IS, in the upper-left corner of the instrument panel surrounding the steering-wheel, an aftermarket unit is NOT an option, without carving-up the dashboard. So, if you rely on a good FM stereo radio, be forewarned that you have no options here, without destroying this car’s beautiful, once-only originality. Otherwise, an utterly joyful car! But unlike the 1969, for some reason the 1970 L.T.D. rusted-out dreadfully throughout the rear quarters, rotting gaping holes into the trunk behind the rear wheels, and the frame back there also rusting through, causing the rear springs to collapse into the trunk. This ferrible tragedy could take place quickly, totalling a six-year-old car with less than 50,000 miles. But you would not drive a beauty such as this through wet and salted roads anyway. One MORE thing: the L.T.D s, whether two door or four door, had formal sedan roofs: your “fastback profile” topped version was an XL and not an L.T.D., as far as I know (jus’ zayin’).
I’d totally forgot about the radio location in these! I guess you could go aftermarket and hide it in the glove box?
Yes, the radio location was awful, but worse was the design of the radio, with the volume and tuning knobs below the dial indicator and station preset pushbuttons. This may have been an early attempt to head off the aftermarket stereo radio trends that were just starting to make inroads into the car stereo market, I don’t know. My biggest compliant was that only Dad could tune the radio, which to an eleven (11) year-old boy was torture, LOL! Dad was listening to either “moldy oldies”, news radio, or sports, and the only time his tastes and mine aligned was when sports were on the radio!
Dad got a 1970 Galaxy 500 as a company car. It was the first air conditioned car we ever had! That summer we took our summer vacation down to visit my Mom’s folks in PA, then to visit my Dad’s old college roommate in MD, then to Washington, DC. I remember that even with A/C, the stench along the NJ Turnpike, with all of the chemical plants and oil refineries was overpowering! Even so, it was a nice vacation! GLWTS!
Hello, Robert Atkinson! I’m probably about your Dad’s age — and considering what young people typically listened to in 1969, I would have been most grateful to keep you away from being able to reach my car radio! (smile). Popular music began to grow really hateful on the ear in the 1960s. Funny story on that, if you have a moment. In the 1940s, I had an Atwater~Kent “cathedral” style radio in my room, and my father positively RAILED against the 1940s popular music I listened to, and I told myself that I would NEVER be like that — that I would EMBRACE my kids’ music. THAT’s what I told myself — and I MEANT it, TOO — EVERY WORD OF IT!…
That is, until I actually had children and the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Animals, Yardbirds, and Dave Clark Five were all the rage (though I could tolerate Herman’s Hermits): I was worse than my father ever had been: “SHUT that frantic racket OFF!!! – let’s have some PEACE around here!” And if my father were visiting, he would chide me, “Let them HAVE their fun: THEIR music isn’t so bad: I rather LIKE some of it: it has ENERGY!” [“energy”, MY FOOT — it was pure NOISE!!!]. My oh my how intolerant I’d become! Late in my father’s life, I caught him with a new Reader’s Digest multi-record collection of the popular music of my young years. I picked it up to look at it:
“PUT THAT DOWN!! — DON’T TOUCH it!!!”
“Daddy, I was NOT going to HARM it!”
“You CAN’T HAVE it!”
“I wasn’t going to TAKE it!”
“That’s some GOOD MUSIC!”
I looked at the titles: “These are all the songs you HATED!!!”
“Yes; but when you kids LEFT, you took your records WITH you so I don’t get to HEAR them any more. Now I have my OWN to listen to and remember.”
I rarely saw my father say anything so touching — he wasn’t the sort to express such sentiments. So that was a profound moment between us.
But you know what? When it comes to my kids’ records, I could never see myself feeling nostalgic about them. I found blessed RELIEF in not having to hear them any longer, and I do not miss them ONE BIT; TRUST me on that! (Now, please excuse me while I put on a Dinah Shore or Three Suns 78: I’m in the mood for some actual MUSIC!)
Dad left us in 2022, just shy of his 94th birthday. In 1970, FM and 8-track tapes in cars were a rarity, so it was AM or hum to yourself, LOL! The aftermarket really started to take off by the time I hit high school, with the hot setup being a Pioneer AM/FM cassette deck replacing a factory AM only unit, Jensen coaxial 6″x9″ speakers in the rear package shelf and 5-1/4″ Jensen coaxial speakers in each front door! It seems that every used car we bought between my Freshman year of high school and graduating from college, the first thing you did was rip out the factory AM unit, to replace it with a cassette deck from one of the Japanese consumer electronics companies (Clarion, Kenwood, Panasonic, Pioneer, Sanyo or Sony) who got into selling aftermarket car stereos at the time. BTW, I grew up on 1960’s and ’70’s pop & rock. My go to artists were: The Beatles, The Eagles, Billy Joel, Jackson Browne, Linda Ronstadt and Carol King! I was also a big jazz fan, thanks to Dad and Mom got me into Broadway show tunes, with “Camelot” and “My Fair Lady”, also Harry Belafonte and The Kingston Trio!
Nice
This brought back memories of being 11 and convincing my dad he should step up from the plain county sedan wagon to a country squire. I even convinced him to get power side windows. It was a nice car in maroon. Sadly rusted away within 4 years in the quarter panels. I remember the salesman we had who humored me as a kid letting me negotiate the deal. He was our trusted salesman for years until he retired.
Fun story, how you were a family automotive “influencer” even at age 11. And how the salesman worked with you on the deal (though I’m sure your dad had veto rights).
That nasty tin worm really ate-up the full-sized Fords of 1970! — but not the similar 1969s: wonder what the difference was?
The 69 was 200-300 lbs more, so would guess thickness of panels, etc..
Ah! I KNEW there had to be an explanation! Thanks, Steve H! Too bad that the 1970 is by far the prettier of the two cars! Probably slightly better on gas mileage, too!
I had a green 2 door with a 350 Cleveland engine. Great car. Unlike many herei loved the dash configuration. Ive always wanted another to lower and tub. But ive had other projects to work on.
I hope that you don’t “lower and tub” this one, it’s too nice to mess with! Pick a rustier example that needs metal work anyway, but leave this one alone!
I bought a 2dr 1970 Ltd new in 1970. I was 19 years old and had been working as a fireman on the railroad for almost a year, living at home I had a pocket full of cash. The car was an early 1969 that was chestnut brown and had racing mirrors and those phony mag type wheel cover they used in 69. It had the same 390 engine with air. I took good care of it, but drove the hell out of it. It had close to 130,000 miles on it when I sold it in 1974. It was a nice car.if I remember right the car stickered for $4800.
This is a real beauty, if it was still in Globe I’d drive up and check it out. It looks like it’s spent most of it’s life indoors and the low mileage is likely due to Globe being a small town about 70 miles east of Mesa that’s surrounded by the Tonto National Forest, and the only other town that’s relatively close is Springerville and it’s 87 miles away. I think this was probably a go to work and to the grocery store car and put in the garage when they got home. Btw Scotty, Globe is at 3,500 feet elevation so no scorching sun and no 110 degree summers happen there. At any rate, this is a genuine well cared for survivor that wish wasn’t sitting in FL right now.
That’s good info about Globe’s climate, John, thanks much. Having grown up in snow country, I should know that all of Arizona isn’t scorching and dry all the time, just like we don’t have snow year-round like some folks in southern Arizona may think.
One of my favorite cars Dad had when I was a kid was a 70 LTD 2 door. Just like this except the color. His was dark green on dark green on dark green with red pin stripe. Sharp car. Could actually see the AC coming out the vents