For the connoisseur of Malaise Era Broughams, the Mercury Montego MX Brougham checks all the boxes: long hood, “stitches” molded into plastic door panels, unapologetically phony “wood” dashboard trim, low-compression smog V8, and obvious kinship with a much cheaper corporate twin. That’s what we’ve got with today’s Junkyard Find from the year of Richard Nixon’s resignation.
Ford redesigned the midsize Torino for the 1972 model year, and this version achieved renown as the Starsky & Hutch car. For just about every Ford model back then, there was a Mercury sibling, and in this case the Montego had been paired with the Fairlane/Torino since the late 1960s. Natrually, there was a Gran Torino Brougham in 1972.
This car has the “flight bench” interior, which sounds serious.
These may be the most Broughamic door panels ever made.
Torino/Montego buyers couldn’t get a true four-door hardtop by this time, but frameless doors separated by pillars resulted in what Ford called the “4-door pillared hardtop.”
The ’74 Montego’s base engine was a 302-cubic-inch (5.0-liter) Windsor V8 rated at 140 horsepower. A 460-cube (7.5-liter) V8 with 244 horses was a seldom-ordered Montego option, and two unrelated 351-cubic-inch (5.7-liter) V8s appeared on the options list as well. One was the Cleveland with 246 hp and the other was the Windsor with 162 hp; this car has the 351 Windsor. A real 351C would have been grabbed instantly from a U-Wrench junkyard, but a Malaise 351W doesn’t arouse much interest.
Looks like this car lived in Missouri, 30 years back.
Factory radios cost plenty back in 1974 (AM/FM with 8-track cost $363.20 for this car, or about $2,030 in current bucks), so the sight of a probably-dealer-installed Philco AM-only unit isn’t surprising. Just the thing for your favorite novelty hits of 1974!
So smooth that a scientist can assemble a 1″-screen black-and-white television on the road.
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My first car was a 74 Gran Torino 2-door with the 351 windsor engine. I bought it used in 1982 with 68,000 miles on it.
Slow, wallowy and a gas guzzler. But it was my first car and I loved it. Looking at these pix brings back a lot of memories – the dashboards are virtually identical!
I agree, when I was a teenager my mother had the exact Gran Torino you describe only in 4-door, but it was the same color combo as this Mercury. As a young driver I too remember the wallowing, but with the 351 Windsor it wasn’t any slower or faster then any other mid-size car of this era.
I also remember going with my dad to buy it and out-the-door it came to just over $5000. My dad who was with GM at the time hated it, but for some reason my mom loved it and drove it for years
The Torino and its Mercury sibling weren’t bad cars in the 60’s – and weren’t bad cars compared to their competition during the malaise era, either. By then, all cars were gas guzzlers – and remained that way until electronic engine management began appearing in the 80’s.
Steve is correct. When this vehicle was new, it was more than competitive with its domestic rivals. And considered a ‘notch above’ nearly all Asian (meaning Japanese at that time) imports.
Don’t know what happened to the back seat? Otherwise this ‘mundane’ vehicle looks to have been well cared for and preserved. Always nice to see ‘run of the mill’ vehicles that have been cared for and in return provided loyal and dedicated service.
Looks to me that the back seat cushion is upside down and showing signs of a mouse nest.
I would imagine the deterioration to the underside of the rear seat cushion is pretty normal for a 46-year-old car. As for it being upside down, that’s because the customers or yard workers like retrieving all the coins they can from the back seat.
I owned a 1968 Montego MX sedan and can vouch for the quality of the Torino/Montego. Mine was bought in 1972 from my mechanic, whose son destroyed the 302, and replaced the engine with a Windsor 351. That was a pretty good engine before the Great Strangling of engines in the 1970s.
This 1974 model of the same car has a longer wheelbase, a foot longer length, and is four inches wider than the 1968 midsize, almost a full-sized car for the 1960s era, but midsize in the 1970s, when full size cars were truly huge.
BTW, while this car is six years younger than my 1968 model, I recognize most of the instrument panel and interior appointments, including the brocade fabric seats. Ford didn’t change much until the Monarch/Granada models arrived.
As someone who owned a Gran Torino Elite let me assure you they were indeed worse than the competition. Every stereotype of malaise era Fords handling like the Queen May was well-deserved. Going from one of these to driving a Monte Carlo would be like going from driving a VW Beetle to a BMW 2002.
“handling like the Queen May”
Who was Queen May who were her handlers?
Careful, that’s royalty you’re talking about.
I would have said they handled like an unbaffled waterbed.
Though, I remember a friend in high school who used to drive his parents ’62 Buick Electra 225 like he thought it was a Ferrari. I think the way that car wallowed in corners on its bias ply (bias belted?) tires was truly outstanding.
My view of cars of that era was a bit jaundiced. Since I was working as a used car lot boy, the cars were not in the greatest shape — including some with different types of tires on each corner.
I owned plenty of Malaise Era PLCs including a Gran Torino Elite, a Cordoba, a downsized T-Bird (basically a Gran Torino Elite) and a Pontiac Grand Prix SJ which was an ‘ugrade’ on the Monte Carlo.
And I believe that your statement is an example of hyperbole.
Yes many Fords were set-up for one finger steering. And they were considerably quieter than their domestic competition, and somewhat ‘floaty’.
The Grand Prix although equipped with ‘Radial Tuned Suspension’ had factory Firestone 500 radials which were prone to ‘blow outs’. I had 2 at highway speeds. There was a constant ‘tire squeal’ when using on/off ramps to the highway. Its handling may have been better than the Gran Torino Elite but not in any way that makes it a ‘stand out’ in my memory.
Oh and I also had multiple air cooled rear engined VW’s so I can compare them as well. The steering input/feedback in the Type IV was superior to that of most domestics.
That model started in 1974. The quality went down from the late 1960s, as more gingerbread was added, the cars got bigger, and the V8 engines in particular were smogged down to inline-6 performance levels. Fords in the 1970s wallowed, but that’s what happens when the models add width, length and 500-plus lbs of weight with little change in the suspension.
My 1968 version of this car weighed in at just under 3400 lbs with coils front and leaf springs rear with a sway bar, but this ’74 weighs over 4,100 with front and rear coils, probably the same size coils as my ’68 front coils, and no stabilizer bars, front or rear. It was like riding on Jello.
It’s horrible. I love it.
I do wish color-keyed interiors would return.
I recognize that dome/map light unit. Had a long run in the FoMoCo parts bin.
Not just Fords – GM used the same part for decades too, from the late ’50s or ’60s well into the 80s. Same supplier I assume; not sure if other manufacturers used them too. My dad’s 77 Bonneville Brougham had it.
The paint on that 46-year-old car looks better than a new Tesla. It’s also the same baby blue as my parents’ 74 V8 Maverick.
As for Nixon’s resignation, as an 11-year-old I was shocked to see such a thing, and then horrified to see the fall of Saigon less than a year later. I thought this country was doomed. Combined with wheezing smog-choked cars, those were dark days indeed.
Not to mention the long lines waiting to pay an outrageous .75 a gallon for hard to get gas
That was just in 1974. In 1979 the price went up to over a dollar!
And the stations had to switch to selling gas by the liter… because the price per gallon window on the pumps only had two places left of the decimal point.
I was only 6 and was equally horrified. Those events set me a political course that I’m still on to this day.
NOOO MX BROHAM Y THIS NOT SAVED!!!?!?!?@!?!?@!????
No Montego love apparently.
It’s in pretty good shape too. I imagine the 12 MPG, the 0-60 in 12 seconds, and the cost to upgrade the AC to the new R-22 refrigerant were what caused this car to be parked, then sent to the yard. The last safety inspection was 1990, so it gave at least 16 years of service. The R-12 refrigerant was banned in 1996 and hard to find even before that.
Sadly, Gramma died and no one else cared .
This looks to have been a nice garage kept relic .
-Nate
This car brought back several memories of my dad’s ’74 Ford Ranchero 500, which shared many components with the Torino/Montego:
— The cheapskate blanking panel for the rear window control next to the A/C fan speed. Five-year-old me would constantly ask dad why I couldn’t make the rear window go down even though it looked like there was a button there. I guess the wagons were popular enough that it was cheaper to make all of the panels with an extra hole in them – plus the blanking panel insert – rather than a second part.
— How that 351W would scare the bejeezus out of me when running. So many belts, hoses, smells, the huge fan ready to slice my hand off…it’s amazing how smoothly and quietly new engines run.
— How the smell of each car I and my family have owned will always stay with me. The Ranchero always smelled like old, deteriorating vinyl because…well, because it was.
What would the typical buyer of this car be buying today? I don’t mean as an 80 year old but the type of person who would have bought this – what would they buy today?
A CRV, Escape, Camry, etc? Was it a more premium vehicle than that?
Something big, stylish (emphasis on the “ish,” it’s very subjective), upmarket but not luxurious (Brougham connotated luxury to people who would pay extra for the Brougham package, but to some of us there’s a “tarted up” connotation, superficial faux luxury; the reality is somewhere in between).
Maybe an Avalon with lots of options rather than a Camry. Maybe a late model 2019-2020 Mercury Mountaineer, if they hadn’t stopped making them after 2010, or the Lincoln-ized Ford Explorer, rather than an Escape (too small).
“Something big, stylish…”
You just described the Ram 1500 and F-150 crew/5.5 ft bed, Larimie/Lariat.
They could’ve only wished that brougham offered 4X4, but they probably would’ve owned a Jeep and or pickup as well.
Today they can kill several birds with one stone.
A midsized, upper trim level mainstream (non luxury brand) CUV.
This was a midsized car for that era.
It fit into the mid priced bracket, but was at the top of its trim level, being both a Brougham and a Mercury.
Possibly something like a Ford Edge?
^^This, the Ford Torino/Mercury Montego were popular mid-size, mid-priced cars along with the Cutlass/Regal/LeMans etc. Today those people would probably drive a Edge/Escape/Equinox/Pilot/CR-V/Highlander/Rogue etc.
Mercury Montego was Mercury’s version of Ford 500 as recently as in 2000s. So I guess answer will be Ford Taurus (or was there Mercury Sable?) which was recently discontinued. Or may be Lincoln Continental.
Great question! I was wondering the same thing. I cannot transplant myself into that era to understand who would possibly be interested in this wheezing whale.
I was actually driving in that era, and for people who didn’t want a compact size (Dart/Valiant, Nova, Maverick) and something a bit more upscale, this car and the GM nameplates and Plymouth/Dodge equivalents were the whole ballgame.
The choice was this type of upscale midsize car, or full size cars in a higher price range. Datsun(Nissan), Honda, Toyota, VW, and Mitsubishi weren’t even playing in the American-size compact range, much less midsize.
All the styling package is missing is an opera window!
Legend has it that those opera windows were actually terrible for viewing an actual opera.
Lol, I highly doubt that anyone who ever owned a car with opera windows or lights ever attended an opera
I owned the 74 Cougar XR-7 version of this with the same 351-W. It was silver with a maroon half vinyl top and opera windows. One of the differences between the Cougar and Montego two doors was not only the front and rear facades but the opera windows in the sail panels. The Cougar became the PLC for folks who couldn’t move up to the Lincoln Mark IV.
Opera windows became a minor fad that JC Whitney sold faux knockoff ones as well as retrofit ones.
The large T-Bird of that era was the next step prior to a Mark III or Mark IV.
I don’t think 1974 was any better or any worse than any other time period. I was still in college at the time and there were good times as well particularly when my University won as Southwest College Champs in football and played in the Cotton Bowl the first time in 50 years. Summer jobs and college were part of the growing process and owning and driving 70s cars were not that bad but I would not want to go back to the safety and reliability of older cars. I still have good memories of my 73 Chevelle with a 350 V8 which was one of the best and most reliable vehicles I have owned. I miss interior colors other than black and gray. Every era has its good times and bad times.
* Curb weight without that wiper motor = Less.
* Peak climate control controls.
* Crutchfield started in 1974 – this article explains exactly why.
* We could discuss the ignition timing – but I don’t want to dwell on it.
I see what you did there.
Ok old timers (older than me, that is) – why was it so uncommon to have an FM radio for so long? Is it more difficult to install components for FM equipment? Was there still not enough on FM to justify it? Or is it like anything else, it was more desirable and therefor it cost substantially more? I have always assumed the latter, but am I wrong?
Also, a functioning 1″ TV/display? My jaw dropped at that. I wouldn’t have thought that was possible until well into the 80s.
I bet that guy burned the crap out of his hands with the soldering iron.
SNL did a take off of this commercial with a Mohel and a newborn Jewish baby boy… hilarity ensued
As far as FM was concerned this was about the time that FM was just coming into it’s own because unlike AM, FM broadcast in stereo. FM was pretty common on luxury cars and probably didn’t cost that much more then AM, but it was just another way to pad the bottom line
AM-only vs AM/FM car radios had a lot to do with most of the supply of radios being AM-only when the electronic bits for an FM radio were still a bit pricey. By the time this car was built, I have a feeling the extra parts probably came down to ten or twenty bucks difference, when you’re manufacturing millions of sets. Cost to the buyer? Probably $100-300 for the upgrade, maybe there’s a “delete” credit for not getting the base radio (or maybe “delete” isn’t an option).
Into the 1980s, I think the AM-only standard came down to a question of “that’s the way we’ve always sold cars.” Think of how you buy a new car today- two or three packages of trim and options. It’s simply cheaper to put the same radio in every car that comes down the production line as well as dozens of other details. That’s why crank windows have gone away and why virtually every car has power locks and a remote lock/unlock key fob- it’s counter productive to look at the option checklist on every single car in the factory and have to go pick out dozens of this, that, and the other parts for an à-la carte option list. The options checklist for some new 1974 cars might blow your mind… plain rear window, plain rear window but with defogger fan to blow cabin air on it, two speed rear window defogger fan, rear window with built-in defroster wires- so which one of those four would you prefer, sir? It’s surprising to me that it took the bean counters as long as they did to figure this out.
Factory installed units were generally sourced from subsidiaries of the auto manufacturer. GMs got Delco units. Ford got Philco which by that time was owned by Ford.
VW’s infamously did get Telefunken units, if you opted for a factory/dealer unit, which many VW purchasers did not
The dealer installed units were not that great. Often one front mounted speaker. The aftermarket for radios and cassette/tape players was massive at that time. So many ‘deleted’ the radio option and went after market.
FM was also fairly new/rare. It was primarily at that time for ‘stereophiles’ and the speakers that came standard in vehicles were not good enough to make it worthwhile to pay the extra for it. Later FM became the choice of ‘underground’ rockers. But they would buy after market units, and probably rarely had the cash for new vehicles.
I will add one caveat, the factory quadrophonic stereo system (AM/FM/8-Track) that was standard in the Designer Edition Mark IV’s was excellent for that time.
As commented above, I can see the potential goldmine Crutchfield saw in the aftermarket.
I got my first car ever a year after this- a cheapo well-used-up 1966 Plymouth Belvidere former phone company car. NO options at all.
We put a junk yard AM radio in ($10), a pair of KMart 6″ round speakers ($30), and a Craco FM converter ($25). I was jamming for a bit, cheaply too.
FM came in to it’s own in the early ’70s. It’s main attraction was long-play format and, as Steely Dan so well says, no static at all.
Funny — was just remembering that a friend of the family had a 1973 Gran Torino wagon with this interior color, but vinyl seats, and matching color exterior, but it had a good-sounding AM-FM stereo, and the dual-facing seats in the “way-back!”
“…so the sight of a probably-dealer-installed Philco AM-only unit isn’t surprising.”
This radio would not have been dealer-installed, as Philco was a Ford brand. At home we had a circa-1976 console TV that said “a product of the Ford Motor Company” under the Philco logo.
As a piece of furniture, it was gorgeous. As a TV, it was horribly bad. Could never get the colors right on it.
It is the feature of NTSC. German PAL was pretty stable color wise by design (canceling hue errors by reversal phase of alternate lines. It was further development of NTSC and also had more resolution 625 lines vs 525. Germans coming later benefited from more advanced design. We in USSR got French SECAM. It was horrible, no wonder that only Soviet Union adopted it and French always were too stubborn and did everything opposite way to rest of the Europe which adopted PAL.
In 80s I used to build and sell PAL decoders for SECAM TVs. It was a profitable business since allowed Soviets citizens to watch forbidden fruits – American movies and MTV video clips, VHS in other words.
There are advantages of PAL over NTSC:
– Greater Number of Scan Lines – more picture detail
– Wider Luminance Signal Bandwidth – The placing of the color sub-Carrier at 4.43MHz allows a larger bandwidth of monochrome information to be reproduced than with NTSC/525
– Stable Hues – Due to reversal of sub-carrier phase on alternate lines, any phase error will be corrected by an equal and opposite error on the next line, correcting the original error.
– Higher Gamma Ratio – The gamma value for PAL/625 is set at 2.8 as opposed to the lower 2.2 figure for NTSC/525. This permits a higher level of contrast than on NTSC/525 signals.
I had AM radios until my first new car a 77 Monte Carlo which had a dealer installed Audiovox FM/AM stereo with no tape player. At the time didn’t think too much about it especially when there were lots of AM stations playing lots of different music. Most AM stations today are either talk radio or religious stations. Even thru the early 80s there were still some decent AM stations its just that they weren’t stereo which if you were use to no stereo it wasn’t that bad.
My mother’s 72 Cadillac Sedan Deville had a factory stereo FM with an 8 track. Stereo was more of a luxury item found on luxury cars.
I can remember listening to car “stereos” at least as far back as when I vividly remember a DJ announcing the new song by Tony Basil “Hey Mickey!” which was 1981.
We had two cars in the family, a Toyota pickup with AM only, and a Toyota “Carina” (sp?) which I think had FM. Regardless I remember our preferred music stations were on AM, and they were playing Top 40 hits.
One big problem with FM units of the time was the antenna. FM stations were lower power and a larger antenna really made a difference. There were some units that also allowed “trim” adjustments on the FM to improve reception.
Compared to the 60s cars that I learned on, we are driving warp drive space ships today. My skills of carburetor adjustment, dwell meter reading, timing light usage, changing flats and patching the tube inside the tires, have become useless anecdotes. Just like “trim” adjustments for antenna length on early FM auto radios or “tell me Grandpa, what does a choke really choke??”.
I bet in winter weather you still want to pump that gas pedal a few times to start a car and pump those brakes a few times on icy roads. I know it took me a long time to break those habits
Can understand both of the above comments. And agree.
And yes, I still occasionally resort to ‘pumping the brakes’. Engrained habits remain.
In the 1980s a friend had the Marquis version of this in similar colors. Someone in his family gave it to him. We made a lot of jokes about it as gasoline, in today’s money, was about $5-7 a gallon. Not so good in something that got about 10 mpg around town, but it did carry nearly all his rock band’s equipment in that gigantic trunk. Turned out he was very happy when a drunk crashed into it when it was parked, going about 60 mph. The drunk was driving a company car that was well insured so he bought a VW van off a friend which worked out well for him.
Also I agree with the assessments of AM v FM. In the ’70s FM was new to most people. It had been around for a long time, but prior to the late ’60s it had mostly classical stations listened to by guys that had corduroy jackets with elbow patches. At that point FM ‘underground’ radio got going playing that “rock’em-sock’em” stuff. As soon as the record companies found out how much money they could make selling 12 inch rock records every car had, at least, the option for an FM radio as that was the primary advertising to sell the discs.
I forgot about the best thing about FM until a familiar old song came on just now- no static at all.
Driving like a fool out to Hackensack
Drinking his dinner from a paper sack
He says I gotta see a joker
And I’ll be right back
FM sounds better, but AM travels farther, which can become important if you are stuck in northwest Ohio, or in a moving vehicle, or stuck in a moving vehicle in northwest Ohio.
Today I learned:
– Longer distance with AM is due to the frequencies used (government), not the modulation method (technology)
– Why less static on FM is inherent to the modulation method [plus, each FM station has more bandwidth]
See the comments from “David Shockey” and “Basith Basheer” here:
https://tinyurl.com/y6xf5rap
DS excerpt: “When passing thru obstacles, often only a portion of the AM signal is attenuated because they are hundreds of meters long. FM signals can be attenuated multiple times when passing thru objects because they are only three meters long.”
BB excerpt: “Both signals are susceptible to slight changes in amplitude. With an AM broadcast, these changes result in static. With an FM broadcast, slight changes in amplitude don’t matter — since the audio signal is conveyed through changes in frequency, the FM receiver can just ignore changes in amplitude. The result: no static at all.”
Guessing it was kept until Grandpa finally passed and Mom got tired of looking at it in the driveway. Don’t one of you boys want it? Your Grandpa loved that car.
We had, from brand new, a 1976 Montego, but ours was a two-door stripper model. Vinyl seats, no Landau roof. It served us well until we sold it in 1989. Yes, it ran near-flawlessly for 13 years and was shipped from Germany, to the US, back to Germany and one more time to the US before we retired it. The only two major things I recall we ever did was repaint it due to severe paint oxidation and in the final year or so, the heat/ac became a “chose one of the other” option. But that’s it. Steered like a Valium-laden whale but what was to be expected? It did have two large bench seats that were just right for a budding 17-year old male to take dates on…
Those who were there will remember the FM disc jockeys playing long album sides as they went out to get stoned and then talked about how high they were when they changed the disc .
In the 1960’s & 1970’s FM wasn’t all screwed up by corporate media like it is to – day so there was a lot more variety .
I have a defunct BENDIX Sapphire IV AM/FM VWoA radio that’s 6 volts .
I too miss the old AM radio stations, before they scrapped the fairness laws there were hundreds is tiny peanut whistle AM stations all across America .
-Nate
Can understand both of the above comments. And agree.
And yes, I still occasionally resort to ‘pumping the brakes’. Engrained habits remain.
With era V8s, just like with diesels (of any era), the important thing is torque, HP is much less relevant. The 302W was probably around 220/ lbs/ft. The main problem was the (super slow, extremely eco) rear end gearing, likely a 2.42:1 open dif in this Montego. 3.50 to 4:10 would be optional for the street or fwy, and it wouldn’t lose much MPG, especially city.
The FM references here bring back a lot of memories about EFM radio. For example, I had a AM/FM “transistor radio” that I got for Christmas in 1967 when I was 16. This was the era when FM was breaking out of it’s “dentist mode” I remember listing to the Marconi Experiment on WMMR out of Phila. The program ran from 8 PM – midnight with Herman (out of NYC). He would do insane things by AM standards such as playing 5 minute + LONG Songs and entire sides of albums. This simply not done then.
When I obtained my fist car in 1972 a 1965 Impala two door fastback), I installed an Audiovox FM converter so I could listen to WMMR. Since I lived about 35 miles from the station, the converter worked well. However, I was cut off from this station when I traveled back and forth to Penn State at University Park. No problem since State College was a college town and had a few FM rock stations. But there was always a gap starting around Lewistown through Harrisburg. As someone previously posted, FM around there was very limited to classical and “dentist (aka elevator)” stations.
Eventually, the FM rock radio experiment degenerated into what AM had been with too many commercials and standard playlists such as classic rock. Npw, I only use FM for the local public station 88.1 DIY for their daily three hour show called the blend. So in 50 years, there is still hope for independent radio.
A genuine brougham.
look at those bumpers. grab that car and run it in a demolition derby!