This article in Hot Rod seems to be worthy of a front-section post....... Shows you how easy it is to build a Fox-body wagon. http://www.hotrod.com/cars/featured/1505-1980-mercury-zephyr-is-a-two-minute-grocery-getter/
I told both my sons that I would buy them their first car. Whatever they did to it from there out was on them as I wouldn't spring for another. I towed a beautiful Zephyr sport coupe in. Triple red, mint condition, 50k on the speedo, but it had an electrical fire under the hood. Insurance adjuster totaled it and asked if I wanted to buy it for $500. I had the cash in his hand before he finished his sentence. It took all of an hour to get the electrical problem repaired and all the smoke damage cleaned up. Fast forward, son's senior year with a hot blonde girlfriend. He's pulling out of a corner gas station and has to go across 6 lanes to get to the turn lane of the opposite side. He's too busy playing stink finger with his girl to pay attention to traffic and gets T-boned by a Sears delivery truck. Totaled the car. He thought I would get him another one, but he was wrong. Kinda put the kibosh on his dating for the rest of the year.
On my Fairmont bucket list. I was going to sell my 8.8 to Normy but he hasn't the slightest interest. Too busy fondling his Dana!
Absolutely a love affair! I've owned 76 cars, and this one is the best. Even my new 1981 Fairmont wagon wasn't as good as this one. I get in, and look at a luxury velours upholstery, a Mustang gauge dash, a Capri Console, and my favourite music, and she handles like a rally car. I've had Rivieras, New Yorkers and T&C Mopars, a 1965 Mustang Coupe, Big buicks and oldsmobubbles, Ponchos, A Volks bug, A Corvair Monza, a Corvair greenbrier pickup, a 356B Porches, but this one is the best. The 1981 Fairmont had a few electronic monitoring devices that held it back. The 1978-1979 Foxes didn't have any of that. It started in 1980, all the computerization, an expensive experiment by Ford, but at the owner's expense. The Under Warranty service checks always cost me $200 to $350, each 3 months! And she's so easy to work on. You bet its a love affair. Comfy, quick enough, light enough to slide into a snow bank, and come out undamaged. And cheap on gas and maintenance too.
Since you're such a Smtten Kitten, I'll give you a bit of Ford trivia: though computers were used by all the American car manufacturers for various reasons in the '60s and '70s, the Fairmont was the first Fox platform car, that was 100% computer-designed by any of the car manufacturers. Of course, Dad had the temerity to comment that his '78 had a body "made of beer cans."
