gto station wagon? is there such a beast?

It's a Mercury Monarch 2-Door Ghia. Ford/Mercury Have no record of it being produced and I have only found 1 other. Also it has the sport option ontop of the ghia one. I haven't ever heard of Marti Auto Works, What do they do??

 

Marti Auto Works has all the invoice records for Fords starting from 1967. They will be able to confirm or deny the pedigree of a car. They also will be able to tell you how many of a certain combination were made. I've attached a rare Cyclone for you to see.

 

I'll have to check that out. How much is it?

 

Fairmont

I started at Ford Engineering in Dec. 77, and they had just launched the 1978 Fairmont/Zephyr (Fox program). P.O.S. as far as I was concerned, but they used that platform right up until last year on the Mustang, and millions of other cars over the 25+ years that it ran from Fairmonts to Continentals with LTD's, Mustangs, and others in between.

My impression is the Fairmont replaced the Granada in 1978, grew into the LTD/Monarch as Fox car and was replaced by the Taurus/Sable DN5 program in 1986.

Granada's were horrible cars, can't believe they actually thought the Versailles would fool anybody. At least when GM launched the Seville off the Nova platfrom, it didn't look like a Nova. I absolutely love those first Generation Sevilles. (Course they have an Olds engine, so I'm slightly biased).

Fairmonts were same with additional cost reductions and cheapening.

 

the Monarch ran until '82 the last two years they were fox bodies

 

Maybe -

I don't expect you to believe me but I have two examples of invoices that are not correct:

a) We have a '65 GTO factory race car that we have owned since new. I know we drove it home from the Engineering building on Friday, September 11th 1964 because my sister was born the day earlier (and we picked the car up instead of going to the hospital). We were doing some research last year for an article on the car and the "official" ship date is shown as September 21st, which conveniently lines up with the official introduction date.

b) I have a '74 Chevelle, again that we have owned since new. We ordered this car with the COPO police package which included some cool features that show on the window sticker but the COPO option does not.

These are both a bummer for me because now I can't prove anything, and I'm over it now, but I am saying that as a historian and enthusiast I am very open to the idea that mistakes (or deliberate changes) can be made in the original releasing paperwork.

Respectfully,

K

 

Hi . . . you've brought up some good points.

But the fact remains that the burdon of proof is on those who have these cars or think they exist.

The GTO example you brought up got the date wrong. I take it they got the equipment (or lack thereof) right?

Pontiac's invoices are pretty accurate when it comes to equipment. If the GTO wagons were not invoiced as such (like your Chevelle example), then it could not be proven. No proof means no wagon.

 

Sort of -

The GTO example is not really fair: they were in a hurry to get the car off GM property before a strike so we drove it home with 3 whitewalls and one redline on the ground; a three speed trans was installed and the four speed was in the trunk. Nonetheless it ended up matching the documented content. We've been negotiating with the Pontiac community for about 20 years on this one.

The Chevelle example is the one that tweaks me. It had all of the individual options listed and the content installed, just not the COPO option designated in the documentation. I have torn that car all apart looking for a build sheet under the seat, carpet, top of the tank, etc with no luck.

Sucks being me sometimes (not often but sometimes).

Don't ask me to document anything on your behalf. It'll get messed up...).

K

 

NSCA Street E/T

Keith:

We at Olds also hustled a lot of cars out the door right after we launched the 1971 model year with the impending GM 56 day strike. If it ran and drove off the line, it got shipped. Lots of parts in the trunk. Dealers didn't care, just needed cars to sell.

Even after the strike, we shipped a lot of "junk" as dealers were going out of business. Not really junk, per se, just "somewhat incomplete", like the cars in the movie "Gung Ho". :laugh: Lots of the cars at the end of the line when the strike hit were finished by "management". ou:

 

I think I've run a few locomotives with those 9 dollar injectors.

They smoke really good. :laugh:

 

There is a precedent: Fred Simmonds (now Group Manager of Drag Racing for GM Racing) researched the quantity and determined the VINs of the '63 Super Duty Pontiacs. This required going through the entire 1963 model year build punch cards BY HAND. This is mentioned in Pete McCarthy's "Pontiac Musclecar Performance" book.

I doubt they would do that for any "Joe Blow" off the street but it goes to show you that if you've got the time and the motivation and the connections anything can happen.

K

 

Hopefully Zero -

If we as a manufacturer advertise or charge for a component and then don't provide it then that is a Federal Trade Commission violation. We are compelled to recall or are subject to class action lawsuit unless we correct the situation.

I'm not sure when these laws went into affect but they were certainly in place when I joined the corporation in the late 70's.

K

 

Hey Keith,

Is Larry Fleming still tearing it up in NSCA? Please say hello to him for me.

 

Will do -

Larry was a first round runner up in Belle Rose LA this weekend but YES he is still kickin' around and giving us young whipper snappers fits....

(I think he turns 69 or 70 this year).

K

 

The green 72 Wagon pictured in the above post was mine. The picture listed was taken at my home. I have owned this particular "slime" green Lemans Sport wagon twice. The car was a Lemans with the "sport" frontend option. This option cost only $41.00. What a bargain!!!

Nobody knows how many Lemans wagons were ordered with the "sport" front end option. Estimates "I" have heard are about 100. Again, this is just a guess by the "experts" who are more than 20 miles from home. That's what qualifies an expert in the south.

The "rumor" of 3 GTO wagons continues however NONE has ever appeared with paperwork. Personally, "I" think it is just that, a 35 year old rumor that everyone wants to believe. It would be very easy to see how a drunk/hungover plant worker could "think" it was a GTO wagon since it had the frontend installed. After all, why would anyone want that frontend on a wagon.

The original owner of this car wanted a new GTO however a growing family did not allow this to happen so he took advantage of the "sport" frontend option to get a wagon that looked like a GTO. I spoke at length with the original owner of this car. The car had 180K miles the second time I sold it. Almost all of the mileage was put on the car during the first 10 years of its life. The car has "stacks" of service paperwork for most all those miles. The car still has the original 400 engine that has never been out of the car. The heads have been off the car twice.

The car shown above has the original PHS paperwork, original bill of sale, copy of the original MSO and copies of all the Tennessee titles. The car was sold new in Chattanooga Tennessee and was there its entire life until I purchased the car the first time and brought it to Nashiville. This car is a perfectly documented Lemans "Sport" wagon. The car now resides with a GTO collector in Nebraska. He looked over 10 years for a documented car before purchasing the car from me. He now has what he was looking for!

This car was manufactured at the Framingham plant. The GTO wagon myth and legend continues!!!!!

 

What a classic guy. I asked him how many cars he had one time and he said "complete ones?" Told him, yeah, next time you mow the yard count them all. He just smiled.

Couldn't believe it when I saw a nitrous bottle in the trunk of the yellow Cuda. He said wasn't hooked up or permanently installed. Was only there for contingency money in case he won the Street/ET championship.....and he did.

 

Anyone replacing springs should notice a difference after putting in the new ones, otherwise why do it?

I alos worked fo Ford dor years and was involved in trying to figure out the entire population that may be affected by a particular failure and how many cars to include in the recall/campaign, oasis report, whatever. It isn't easy. But it is ungodly expensive just to notify the customers (thanks to Wash. D.C.) and even more risky for the ambulance chasing lawyers that may have pending suits that may use this data (even if not related or connected....just have to convince a jury). Once the severity and extent are established, then decisions are made whether to recall all of them, settle the outstanding lawsuits first, handle on an owner notification basis (as contrasted to a mega million dollar recall), etc. Settling a lawsuit isn't necessarily an admission of guilt. No need to go any further with that.

I recall a pending lawsuit that was issued by one of the states against Ford cop cars (think it was Texas) about the braking systems on their pursuit vehicles. Seems they wrecked a bunch of them trying to slide them through the medians to chase people the other direction and they didn't slide like the old ones. They had anti lock brakes.....that suit didn't get far.

Every effort is made to build the cars correctly as Keith points out, because the violations for certification can result in massive recalls and lawsuits if the wrong parts are on the car.......all you need is that jury.

There are inspection buyoffs all through the system. Errors are made. But these myths and urban legends about people slipping things through production are mostly just that. Great car show and cruise night B.S.

I think most of the recent recalls are more due to incomplete testing and proveout on the new components for a vehicle that are "approved" for production without testing being completed. The rash of late launches over the past 10 years was an attempt to curb that when they not only became aware of the problems, but the possible ramifications if they're caught (and can't find someone else to blame it on).

 

Keith,

I added the GTO emblem. The car originally had a "Lemans" emblem in the grill. The car has the original 400 2 barrel engine with single exhaust. I installed a single 2 1/2 exhaust to replace the original exhaust that was still on the car.

I do not have any back Pontiac issues so I cannot help you. There is a beautifully restored/created red 72 GTO/Lemans wagon with honeycombs that is now in Maui Hawaii. There are several pictures of this car also on the web. Try "stationwagon.com".

 

Not to my knowledge. My "expertise" in Pontiacs sort of trails off after about 1968....

K

 

I don't remember the exact numbers but my recollection of the breakdown was something like:

Perfect, numbers matching beautifully restored Mopars: 20 ish
Diamonds in the rough: 50 ish
Parts cars scattered across multilple farms and several counties: 150+

He is a stinker. Lucky racer, too. I ran him in the final at Atlanta a couple years ago. They didn't handicap the tree so I had him within the first couple feet. Naturally, when we realized what happened, I agreed a rematch was appropriate. We lined up for our second "final", I treed him but good and then realized I forgot to turn the electric fuel pump on. The car layed down about 660 ft out and I watched him drive off with the win...again....

K