This world – she’s so vast and full of things I have no idea about! The entire discipline of herpetology, for example– I don’t really know shit about it. If you asked me, at knifepoint, to point which of the two reptiles you had thrown into the jacuzzi with me (just go with it, it’s a whole thing) was a crocodile and which was an alligator, I think I’d be getting stabbed. But cars you’d think would be pretty clearly in my wheelhouse, and yet here I am, encountering a ’70s Ford I thought I knew, only to find it’s called something I didn’t expect. Looks like I have a lot of growing up to still do.
Lemme show you what I mean: see that car up there? That’s a Gran Torino, right? I mean, it looks like a Gran Torino, probably sounds and smells and drives like a Gran Torino, but get this: it’s not a Ford Gran Torino.
It’s a Ford Elite.
Yep, an Elite! From 1975 to 1976, Ford took a trim level – the Gran Torino Elite – and made it its own model name, giving the world the Ford Elite, which was technically not a Gran Torino.
They also went out of their way to equate this car with the Thunderbird, which is a bit odd, since the Thunderbird wasn’t all that different than the Elite, really:
Sure, the Thunderbird made a bit more power from a somewhat bigger V8 and was a bit more upmarket, sorta. But come on, from 20 feet away and two gins and tonics in, you can’t really tell the difference here.
This ’70s “personal luxury car” era was such an odd one; it was one based on such a specific, ornate aesthetic, with downright baroque detailing with those double opera windows and “woodtone” inserts in steering wheels and hood ornaments with acanthus leaf wreaths and wire wheels and all that crap.
Also, this image of a woman using the crap out of that reclining seat:
…may be the stiffest, most awkward-looking example of car-napping I’ve ever seen.
I definitely appreciate the love given to taillights here, which have a full-width “red lens accent” and are described as “jewel-like.” Also, you have to admire that woman’s commitment to matching her outfit to her car.
Interiors of this era also never fail to fascinate me. That carpet! Look at the pile of that carpet! It looks like the whole floor of the car is covered in several piping-hot layers of the finest all-beef chili, which you can then slide your feet into, reveling in the sheer luxuriousitinessitude of it all.
All of this, and it’s still not a Gran Torino. It’s an Elite. Or, for about one year it was. I’ll do my best to remember.
I could probably tell a gator from a croc. I mean, square snout vs. pointed snout. Not so difficult. Whether I’d be fast enough is another matter entirely.
You don’t have to be faster than the croc or gator. You just need to be faster than your mate.
Which is true, but it doesn’t change the fact that I may not be fast enough.
Horrible, but surprisingly comfortable cars. A friend had one of these and a 74 Coupe DeVille. I did not envy his gas bill.
In response to your quandary earlier in the article. One reptile will see you later. One will see you in a while, that’s how you can tell the difference.
Genuine question: were Lotus Elites imported to the USA, especially the 1970s version, which would have been on sale at exactly the same time as the Ford? Were they sold under a different name?
Thanks for the memories Torch, I think? I had that crap bronze metallic Ford Elite in the photo, purchased used in 1976 with no warranty. If I recall the factory warranty was 12 months or 12,000 miles. Had it for about 4 months and dumped it after replacing a failed power steering pump, adding a quart of oil each week, and averaging about 12 mpg. Sold that F.O.R.D. (Fix Or Repair Daily) and purchased an X/19 F.I.A.T. (Fix It Again Tony). Moved on to Honda and VW vehicles thereafter. Hondas were very reliable (’86 Accord, ’01 Accord, ’07 Si and ’12 Si and have had very few issues with my VW’s (’82 Rabbit diesel, ’95 Passat, ’18 Golf R, ’24 Golf R).
It’s worth pointing out the Thunderbird at this point was a full-size coupe, while the Elite was midsize. When the Thunderbird shrank for 1977, the Elite was no longer needed.
The Elite is a seriously nasty piece of automobile. I’m not sure what the design inspiration was, aside from “long and ugly”.
The 1972 Ford Torino and Mercury Montego came from the same engineering program as the 1972 Thunderbird and Continental Mark IV. Tbird and Mark IV were the long wheelbase fullsize frame and the Torino/Montego was the shorter mid size version. Styling between all of them was very similar with roofline, window, bodyside and bladed fender front end shapes. Taking the Montego two door body made it easy and convincing to turn it into a Cougar for Mercury and an midsize alternative to the Thunderbird as the Elite for Ford. The Elite adapted a sculpted new hood similar to the Thunderbird with a more intricate grille style. Large color keyed bodyside moldings were placed midway up the bodysides to pick up on similar thick moldings on the Thunderbird. Elite got it’s own twin opera windows which were more distinctive than Thunderbirds. Interiors were finished off in similar luxury materials and Elite wlecen shared premium wheel cover and aluminum wheel options with the Thunderbird.
Long before the Elite arrived, Ford had already experimented with Torino based drsign proposals based on 1970–71 Torinos. I think the biggest mistake was allowing the Tbird to get so huge and not keep it trimmed down to mid sized offerings.
Even GM grew the Eldorado, Toronado and Riviera into ghastly beasts compared to their beautiful lean gorgeous mid to late 60s designs. The 1971–73 boattail Riviera was originally intended to be in GMs midsize A-body platform until prohibitive costs made it more feasible stretched out on a fullsize RWD platform common with other GM fullsize cars.
What cars interiors looked like decades before the word “consent” came into modern use.
An Elite gracing the Autopian’s pages! Here we go with another wave of memories because of something Torch randomly posted.
The first time I ever went over 100mph was riding with a friend in his ’74 Mercury Cougar XR7, which was basically this car. The way that thing floated around over 100mph was legitimately scary. Probably didn’t help that he picked it up for $250 and had so much Armor All on the seats that one couldn’t help but just sort of slide around when sitting in it.
Later another friend of mine bought an actual ’76 Ford Elite that was in amazing condition from a typical old-lady-drove-to-church-on-Sunday type for only $900 (that’s still only around $2K in today’s greenbacks). Triple dark green, he excessively detailed it and buffed out the paint, added Cragers with raised white-letter tires, and installed a true dual-exhaust with glasspacks on it. Quite the gentleman’s hot rod, and it was driven around loudly and proudly.
I haven’t actually seen one of these on the road since the mid-nineties. Great to see one here!
They constantly upscale model names, Fairlane to Torino to Grand Torino then Elite. Marquis became Grand Marquis, Then Ford did the Custom, to Galaxie to LTD then Crown Victoria.
I seem to remember there was a regular “Victoria” in there at some point before the “Crown” prefix was added.
Look at this woman, just lounging on the phone.. in a car, in 1976.. That my friends is Elite..
https://www.lov2xlr8.no/brochures/ford/75tb/bilder/3.jpg
My first car was a 1976 Elite that I purchased from my parents.
I’m getting to the point where I think 70’s cars have passed from ironically cool to actually cool. I’d drive this.
Such an incredibly ugly car. Who cares what it’s called?
So I guess some Ford designer asked, “What’s the only thing better than an opera window?”
Twin opera windows!
They could have called it “The Encore”.
The Ford Elite was the result of Ford needing an entry in the affordable midsize personal luxury catagory. The Pontiac Grand Prix, Chevrolet Monte Carlo and Olds Cutlass Supreme were such hot sellers that Ford could no longer ignore the market.
The existing Thunderbird was a full sized expensive luxury car from 1972 to 1976 twinned with the Continental Mark IV.
When the 1974 Mustang II was planned to be a smaller subcompact economy sport coupe, this left the Mercury Cougar without a platform mate. The Cougar was already competing with GMs personal luxury midsize cars at this point during 1971 through 1973. The Cougar was moved to the existing Torino-based Mercury Montego body 2-door body shell resulting in an upsized version equally matched to GM competition. There was very little additional tooling investment to turn the Montego 2-door into a Cougar. The Cougar simply got a front end panel styled similar to the outgoing 73 Cougar and some alternately styled tail lights.
A late decision was made to give Ford a competitive midsize entry. Again minimal tooling investment was made by cloning the Montego/Cougar two door body and fashioning a front end panel and new hood in place styled to resemble the Thunderbird. Priced much less than the Thunderbird the Gran Torino Elite debuted in February 1974 promoted in the “Thunderbird tradition”. It really was a test bed to see if consumers would accept a slightly smaller luxurious Thunderbird.
The midsize Elite sold moderately well but not in the numbers Ford wanted to be competitive with popular GM models. Ford determined people were not enamoured with the Gran Torino name so that was struck from the nomenclature for 1975–76 simple calling the car Elite.
Meanwhile expensive fullsize Thunderbird sales were very slow. Ford decided to kill two birds with one stone and restyle the Elite into a downsized midsize Thunderbird for 1977–79. This divorced the Thunderbird frim sharing a fullsize platform with the Continental Mark V. Priced at $2500 less than 1976, this generation set sales records for three consecutive years rivaling the best selling Olds Cutlass Supreme.
The 1977–79 Thunderbird was so popular with its lower base price that it cannibalized LTD II 2-door hardtop sales which shared the same body and chassis. The LTD II was a restyled replacement for the Torino model line which ended up using the hood of the Elite to complete its stacked rectangular headlight front end.
The Elite did not completely die after 1976. The nameplate was used in Mexico for a premium 2-door version of the Ford Fairmont using a mix of Zephyr specific trim parts. The Fairmont Elite was later replaced with the Ford Elite II (dropping the Fairmont name) which expanded with a four door sedan. Styling was updated to include just the newly styled front end of the North American 1981 Ford Granada.
Down in Venezula, Ford built updated 83 Fox LTD bodies there continuing to use the Granada name instead complete with a top level Granada Elite model.
This reads like an alternate, more detailed version of the article we just read. Well done!
And opera window aficionados could rejoice that this downsized, less expensive and more popular Thunderbird had opera windows in its B-pillsrs, if they weren’t blocked by stainless steel trim or something. This was an expanded deployment of the opera window technology used in the B-pillsrs of upscale versions of the two-door Ford LTDs introduced in 1975 or ’76.
Ford started a little late in the Great Opera Window Battles of the day, but once in they brought the best of American window ornament armament to the C-pillars of full-sized, four-door Continentals as well as both two-door and four-door editions of the Mark VI, not to mention the windowless but otherwise T-Bird-inspired thick ‘n’ swoopy B-pillsrs of the ’78 Fairmont Future and Mercury Zephyr Z-7, which, like the Thunderbird, allowed buyers to specify vinyl roofing in front of the wrap-over trim, behind the wrap-over trim, or both!
The Fairmont Futura was originally a Fairmont based Thunderbird design proposal complete with production 1977 Tbird styled front and rear ends. Downsizing the Thunderbird from fullsize to Fairmont “compact” size was too drastic. The 76 Thunderbird was much bigger than Fords midsize cars and GM A-body competition. So it was prudent to downsize Tbird in stages by restyling the Elite with the look of the Fairmont-based proposal. The Tbird was close to getting a conventional roofline like LTD II and Cougar as evidened by styling proposals with their roofline but 77 Tbird production styled front and rear ends. The basket handle roofline was a big hit. Bringing out the Futura as junior to the Thunderbird gave a buyers a downsized alternative to GMs downsized A-body cars for 1978. However Futuras were never really plush or premium enough on level with the nicest Tbirds. When Ford did downsize the Tbird for 1980, they basically reskinned a Futura with stiff boxy awkward proportions with styling cues that did not fit the scale of the car. 1980–82 was a complete sales disaster after record setting sales fir 1977–79.
Actually Ford didn’t start too late with opera windows. The 1971 Cadillac Fleetwood Eldorado appeared with vertical rectangular opera windows flanked by a thick padded rear vinyl roof. When the Continental Mark IV debuted redesigned for 1972, it featured oval opera windows giving tribute to the Ford Blue Oval emblem shape as the Mark IV was FoMoCos premium flagship car.
Thunderbirds gained trapazoid shaped opera windows for 1973. The same year all of GMs A-body personal lixury cars got the formal Colonade roofs with vertical opera windows similar to Eldorado style.
With the fear to eliminate hardtop roofs because of rollover standards that never materialized, many cars converted rooflines to pillared roofs giving them an opportunity to put opera windows on everything turning them into a designated luxury car specific styling cue. It was not long the 1975 Mustang II Ghia, Granada and Monarch debuted opera windows. It got to the point nearly ever car model had a formal opera window vinyl roof option including NOVAs, Monza Towne Coupes, Chryslers Aspen, Volare. The last fastback Charger of 1974 worked in triple opera windows with a forward section vinyl roof. The Matador Bacelona fastback coupe…. Opera windows stayed around a long time until Ford started rejecting them for the Aero Tbird, Cougar and Continental Mark VII. Manufacturers in general tried pulling away from opera window clique but there was always the aftermarket upfitters that ruined modern rooflines with vinyl and canvas tops with trimmed in opera windows closed in from full rear quarter side windows.
Excellent and accurate narrative! These came out when I was in high school; as a Ford family kid I really wanted them to succeed in competition to the Monte Carlo especially. Alas that didn’t happen, but the ’77 T-Bird knocked it out of the park.
“stiffest, most awkward-looking example of car-napping I’ve ever seen.”
You think she’s asleep?
I suspect well-preserved rigor mortis. She’s still managing to rock that tennis outfit though.
Trunk was full.
Why didn’t she toss the tennis racket into the back before reclining for her nap?
The Elite! This factoid indeed lived in some deep recess of my brain, and you brought it forth blinking into the daylight. Amazing. It will return to hibernation now, never to be seen again.