Good morning! For your Friday edition of Shitbox Showdown, we’re rounding out the week with a pair of brown sedans. They have a surprising amount in common, but come from opposite sides of the world.
I didn’t really need to look at the vote tally from yesterday to know which car won. I knew it was going to be the Family Truckster. I mean, the van had pink shag carpeting underneath a chemical toilet. Nobody wants that in their life. It’s a little early in the day, but no sense dragging this one out. The Country Squire wins it by a country mile.
I had forgotten just how truly awful the actual Wagon Queen Family Truckster really was, until I looked up photos of it again. George Barris did a great job of taking an unappealing (to my eye, anyway) car and making it truly hideous. And lest we forget, the same fine folks that brought you the Family Truckster also gave us the finest rental-spec convertible of all time: the Gran Detroit Farm & Country Turbo–though I don’t think we can blame Barris for that one.
A lot of people complain about cars all looking alike these days, and it’s true; I have trouble telling the sea of midsized crossovers apart without looking at the badges. But if you look back at cars from any era, they all looked alike. To demonstrate this point, today we’re going to be looking at a pair of sedans from the malaise era, designed and built by different companies on different continents. They don’t really look all that much alike sitting side-by-side, but there are some eerie similarities. And to make things even weirder, they’re roughly the same color, roughly the same trim level, and have roughly the same mileage. Let’s check them out.
1978 Ford Fairmont – $3,000
Engine/drivetrain: 200 cubic inch overhead valve inline 6, three-speed automatic, RWD
Location: Gettysburg, PA
Odometer reading: 58,000 miles
Operational status: Runs and drives well
Here it is, the one that started it all, the very first Fox-body car: the 1978 Ford Fairmont. Yep, before there was the Mustang GT, or the Lincoln LSC, there was this boxy thing. It may not be sexy, but compared to the Falcon-based Granada that it replaced, the Fairmont was pretty high-tech for the time: McPherson strut front suspension, a four-link rear axle, and rack-and-pinion steering were all part of the Fox platform from the beginning.
Less new were the Fairmont’s engine offerings. The standard engine was the 2.3 liter four from the Pinto; one step up was this 200 cubic inch inline-six, whose design dates all the way back to 1960. By 1978, it was choked within an inch of its life by emissions equipment, but it’s still a sturdy, reliable engine. This one is backed by Ford’s equally sturdy C4 automatic transmission, and both are in fine shape, according to the seller.
The Fairmont’s interior features something never seen in any Mustang GT or Lincoln LSC: a vinyl bench seat and a column-mounted shifter. Build quality wasn’t Ford’s strong suit in the late 1970s, but this one doesn’t look terrible: the horn button (at least I think it’s the horn button) appears to have fallen off, and the top of the dash is pretty ratty, but the upholstery looks fine. I mean, for tan vinyl.
Fairmonts never were fancy cars, but this one looks especially plain: it has dog-dish hubcaps, and no exterior trim at all. It looks for all the world like a government-spec sedan, and in fact when I saw it posted on Facebook, someone mentioned that it reminded them of the cars in the excellent crime drama Mindhunter. This one looks clean enough to use as set dressing in that show–as long as you only shoot it from certain angles. It does have a couple blemishes here and there.
1981 Mazda 626 LX – $3,400
Engine/drivetrain: 2.0-liter overhead cam inline 4, three-speed automatic, RWD
Location: Ocoee, FL
Odometer reading: 57,000 miles
Operational status: Runs and drives well
And here we have another four-door sedan, also with McPherson struts in front and a coil-sprung solid rear axle, also with an inline engine and an automatic transmission – only this one comes from Japan, courtesy of Mazda. This is the 626, known as the Mazda Capella in its homeland. It replaced the 616/618 and rotary-powered RX-2 here in the US, but the 626 was never offered with a rotary.
In fact, in the US, only one engine was offered, a single overhead cam inline-four displacing 2.0 liters. I had this same engine in a B2000 pickup, and I can practically hear the sewing-machine tick of the valvetrain looking at this photo. The seller says this one runs and drives well, but that’s about all we get. Facebook Marketplace sellers aren’t the most verbose lot, I’ve noticed.
That engine, unfortunately, powers the rear wheels through a three-speed automatic, which should be illegal in a Mazda sedan. But I suppose it’s the pampered low-mileage automatic versions of these old cars that survive, so maybe we should be thankful to that sloppy, slushy box of boring. As wrong as that dumb T-handle looks sticking out of the center console, the rest of the interior is in decent shape. There are some cracks in the dashboard, and there’s no way of knowing what’s under the seat covers, but for 43 years old, it looks good.
The outside looks clean as well; the black rubber five-mile-per-hour bumpers are faded, but it’s undamaged and shiny. The biggest problem is that it’s boring, which is something I never thought I’d say about a Mazda sedan.
And there they are, two cars that come from opposite directions and arrive at more or less the same place. Neither one is what you’d call exciting, but by virtue of being old and now rare, they’re fun to see. Fun to own? Well, that’s a different story. But if you were to choose one, maybe with an eye towards making it more fun, which one would it be? And how would you spice it up? Discuss it in the comments, and I’ll see you all next week.
(Image credits: Facebook Marketplace sellers)
I want to put a single red light on top of the Fairmont and drive around like I’m Alasondro Alegre playing “The Chief”.
Yes, I know that video had an LTD or something else in it.
My mother had a 1980 Fairmont when I was a kid. Dark brown with a dark brown vinyl interior with no AC. I still have scars on the back of my thighs from the interior on summer days. She swears to this day that is was the worst car ever conceived of in the history of man.
As much as I’d love to slap a rotary in that Mazda, the box top fox wins this battle. Then I’ll just chain Matt Happel in my garage with it for a couple weeks and drive whatever the result is.
Seeing a Fairmont described as “Runs and drives well” sure lightened my mood. Were they even ever intended to do that?
I voted for Zoom, Zoom instead of the Mustamont.
( Fairmont- I Hated them when they were brand new!)
I’ll take the Ford. It’s appearance screams “low level bureaucrat on board”, but I kind of like plainly styled cars. I’m not fond of the color, though. If someone gave me this car, I would tint the windows and paint or wrap it. At the moment I’m thinking snow camouflage or Dubai police livery, but the possibilities are endless. A bland car is a great blank canvas for creating something interesting.
I opened this thinking I would vote Mazda, but I voted Ford for parts/upgrade availability, plus I appreciate how under-styled it is. I’d probably throw some ten-holes (and crucially, bigger tires) on it, clean up the dash pad and just drive it.
If the Fairmont had been a 2-door, it would’ve gotten my vote for more potential as a fun project. The Mazda is cromulent and wouldn’t be a terrible daily. It’s got that touch of upper class ’80s chic. The paint is pretty good, and I think you could freshen the details up for cheap.
That Fairmont will make an awesome sleeper with a 302/5-speed swap. I would change literally nothing else. Keep the dog dish hubcaps. Keep the vinyl bench seat.
Maybe paint it olive drab and slide it around like Colonel Decker.
I wouldn’t be opposed to that!
I’m happy to acquire a black van for you to chase…
Don’t threaten me with a good time! 🙂
Yep, although I may swap in a contemporary Mustang gauge cluster and dash trim.
Throw a Boss 302 into that Fairmont, swap the trans with a manual, keep it low key on the outside (maybe even keep the dishes?), a little window tint..and pretend you’re driving the LTD from Men In Black.
Fairmont. The Mazda is certainly the better car, but the Fairmont is easier to modify into something more exciting than either car currently is.
The Fairmont will be a lot easier to get parts for too, even if one wanted to leave it stock.
Even though it might be fun to swap a Godzilla into the Fairmont, the Mazda is the better car, period.
The best part is that a later 626 almost became the new Mustang platform.
The Mazda is the better car, with real engineering and build quality behind it, while the Ford was just haphazardly thrown together by people who didn’t care and was designed by people who didn’t care, either.
Wow, these are a couple of “blasts” from the past. Definitely not the shit brown Fairmont so I’ll vote Mazda. I do recall that years ago, people were taking the front end of an RX-7 , engine, suspensions and all, and dropping it into the 626. Seems a little pricey to consider these days but if you want to spice it up.
I think that the Sears driving schools used to use the Fairmont (painted seafoam green) as their training cars. I remember taking the class with 3 other kids. Everything was going smooth until we got to the last driver. The stoplight was changing at one of the larger 5 street intersections in our town. The instructor told her to come to a stop but she floored it. He used his passenger side brake pedal while she was on the gas. The car lurched like a vomiting cat across that intersection. When we got to the other side, the instructor bellowed that we were done and he drove us back to the high school in silence. Well, except for the other 3 of us trying hard not to burst out laughing.
I sort of dig the plain jane gov’t look of the Ford. This would be a fun car for some ridiculous V8/manual swap.
That Fairmont looks poverty-spec, but it kind of… isn’t? It’s got AC, power steering, power brakes… I don’t see cruise control on there, but I’d have to imagine that would be pretty rare on these cars. It has the six cylinder instead of the four, and the auto transmission. This thing would be a great ‘classic’ daily driver on the cheap.
Where do you see AC? I don’t see any lines, drier, or compressor. The belt-driven thing on top is the smog pump.
Edit: ok, I see it now, buried on the other side.
Fairmont for me. Fox platform reliability, parts availability, and endless customization opportunities. The styling isn’t exciting, but it has an unmistakably sharp-edged 80’s look that’s endearing.
The Mazda will probably be reliable for plenty of time to come, like so many Japanese cars, given good basic maintenance. But probably harder to find parts for, and far fewer opportunities for spicing up in any meaningful way. I remember the 626 well; they were popular in the 80s as reliable, unassuming transportation, and they were attractive in a global-styling sort of way — perfect if you didn’t want an identifiably flashy import or domestic style. (The Fairmont may have been fairly tame in its time, but the styling definitely retained some 80’s knife-edge sleekness and wasn’t completely anonymous.)
We had a low-spec Fairmont as a company car back in the day. Same engine and tranny, but at least they threw in power steering and brakes, A/C, and a tinny AM radio. Dog dish poverty caps and black wall tires. The horn was on the turn signal stalk, part of Ford’s better idea as they thought airbags would soon be mandatory and they had no clue how to get a horn button atop an airbag wheel. The 78 had only 2 supports holding in the dash so it was a buzzy deal. Later years they added a third support to stop the buzz. It was guaranteed to stall at least once after a cold start and stall multiple times on cold mornings until things warmed up. We could barely keep it running on cold mornings when the loose-fitting warm air riser hose would fall off the air cleaner snorkel while driving. Fun times not in that tin can, turn-in day at the end of the lease was a call for celebration.
The Fairmont, simply because this particular car may be the epitome of boring cars. I really don’t know what you could add or take away to make it more boring. It’s perfect!
Family had a Fairmont. It did nothing well, with the exception of apparently being invisible to speed traps. Not that it did much speeding. Biggest regret is that I wasn’t allowed to send it out by lighting a gasoline-soaked rag stuffed into the fuel filler.
We had a Fairmont and its LTD successor. The LTD was much better in every way.
The Fairmont looks like someone with a badge would drive it. The lowest person on the org chart to have a badge, but still. Yeah I could put go fast parts on it and have a sleeper, but at the end of the day it’s still a Fairmont. Rather spend the $ on a Saab 900.
The Mazda I’d just drive as is until it fell apart or I died of boredom.
This is definitely a low-level government official kind of a car. A car like this needs to be driven by an official with a title like The Undersecretary for the Division of Snacks and Recreation of the Sheboygan Branch Office of the Internal Revenue Service.
not low-level enough to not get A/C and power steering, it seems.
No. Cars with power steering but no AC are reserved for the Assistant Undersecretary for the Division of Snacks and Recreation of the Sheboygan Branch Office of the Internal Revenue Service.
Cars lacking both power steering and AC are reserved for the Deputy Assistant Undersecretary for the Division of Snacks and Recreation of the Sheboygan Branch Office of the Internal Revenue Service.
There’s a car for every bureaucrat.
Sorry – I fell asleep looking at them Same problem I had when the 78 Fairmont hit the streets
Neither one is particularly exciting, but I suspect both would serve okay as DDs.
Still, you could have some real fun with the Fairmont if so inclined, as long as you were willing to throw money at a car that will never be worth more than it is now. Give it a Mustang suspension beefup and a 351W and you could carve some canyons, all the while convincing others you are (or the previous owner was) a cheapskate.
I think a warm 302 would be fine. The 351W is a heavy torque monster, plus the wider top deck is an issue with the front struts, get a 347 stroker 302 instead.
The first car I remember us owning as child was an ’81 Fairmont. Same mechanical spec as this but higher trim level.
You could turn the government spec Fairmont into something fun (although I recall hearing I6 cars need a front subframe swap to make a v8 work). It’s a Fox body and that dash was shared in whole with the ’79 through ’86 Mustang. I’d personally leave government spec exterior – dog dishes with trim rings. I’m thinking mini MIB Crown Vic.
Sigh, Gettysburg is only a 3 hour drive…
You can bolt a lot of Mustang parts to a Fox platform Fairmont and make one hell of a Q-ship.
In contrast, I imagine that parts for the 626 will be a bit challenging to get and resulting performance would be meh.
Wanted to vote Mazda. But? No A/C, no soup for you.
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