The forgotten Monte Carlo

THE FORGOTTEN MONTE CARLO

I was a block from the shop one recent morning when I saw this beauty idling in front of a deli:

This is a 1978 Chevrolet Monte Carlo in some sort of Black Cherry (I couldn't find an exact match for GM in 1978). This was a very short-lived generation of Monte, built for only 3 years; '78-'80. 

I love this forward leaning facade in its simplicity. There was originally a stand-up hood ornament on this ride but to me it looks better without it. That V shape on the hood mimics the prow of a ship like the much bigger '73-'77 Monte. This generation weighed 800lbs less than its predecessor and is a full 15" shorter. That one big square headlight on each side is a vast improvement over the stacked square headlights of the '77.

Two out of the Big 3 automakers had transitional years between the largess of the '70s and the more compact '80s (Chrysler decided not to participate and their enormous dinosaurs almost sank the company in the process). Ford had a particularly awkward Thunderbird for 2 years based on the Fox body Fairmont. Chevy did a much better job with this Monte. It has many of the hallmarks of the huge ride it replaced but doesn't look like an incapable afterthought. Indeed with some noticeable changes this body continued on through the late '80s.

The owner of this ride was standing next to it and was enthusiastic when I asked if I could snap a few pics. He confirmed that it had the original 305 V8 under the hood. The base engine was a 231 V6 borrowed from Buick. You could get a manual transmission for your Monte Carlo for the first time in several years in '78. A 3 speed was the base offering (listed as standard equipment with the V6) and a 4 speed was optional with the 305.

There were a couple of odd drivetrain choices which are now pretty scarce. One was a diesel 350 V8 built by the Oldsmobile division. The ultimate rarity for this generation Monte is the 1980-only Turbo Monte Carlo that used Buick's 231 V6. Finding one now would be pretty astonishing as it was a single year model without the support of a large ad campaign like the turbo Buicks. 

This ride is immaculate. I was actually offered a free '78 Monte back in high school. It was light brown with 1 purple door and it had no reverse. I was close to accepting it but due to an embarrassment of riches I passed it up (in those days free cars that ran were fairly common and running wrecks that cost less than $500 were all over the place). I did like the body style and still do.

Well that's where I'll leave this swoopy Chevy. The owner was rightfully proud of his ride and said it came from the midwest originally. Finding a rust free example is getting tougher by the year. If you encountered one of these for sale relatively cheap it would be a great purchase as everything that can wear out on this ride is available today. If you do buy one you can put a little distance between you and the crowd. 

The perfect device for colonial imperialism

THE PERFECT DEVICE FOR COLONIAL IMPERIALISM

I was walking through Windsor Terrace recently when something appeared that seemed as foreign and out of place as the Coke bottle in The Gods Must be Crazy. Behold!

This is a 1978 Land Rover Defender 109 in what I believe is Spring Green (I think British Racing Green is a little deeper in an evergreen sense as opposed to this hue).

 Make no mistake - even though this is parked in a lovely neighborhood this beast is safari-ready. It is positively dripping with aftermarket heavy duty upgrades.

This is the long wheelbase station wagon that is really just a few steps away from its prehistoric ancestors. The Defender was originally launched in 1948 and ran all the way through the 2015 model year. While there were plenty of changes and series over the decades it remained remarkably true to its initial design over those 67 years.

You've got to give it up for the full external roll cage on this thing! In addition it has a roof-height snorkel for the engine. Everything about the presentation says it's ready and capable for serious off road adventures. How it got to Brooklyn is a mystery to me. Maybe it drove along the bottom of the ocean?

I have a close friend who drives a newer Discovery with these same wheels. He calls them the "U.N. wheels" because Land Rovers stationed around the world tend to sport these no nonsense white steelies.

I can't think of a single custom touch that this isn't already outfitted with. That spotlight on the roof even has a protective metal screen over it as if this were exploring a rugged continent. 

 From this angle it's plain to see how utilitarian these older Defenders are. Exposed hinges, simple metal body panels, big expanses of flat glass, etc. While this company went on to produce luxury SUVs and crossovers this vehicle harkens back to the need to traverse faraway lands with no paved roads. I'm sure this is cold in winter, hot in summer, and pretty loud and rattly on bumpy ground. It is 100% honest is what I'm trying to say.

Well that's where I'll leave this conquerer to enjoy semi-retirement. The fact that the license plate is mashed up under the bumper alludes to possible adventure so hopefully it's not retired at all. Either way I'm impressed and somewhat in awe of this hardy British beast.

RONCHERO for '78!

R O N C H E R O 

The following car/truck is located on one of the nicest blocks in Brooklyn, as it should be! High on the lofty ridge overlooking the Narrows at the mouth of the NY Harbor rests this beast:

This is a 1978 Ford Ranchero 500 in two-tone Polar White over Dark Jade Metallic. You could easily enjoy a quick lunch sitting on the ledge between the headlights and the bumper. Oh and of course the name of this rig is RONCHERO!

This thing's got a pretty bleak expression on its face with the skin problems and smoky eye. None of that takes away from the outlandish styling with its jutting fender edges, stacked square headlights, and that mammoth, park bench like bumper. This is the last generation for the Ranchero and the 2nd to last year ever. A common misconception is that Ford made the Ranchero as a response to the Chevy El Camino. The Ranchero was introduced in 1957, predating the El Camino by 2 years.

Notice how some of the skin remains. Roncheros typically molt over a span of several days.

This thing just looks like it fell out of Mervyn's winter catalogue from '78. The white is so grubby that it's taking away from what is an attractive color combo. There were optional spoke wheels from the factory but these are not them. That cap mounted to the bed is awesome with its multiple tinted windows.
Beneath that gargantuan hood lies a neutered 302, 351, or 400 V8 good for almost no horsepower.

There were 3 trim levels of Ranchero in '78. The highest end was the GT which included massive decal stripes along the bottom and top of the body. In the middle was the Squire which had faux woodgrain available as well as a vinyl roof. This, the 500, is the base model. The Two-tone was an option that was only available for the 500.

Rust has eaten some pretty substantial holes through the tailgate. At first glance the rear of the Ranchero looks identical to the Country Squire station wagons. This tailgate with it's bumped-out section is unique, as are the taillights.

Whether you call it a cap, topper, or camper top the fiberglass bed cover on this ride is great. You know somebody has slept in the back of this thing at least once.

The shape of the cap is super unique and obviously made for a Ranchero. The swooping body line from the bed to the roof ensures that only made to fit caps will work.

Looks like some black tape is holding the chrome trim to the tops of the windows. I love this aggressive two-tone design and the trapezoidal window shape.

This has the optional Flight Bench interior in Jade vinyl. Everything else looks pretty standard with the ex option of the 8-track stereo still in the dash!

Through the trees you can see the water and Staten Island in the distance. Ronchero is one of many hoopties I found roosting along this stretch of Shore Road in Bay Ridge.
Ford explored the possibility of a smaller pickup truck/car combo based on the Fairmont. It was called the Durango and they built between 80-220 of them for sale between '79 and '82. I think they look cool and it's too bad they didn't release them in bigger numbers. Since they elected to phase out the Durango before it even started in earnest the 1979 Ranchero was the last Ford of this type.

From this angle this is pretty much a paint job away from looking really good.
I love this weirdo ride because it is a compendium of automotive footnotes all rolled into one. Crazy, jutting front end with those stacked square headlights, Malaise Era styling in excess, luxury car/truck combo, period piece cap, and awesome two-tone paint all make for a hilarious rig. I've really come around as these were my idea of a vehicle gone horribly wrong. Now I realize there's nothing like it on the road. Would I roll Ronchero? You bet your hat I would!

The transitional car from the bloated '70s to the squared-off '80s

  SOMEWHERE BETWEEN QUAALUDES AND COCAINE   

I was biking along the industrial waterfront of red Hook in Brooklyn when this gently colored ride presented itself:

This is a 1978 Pontiac Grand Prix in Dresden Blue with a creamy white landau roof. This is a car with one foot planted firmly in the tired past and one in the uncertain future. Amazingly the result is better than it sounds!

This color scheme is so Leisure Suit '70s but the dimensions are leaning towards the '80s. The Grand Prix from its inception in 1962 through this vintage was always a 2 door coupe in the Personal Luxury style. 1978 introduced the 5th generation for the Grand Prix with more squared-off, angular body lines than its predecessor.

The '78 GP was a foot shorter and 600 lbs lighter than the '77 so even in this era of strangled low horsepower engines the performance was decent. This was the first year in the models history that a 6 cylinder was standard equipment. Technically a 3 speed manual transmission was standard as well but finding a 6 cylinder 3 speed GP would be a rarity.

The surefire way to identify a 1978 model is the grill; the 5 vertical bars on each side were 1 year only. 1979 brought a crosshatched grill. 1980 went back to a similar grill design but there were 9 vertical grill bars on either side.
That gentle V shape going from the corner of the grill back to the lower corner of the windshield is a shadow of what once was. In the earlier '70s Grand Prix the center portion would be raised in a full length hood bulge. The spaces directly behind the headlights were sunken down between that center V and the raised edges of the fenders.

If you look at the relatively enormous 1977 GP you see headlights in a rectangular box with the turn signal in the center just like this. The main differences in the overall width can be found the the extra space between the headlight pods and grill in '77 as well as a wide body colored section in the center of the split grill.

Besides that swooping line from the front fender point, under the side windows, and down the top of the quarter panel this is very much a squared-off design. You could carve this car out of a block of cream cheese.

Just look at the point where the fender, hood, and front connect; it is a perfect corner. This is a premonition of the next decade of styling.
Incidentally this bumper looks so much more integrated into the overall look than the mid-'70s version. Having a car that weighs so much less means not as much bumper is needed for the 5mph crash requirements.

The padded rear landau roof would stick around for another several years though not so puffy as this. The GP was available with T-Tops, the rear of which lines up right where this vinyl roof begins.

This car was ordered for a family as opposed to someone trying to look as cool as possible. The bench seat and column shift could just as easily been bucket seats and a console with floor mounted shifter.
There are a full compliment of gauges in the dash as well as what looks to be a/c and power windows.  That steering wheel is a holdover from the larger mid-'70s models. The year after this brought a real bro-edition tough guy wheel that I think looks kinda goofy.

That trunk lid is ridiculously square!

The previous generation had a large V shape on the trunk lid mirroring the hood. It was raised up in the middle like the hood as well, with the taillights set into indentations. Likewise the bumper used to jut out in the middle to accommodate the trunk shape.

Pontiac had a history of taillights being split into individual bars going back to the mid-'60s, most notably in the Firebirds and older Grand Prix. This is the final moment for this multifaceted taillight before they move onto a huge square slab of red plastic with a gaudy GP medallion in the center.

Being a body-on-frame rear wheel drive American car from the '70s the gas cap is located behind the license plate.

That gap between the rear quarter panel and the bumper was originally filled with a body colored plastic filler piece. These are notorious for hardening over time and cracking to smithereens on all GM models of this era (you'll often see Cadillacs with the metal ends to the quarter panels standing alone like tombstones with the plastic supports long gone).

These are original Pontiac faux-wire wheels that snap on just like any old hubcap. The red center had the Pontiac arrowhead logo reminding folks that this automaker is named after War Chief Pontiac of the Odawa tribe in the Great Lakes region.  

Boo hiss! From this angle you can see that those gauges are blanks! Looks like nobody opted for the optional full gauges so we have plain dials in their place. This is even more demeaning than having a blank stretch of dashboard. Every time the driver looks into those empty sockets it's like the missing gauges are saying "why didn't you order us?"

Well we'll leave this swooping square powder blue brick against a brick wall in Industrial Red Hook. This is the closest sibling to my very first car - a 2 door 1983 Oldsmobile Cutlass Brougham in burgundy with a burgundy landau vinyl roof. I bought that car for $225 and it had a brand new $250 Alpine tape deck in it. I grabbed a couple of mismatched license plates off of 2 different friends wrecked cars, a registration sticker out of a wrecked Subaru, and drew my own inspection sticker with some markers before enjoying months of carefree driving. Life was great until I attempted a u-turn on a muddy field, sinking in up to the rocker panels in the process. I later got cornered by sheriffs while getting it towed out by a friend. That's a much longer story but suffice it to say this unglamorous body style has a lot of nostalgia for me.
Looking good at age 38 GP! Keep up the good work.

Burnt Umber Slab

LIMITED; NOW WITH EVEN MORE!

I was ambling along the central PA countryside when I noticed this massive slab and its 4-eyed grin looking back at me. Somehow parked in the lot of the newest looking building in the area this thing begged to be featured.

This is a 1978 Ford LTD II Brougham in Bright Red with a Light Camel landau roof. This thing effortlessly runs the Malaise ticket checking off every late '70s cliche box off the list. Massive yet underpowered 2 door car? Check. Landau roof with opera windows? Check. Brougham? CHECK.

This is the era of "to hell with your aerodynamics" slab design. Look out over that hood to the windshield so far away.

The LTD II was a 3 year only offering from Ford that was somewhat overshadowed by the Thunderbird which was similar in scale but with a storied nameplate. The name is a bit goofy when broken down because it basically means "limited, the sequel" which isn't very limited at all!

This angle gives a better idea of what it took to get a 5mph crash test bumper on a 4,000lb+ car. You could easily rest a 6 pack in front of each set of headlights while tuning the strangled and neutered V8 under the hood. If you had the base 302 engine you could eventually coax this thing up to 103mph the day it left the factory. If you ponied up for the 351 the top speed went up to a frightening 108mph! Fear not speed demons; there was the mighty 400 V8 available too with a top speed of 113mph.

Performance wasn't the point with these rigs though. If you loved your living room couch or Lay-Z Boy this could float you in comfort to the bowling alley. Hard cornering would send this listing like the Costa Concordia, and emergency breaking meant a loud and screaming nose dive with skid marks hundreds of feet long. Buy it for the optional CB radio folks, lean back and relax!

The absurdity of these proportions does intrigue me though, as it does for all its siblings. The Mercury Cougar and Ford Ranchero were identical (though of course the Ranchero had the El Camino style pickup bed). The LTD II was a direct replacement for the Ford Elite which was really this same car with a single round headlight on each side and a bit of a raised rear hip a-la Coke Bottle styling.

Who am I fooling? I'd love to drive around in this yacht. The window shapes alone are worth a few grand and the landau roof looks right at home. The wheel covers are a horrific abomination that need to go asap. Even the plain black steelies under that faux-chrome plastic would be better.

This window treatment stopped me in my tracks. Brougham in script is factory correct, but that rose? Is that an aftermarket add-on or is this some special rose edition Brougham?

I love how this car makes a mockery of the recent parking space dimensions! There is a 2 foot section in the rear where nothing will grow due to the shadow permanently cast by the rear hanging out, and the car just continues onward from the front of the painted stripe so far that it looks cartoonish. Still, if this is your thing these cars remain plentiful and cheap. The very last thing this car can be called is innovative so almost all parts are usable from at least a decade of Ford.If you're not in a hurry to get anywhere, like overly plush luxury, and live somewhere where parking is available I encourage you to grab the nearest $2,000 and take your pick!