This is the car my dad drove back in '71, a '71 Ford LTD, arguably one of the most beautiful and most comfortable cars I've ever known.
Check out the paint job on that thing -- you could brush your teeth in that mirror finish!
His came with a 351 under the hood, but the one pictured has a 490, which was favored by the Connecticut State Police back in those days.
I was looking for one to cruise the beach with Lucy in the summertime, but all the ones I found are in people's collections.
But that's his car right there. Same exact one except for the engine.
The A/C package on that thing was strong enough that all you had to do was roll the windows down and you could make it snow in July.
100% power steering assist meant that you could execute a snappy 3-point turn in this behemoth with your pinky finger.
And it rode like a dream.
A real freeway floater.
God, I loved that car.
My uncle and ten-year-old me used to have some amazing adventures in that car.
He bought and sold cars for a living and that actually was his car initially. Our family was just starting out and he sold that car to my Dad (his brother) for a song and I'll never forget my Dad saying excitedly to my Mom: "Can you believe it? That's a $3,000 car!!!"
He said that more than once, that's why I remember his amazement. So the car was like, a former Hertz rental car I think, that my uncle bought from his contact at Hertz, drove it for a summer and then resold it to my dad, who was just getting started with his new business and didn't have a lot of extra cash laying around.
So if I had to guess, he probably got it for about 700 bucks practically brand-new, but then again, 700 bucks was a lot of money in 1971.
But yeah -- Uncle Warren and I would cruise over to the amusement park on any number of warm summer evenings, get on a couple of rides or two, and then cruise back over to Niantic, taking all the slow, scenic roads of course, and he would be puffing on his White Owl cigars, one after the other, as he easily palmed the steering wheel this way and that, following the serpentine contours of the little back roads that hugged the CT shoreline.
Eventually we would wind up at Dairy Queen and I would get my favorite to this day -- a Peanut Buster Parfait, with all caramel and no chocolate.
I remember one time I asked the young teen girl on the other side of the window if I could substitute the chocolate for all caramel and to my surprise she said 'No', in a really nasty, openly hostile kind of way.
That's when Uncle Warren stepped in and, with his lowest, menacing voice, growled at her: "Give the kid what he wants."
He wasn't even Italian, but the way he said it today reminds me of a Mafia enforcer.
She couldn't pump that goddamn caramel fast enough. 😂🤣😂