The History of the Ford Maverick

in order to properly tell the story at a Ford Maverick we have to go back to 1960 Dwight D Eisenhower was finishing up his second term as president making way for president-elect JFK the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries or OPEC was established Elvis Presley had three number-one singles on the Billboard chart gasoline was 25 cents a gallon and ford motor company's general manager Robert S McNamara commissioned a team to create what by American standards of the time would be a small economic car and the Ford Falcon was born McNamara who was promoted to group vice-president of cars and trucks by the time the Falcon was launched was immediately involved in development insisting on keeping the cost and weight of the car as low as possible the first-generation Falcon ran from 1960 until 1963 McNamara left Ford shortly after the Falcons introduction but his faith in the concept was vindicated with record sales over half a million sold the first year and over a million sold by the end of the second year despite having record-setting sales numbers the first generation Falcon left something to be desired horsepower a redesign changed the Falcons look in 1964 the new look was more squared off more modern as Ford was a typical target a younger market and Ford even offered the Sprint package which was basically a beefed up falcon with a 289 v8 stiffer suspension louder exhaust however this design change would come at a price in April of 1964 April 17 1964 the first Ford Mustang rolled off the assembly line the Ford Mustang was a car that was half a decade in the works by 1964 but kept secret from other American manufacturers due to its projected success it was based on the second generation Falcon and offered all the things the Falcon couldn't great looks great power and for its time an affordable price tag with a list price of two thousand three hundred and sixty-eight dollars by the first weekend 22,000 Mustangs had been ordered and some three hundred and three thousand four hundred and eight were built that first half year by the end of 1965 the Ford Mustang was the most successful launch Ford motor Burnie had since the model a tutor in 1927 having sold over 1 million cars in a little over a year and a half the introduction of the Ford Mustang started to parabolic trends in the United States the first was the rejuvenation of the American muscle car dubbed the pony car which were affordable sporty coupes with long hoods and short rear decks and gave rise to competitors such as the Camaro the Firebird AMC Javelin Plymouth Barracuda and the second-generation Challenger the second was the downfall and demand for its older brother the Ford Falcon Ford tried to save the Falcon in 66 by giving it yet another facelift this time with a long hood short deck much in the vein of it Ford Mustang this body was based on a shortened Fairlane platform and the new Falcon was used in the Trans Am series for 1966 but it wasn't enough to save the Falcon from its impending demise by 1969 it was official Falcon was out and the Mustang was in the final model year for the Falcon in North America was 1970 continuing sales declines and the inability of the car to meet forthcoming safety standards resulted in a short run of 1970 models identical to the 1969 Falcon when the members of OPEC proclaimed an oil embargo the price of fuel in the u.s. skyrocketed to around 2 dollars and 25 cents a gallon that's in the neighborhood of $15 per gallon and 2017 money the embargo was targeted at nations perceived as supporting Israel during the Yom Kippur War the initial nations targeted were Canada Japan the Netherlands the UK and the United States with the embargo also later extending to Portugal and South Africa the price of oil had risen from $3 per barrel to nearly $12 globally u.s. prices were significantly higher due to the rise in fuel pricing Americans found themselves putting the cover on their Mustangs and seeking more efficient means of transportation often finding this quality and imported automobiles like Toyota Honda and Datsun which later became Nissan this not only slammed the brakes for the sales numbers of the Mustang the lack of demand for big thirsty American cars left lots of American autoworkers facing layoffs and pay cuts but like a beacon of light flickering in the distance a child was born a child that said hey Japan I see your ugly roller toaster fuel-efficient car and hey OPEC I see your fuel embargo and I raise you a sporty long nosed short decked fuel-efficient American muscle car starting at $1,995 the Ford Maverick the Maverick was originally conceived and marketed as a subcompact import fighter the Falcon was discontinued midway through 1970 model year and the Maverick repositioned as Ford's compact entry 450 1810 Mavericks were produced in the first year and this rivaled the record-setting first year of the Mustang and easily outpaced the Mustang in 1970 when fewer than 200,000 Mustangs sold with maverick specific and very fun to say color options including anti-establishment hula blue original cinnamon Freudian guilt thanks Vermillion black Jade champagne gold golf string aqua Meadowlark yellow brittany blue lime gold dresden blue raven black Wimbledon white and candy apple red in the first half of production for the 1970 model two engine options were available a hundred and seventy cubic inch inline six that made a hundred and five horsepower at the crank and a two hundred cubic inch inline six made a whopping 120 horsepower at the crank the Maverick was the middle child between the disappointing Ford Pinto and the big thirsty Ford Mustang and fuel-efficient Mustang 2 which we won't talk about gross the three were marketed as the saviors of the American automobile touting backhanded insults at Volkswagen and Toyota whose cars were developing a bad reputation for being unreliable Pinto Maverick Mustang three machines famous for not breaking down along with an ad campaign suggesting that foreign cars were much more complex than maverick which was dubbed the simple American machine it was an instant success outselling Toyota and Datsuns offerings by nearly double thanks to his genius ad campaign that pulled on the heartstrings of nearly out-of-work Americans who felt guilty for being forced to buy foreign cars stop wasting time on the foreign sorts whether it's a Pinto maverick or Mustang brother get a horse despite its initial success Ford feared the Maverick may suffer the same fate as the Falcon to counter this notion Ford offered the grabber trim package in mid 1970 that added a sporty graphic and trim a rear deck spoiler and a larger 250 cubic inch inline 6 engine with a top speed of 103 miles per hour this fulfilled the American need for American speed for a few years but still left something to be desired from the savior of the American automobile after all many would-be Maverick owners had their 65 Mustangs just sitting in the garage untouched since the oil crisis hit they already had a performance vehicle they couldn't afford to drive and many couldn't see paying extra for the fast one a four-door model was introduced in 1971 but we won't spend too much time on the four-door sedan just know that it exists and there's really no good reason for its existence a sprint package offered in 1972 featured a special red white and blue paint with matching interior with similar packages offered on the Pinto and the Mustang the trim package patriotically acknowledged the 1972 Olympics and was available for only one year in 1973 the grabber trim package would be overhauled to include all things muscle including what is known today as the iconic grabber hood sporting a small hood scoop and do ram air vents on either side fatter tires a louder exhaust stiffer suspension a no-nonsense carburetted 5 litre 302 cubic inch v8 that produced a blistering 220 horsepower the Fox Body Mustangs of the late 1980s 5 liter v8 s only made 225 horsepower despite fuel injection and other advancements in automotive technology the Maverick and revamped maverick grabber were an instant success during the oil crisis with hot rodder midlife crisis dad's and lower middle class teenagers whose parents couldn't afford to put them in a Mustang and also upper middle class teenagers whose parents could afford to put them in a Mustang but knew their kids could never afford to put fuel in one by 1975 the grips of the first OPEC oil crisis were loosening and the price of fuel was coming back down however Ford was still noticing a decline in the sale of the Ford Mustang despite this the cat was out of the bag maverick grabber cheaper lighter better-looking and only one easy DIY tune-up away from being faster than the big bad Mustang it was a no-brainer wipe a forty two hundred dollars which in 2017 money translates to about eighteen thousand dollars when you could get a sexier faster maverick grabber for 2652 which is eleven thousand dollars in today's cash ford caught wind of what was happening and feared their flagship mustang couldn't take another blow like this for Jack the price of the grabber package up from 2652 to $37.99 making it just four hundred dollars cheaper than the mighty Mustang their logic in doing this was yeah you could be very happy with a maverick grabber but for only four hundred more dollars it could be a Mustang and it worked like a charm sales of the Maverick grabber began to decline while numbers for what was debated believe the ugliest and not so debatably the most underpowered Mustang ever made started to rise again Ford Motor Company afraid of the monster it created afraid of its own child's success eclipsing its older son intentionally took food off its plate and fed it to their week old son the Mustang by 1976 the Maverick grabber was dead Ford replaced the grabber package with the stallion package which was not much different than the Sprint package and was offered on several vehicles including the Pinto and the Mustang and Mustang too it basically consisted of a paint scheme and a revert to the 250 cubic-inch inline six of the original grabber and was nicknamed the Maverick flopper for obvious reasons and was killed off by the end of 76 the final year for the Maverick was 1977 it remained unchanged except for a police package on the Maverick which was not efficiently upgraded for police work and sold less than 400 units Ford decided to keep selling the base model and 4-door maverick until the 1978 model year introduction of the ford fairmont and mercury zephyr which were built on the all new Fox platform that would serve as the basic platform for many Ford's and Mercury's through the early 1990s I've always been a fan of rare and unusual cars growing up in the early 90s I didn't have a poster of a 429 Shelby or a Lamborghini Countach on my wall I had a 1973 maverick grabber ad on newsprint framed hanging on my wall in my bedroom next to my Red Sox pennant and my Felix the Cat wall clock it's a double-edged sword for me it makes me very sad that despite overcoming so much adversity in the 1970s and ruling the road it was killed by its very creators for shining too brightly and making the other stars look dim but that's part of its allure for me at the same time the honest to goodness 302 grabber was only made from 72 to 76 making it a very rare car today despite so many being made and purchased the Ford Maverick the car that in just seven short years managed to save the American Automobile reignite the dwindling flame that was the American muscle car and be put to bed early without dinner for making its older siblings look like a wet wad of paper towels in a way the Maverick grabber is responsible for even more than this one can't help but to think had it never existed the mighty Mustang would have failed on its own in the 1970s too Toyota Datsun Volkswagen even its youngest sibling the Ford Pinto which was originally marketed as the direct competition for the VW Beetle in terms of size and fuel efficiency today if you start typing forward into Google Mustang is Auto populated or suggested this level of continued success and word association was made possible by the Maverick and the Maverick grabber if they hadn't killed the Maverick it would have ultimately killed the Mustang if they never made the Maverick the Mustang may have died on its own the Ford Maverick grabber the savior of the American automobile the spark that lit the muscle car revival the martyr of the 1970s

Channel: American Artifacts

Views: 564,150

Keywords: The History of the Ford Maverick, ford, maverick, mustang, falcon, ford mustang, ford falcon, ford maverick, maverick grabber, pinto, ford pinto, 1970, opec, gas crisis, oil crisis, muscle car, history, cars, autos, automobile, hot rods, story, ford history, dano, dan o, dan odylanger, dan o'dylanger, dano dillinger, dano dylanger, dylanger, dillinger, 1964 mustang, 1964 falcon

Id: zCAI-FXRGuQ

Length: 13min 20sec (800 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 14 2017