{"id":13455,"date":"2021-11-15T00:06:01","date_gmt":"2021-11-15T05:06:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/autosector.com\/auto\/?p=13455"},"modified":"2021-11-15T00:06:01","modified_gmt":"2021-11-15T05:06:01","slug":"junkyard-gem-1977-ford-mustang-ghia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/?p=13455","title":{"rendered":"Junkyard Gem: 1977 Ford Mustang II Ghia Hardtop"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alejandro de Tomaso<\/a> sold the Carrozzeria Ghia coachbuilding and design firm<\/a> to Ford<\/a> in 1970, and not many years passed before Ford dealers<\/a> around the world were selling Ghia-ized cars to the masses. Yes, everything from the Fiesta<\/a> to the Granada<\/a> (both the American<\/a> and European varieties<\/a>) got Ghia badges and touches of Italian-influenced luxury and style. The Mustang II<\/a> wasn’t left out of the Ghia party, of course, and I have found this option-stuffed ’77 Mustang<\/a> Ghia in a Denver self-service yard<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

According to the build sticker and buck tag, this car is a Ghia Hardtop<\/a>, built at the storied River Rouge plant<\/a> (now known as the Dearborn Truck Plant<\/a>) and sold out of Denver. The paint is Light Aqua Metallic and the vinyl half-roof (now scraped off) was Aqua as well.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Yes, this is a car that was shipped straight from Dearborn to Denver, after which it was sold at Fordland on 6th Avenue in Lakewood (now the site of Larry H. Miller Ford<\/a>). That means that this Mustang will be crushed within a few miles of the spots where it was unloaded from a train and sold new nearly a half-century back. Did it spend any time living outside of this area? We’ll never know.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The interior is done up in Aqua Media cloth and Corinthian Vinyl, and it appears that Ford was using the term “Corinthian” for upholstery long before Chrysler<\/a> famously did so with the Cordoba<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The original buyer of this car didn’t cut corners in the options department. The base engine in 1977 was a Pinto four-cylinder rated at 89 horsepower, with the 93-horse Cologne V6<\/a> out of the Capri<\/a> as the first step up. This car, however, has the big 302-cubic-inch (5.0-liter<\/a>) Windsor V8, which made a mighty 139 horsepower. The price tag on this engine added $294 to the cost of a $4,096 car (that’s about $1,390 and $19,365 today).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

A four-on-the-floor manual transmission<\/a> came standard; if you wanted the three-speed SelectShift automatic, it cost you $248 (about $1,173 in 2021 dollars).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The real big-ticket purchase on a ’77 Mustang was the air conditioning, a very costly luxury item during the Early Malaise Era<\/a>. The salesmen at Fordland extracted 443 bucks (around $2,095 now) for the refrigerated air in this car.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Yes, it was possible to get an AM radio with 8-track tape player back in those dark days of car audio<\/a>, and that’s just what this car has. The cost: $192 ($908 after inflation).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Add the Mach I “styled steel wheels with trim rings”<\/a> and all the other goodies and you can see that the options on this car probably added 50% to the out-the-door cost, once the original buyer signed on the line which is dotted<\/a>. That’s how car-buying was, for the most part, in 1977 America.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The Mustang II was based on the Pinto, making it lightweight and fuel-efficient compared to the portly Mustangs of the early 1970s<\/a>, and Ford sold more than a million of these cars<\/a> during their 1974-1978 sales run. 43 years after the final Mustang II rolled off the line, I still find many of these cars<\/a> in big self-service yards. In fact, it’s easier to find Mustang IIs in the big yards than it is to find junked Fox Mustangs<\/a> today.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

It’s a lot easier to make a Fox go fast than a Mustang II, which explains part of the reason so many Mustang IIs are allowed to face The Crusher<\/a>, but the Mustang II’s real image problem comes from its Pinto bloodline<\/a>. While plenty of enthusiasts love these cars<\/a>, they aren’t numerous enough to save every neglected Mustang II from doom.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

As a final indignity, hot-rodders no longer seek out the front suspension components from V8-equipped Mustang IIs for their projects<\/a>. A few decades ago, this stuff would have been yanked within minutes of the car’s appearance in a boneyard’s inventory \u2026 but nowadays you can buy aftermarket reproduction kits<\/a> that look better under your gow job<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

By 1977 standards, the Mustang II was indeed a sweet-handling car.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Alejandro de Tomaso sold the Carrozzeria Ghia coachbuilding and design firm to Ford in 1970, and not many years passed before Ford dealers around the world were selling Ghia-ized cars to the masses. Yes, everything from the Fiesta to the Granada (both the American and European varieties) got Ghia badges and touches of Italian-influenced luxury […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8313,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-industry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13455"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13455\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}