I’m pretty sure I’ve done at least one other Cold Start that just features the wildly intense colors of 1970s car interiors, but I saw this mossy-Master’s Jacket-in-Emerald City verdant fever dream from the inside of a 1977 Ford LTD II and just had to share it with you because, come on, look at it! Can you imagine a carmaker today having ‘nads of such scale and density that they’d slather an interior with such a ruthless abandon of intense color and send it out into the world to do whatever it may? I can’t. But once, Ford did, happily. And more so, even.
Holy crap, Ford, you were not playing around, were you? Seas of amber and liver-red and sapphire blue and healthy manure brown and smokey foggy blue-gray and yes, green green green. Plus, each interior seemed to have its own seat design, from benches to divided benches to seats almost approaching buckets, all with their own idiosyncratic pleats and swells and buttons and whatevers. Could you specify any of these seat types in any of those colors? The combinations had to be dizzying.
Also, I like how the LTD II Brougham Instrument Panel is noted for “Reachable controls” and “readable gauges.” Wow. I wonder if they had openable doors and sitable seats, too?
Look at all of these LTD II versions they had: sedan, wagon, and two coupés, one with a vinyl toupee and an opera window, and one with a little bit of dignity. The LTD II was introduced as a way to absorb the parallel Torino model into the LTD, mostly toning down the Torino’s swoopier style for the more staid LTD lines.
It did gain stacked rectangular headlamps, if you’re into that sort of thing.
HVAC controls on the driver side only. Interesting.
You mock openable doors but IIRC the doors of the Dodge Chargers of the era were welded shut. Those Duke boys had to slide across the hood and pour through the open windows of the General Lee like an unwanted milkshake.
“…like an unwanted milkshake”!
<applause>
And we know you are so very into that sort of thing.
You may mock, but openable doors are something of an endangered species at this point Torch…
The green and red velour birds all got overharvested and went extict. They did manage the blue population a little better but eventually wiped them out too. There was some experimentation with dying other materials, but it turned out the dyes were very toxic. At first it wasn’t noticed because people were wearig a lot of polyester leisure suites around that time and the material protected them from the dye leaching out of the seats. Come the eighties and new fashions and clothing material trends however, there was a big outbreak of ass rash that was traced back to these dyes. Worried buyers all gravitated to grey or black mouse fur and manufacturers followed suite. Some tried to spice things up with a little turquoise splash graphic or a bit of pattern, but that’s about how lively it would get.
There is a bit of a similar worry with current trends in automotive seating. Conservationists are sounding the alarm about dwindling numbers of vegans to harvest leather from.
Pretty sure that outbreak of ass rash was the inevitable consequence of malaise era key parties. Its well known the velour interior crowd couldn’t resist a key party.
My 83 Olds Delta 88 had a beautiful chocolate brown velour interior. My brother had a 75 LTD sedan with a less searing green interior. I had a 1984 Plymouth Horizon that had a baby blue interior. My 78 Dodge D200 had a harvest gold interior. I miss cars with personality. None of those cars were unreliable, either. Slow, heavy and the handling of a 300′ oil tanker on high seas but very reliable. Now, in the average priced cars and trucks, you have beige, gray or black. Boring.
The Euro’s were just as wild, you could get your 78-80 Audi 5000 with light blue, light green, beige, copper, or red cloth interiors, and they were especially comfy in really hot or really cold weather. wore like iron too. I also remember when you could get white seats and door cards in your American car (I had a light green Javelin with white interior!) Those were the days…….
My family had a ’77 Thunderbird, in metallic blue with a deep-blue velour interior. It was ridiculously comfortable. That car was seriously stylin’ back then. ’77 was the best year for the ’77-’79 T-birds; each successive year added more chrome to the front end. The ’77s were clean, if um… aggressively styled. The later models accumulated too much gingerbread, and the ’79 separated taillights were an affront to T-Bird wall-to-wall taillights everywhere.
“Reachable” controls indeed… The T-Bird had the same common family dashboard. Yes, everything was reachable, in the same sense that everything in a Cessna 152/172/182 is “reachable”. Yes, you can reach every control. No, you can’t see or necessarily reach everything without moving your head, body, reaching around something else, or some combination thereof. Ergonomics were in their infancy then, certainly. My favorite was the front-back stereo fader control. It was a little un-labeled knob sticking straight down below the dashboard, about three inches back from the bottom lip of the driver’s lower panel way over to the right, just short of being in the middle of the whole darn dashboard. You had to lean over and feel to find it. But it was “reachable”!
the trend was alive and well into the 80’s. My family went from a 78 Malibu wagon, sky blue inside and out, to an 82 Buick wagon, silver with bright red vinyl interior, to an 86 Grand Marquis wagon, blue over dark blue leather interior.
Nowadays Jeep has offered red leather in a few Wrangler models, Chrysler used to sell 300’s with blue leather and you can buy a Camry with bright red leather.
Wow, could the LTD II actually fly? That opening pic is Repo Man levels of green.
There are still some options out there for some unusual interior colors. The following come to mind:
That’s all I got. I’m sure Audi and BMW offer red but that almost doesn’t count.
“and two coupés, one with a vinyl toupee and an opera window, and one with a little bit of dignity.”
I should know better than to be reading Torch while consuming coffee.
same, but tea in my case.
I love Torch. I couldn’t help but laugh out loud.
“Son, please put the luggage in the trunk. Your mother’s going away for a while.”
“Dad, are you trying to kill her? The B-pillar’s missing so the car has the structural integrity of a cereal box.”
When I was a kid, we had a ’68 Lincoln Continental. Black with a green leather interior. I loved that car so much, I traded for my own version years later. Mine was a ’69. White with a black vinyl top and an oxblood red leather interior.
Glorious.
When comes to color options – interior and exterior – car manufacturers, today, seem to have taken to heart the immortal words of Judge Elihu Smalls in “Caddy Shack:”
“You’ll get nothing and like it!”
Just yesterday a YouTube video crossed my feed that was all about how Ford made the wool upholstery fabric used in the ’26-’27 models. From raw sheared wool to finished fabric. It was fascinating. All Hail the Algorithm.
I love that stuff. It’s amazing to me how detailed industry to consumer communication used to be, esp. compared with today.
Ford produced a film about the Mustang concept car in 1962 that’s 15 minutes long and features things like in depth discussion of the engine, complete with step by step visuals of components and operation, with an accompanying very-high-by-today’s-standards level of technical vocabulary.
I wish cars would still do this… Interiors are so boring now! I’d love some color. I had an 11 hour drive last week and spent a good portion of it imagining how I could replace interior panels with alternate leather colors and finishes haha
Man the 70’s were straight up illegal with color. I grew up in a house with a bathroom so orange I can still see the after-image.
The Kitchen in our house was Tomato Soup Orange in the 70’s…. !
Memories…. first car at 16 was a ’78 LTDII coupe. Silver with burgundy interior and vinyl half roof. Mine was vinyl around the opera window and the front was steel. Asthmatic 2 barrel 351 Windsor under the hood and a 3 speed auto. You could watch the rust actively form on the body and frame. Threw a main engine bearing and said goodbye to the beast. Saw a green one for sale local a couple of years ago and almost bought.
That gold vinyl looks like an amusement park ride, and I want one to put in my place as a couch. Do you think I could dust it with glitter and clear coat it a billion times?
here you go:
https://www.voguefabricsstore.com/images/product/P/SparkleVinyl-Gold-300-1-02.jpg
These also hung on into the ’80s for a bit too before “Euro” took over. My father loved his Oldsmobiles with their wine-red velour fabrics and matching interiors. B/c elegant I guess.
Jack, the Cutlass Supreme Brougham loose-pillow seats were honestly next-level. What I’d give for a crushed-velour seat in Firethorn.
The green and blue are perfect. Kinda reminds me of 70’s bathrooms too. My house had green, blue, and yellow bathrooms.
These wonderful interiors helped distract from the fact that the engine sucked majorly. Same with the chrome, the landau, the opera windows. You couldn’t outrun a 15 year-old beater, but at least you were riding in “style”.
I loved that the front seat was called a “flight bench” — a nod to platform-mate Thunderbird, probably.
I miss ’70s interiors … especially the wacky patterns (Pontiac’s “Valencia” cloth was a standout) and the GM option with white seats/door cards and color-keyed carpets, dashboards and seatbelts.
’90s interiors could be good too. Sure lots of cool-in-the-’80s-but-now-contemptibly-familiar medium gray, but also some crazy patterns. Pontiac did it particularly well. I remember some Gossin-spec Sunbirds/Sunfires with an abstract triangle seating fabric motif that Pontiac claimed was inspired by hang gliders. Sure. But still cool.