A few weeks back, the Autopian asked you to help us identify a car that was in a hit and run, and your hive mind didn’t disappoint. We’re asking for your identification skills to help us again for something similar but far less important. Wait, who am I kidding – this is really important stuff!
Many of my favorite views of what “The Future” will look like come from seventies sci-fi: Star Wars, Space 1999, and even Battlestar Gallactica all show an aesthetic that is still burned into my mind as to what the world of a century from now might be. I can usually place what movie or television show a spaceship or SF vehicle comes from, which is why the ship in this vintage Ford Futura ad is bothering me.
The images are from 1978, and the Futura was a “personal luxury coupe” version of the Fairmont which was the first of the venerable Fox body cars. This platform saw nearly as much use as the Chrysler K chassis in everything from luxury cars (Lincoln Mark VII) to station wagons and the Mustang that saved the name from the Pinto Mustang II doldrums. This rear drive coil-sprung chassis was a breath of fresh air compared to the Ford Maverick it replaced; it was essentially an American-built Volvo 240.
Still, the Fox Fairmont was hardly advanced. The spandex-clad couple in the picture below, having flown that cool-looking space cruiser, to the location, are in for a real letdown when they walk down the hill and drive home to the dome-colony in the Fairmont. I hope it at least had a 302 V8 (with 139 horsepower) and not the Pinto four or clunky old straight six.
But what is that ship? Ostensibly it could have been made just for this advertisement, but would a company really spend that kind of cash for a simple image? Admittedly, Ford spent millions of dollars on a racing program just because the head of the company was pissed off at some Italian guy, but the expense of designing and making such a complex prop seems unlikely. Somebody out there must have some information.
And where was this couple flying back from, anyway? Based on a different Ford glossy print from the same time, the duo was likely fighting enemies from the Great Turbo Death Star. Shit is really going down in this Fox Body World.
Who is the antagonist they were fighting? I would doubt that it was then-dying Chrysler, since the brand was less powerful than a few Jawas [Ed note: this is almost certainly a Star Wars reference, but it could also be Czech mopeds, which also works]. My guess is General Motors, since The General was in top form in the late seventies with products people wanted to buy; products that in some cases were so good that they’re still commuting today. If so, that Ford couple wouldn’t succeeded in their mission of defeating the great GM enemy until the Taurus era of the eighties.
Regardless, that duo deserves to drive something better than a Fairmont with a basket-handle roof from the T-Bird at the end of a long battle, even if it’s still a Fox Body. Maybe even the Futura-based Durango pickup? A Mustang Pace Car? I love how the identical-under-the-skin Fairmont sedan is lurking in the background of this Ford illustration below.
Anyway, please let us know about that spacecraft. Not knowing is killing us!
My buddy had a ’79 Zephyr wagon (that actually ended up in a Jalop NPoND article) so I’m biased, but these were actually decently reliable cars and are not bad now at all. His had the 302ci V8 and was originally his grandma’s, so it was a hoot to drive around, even in the late 90s-early 00s.
It was relatively small for an older car, had gobs of torque but very little “go”, and could very easily be maintained and/or modded since it was a Fox body and could take Mustang parts.
Sadly, I believe “holes punched into the steel for weight-savings” was one of those advertised modern advances and I will say that Ford absolutely cut every cost corner they could. When rewiring for an audio system, there was no slack whatsoever in any electrical lines anywhere and some were quite honestly too tight. But I guess it saved a few pennies.
The car was reliable and reliably bad on gas (maybe 14mpg hwy?) but he only got rid of it because he moved and didn’t have 2 spots for cars. The Zephyr wasn’t the DD at that point because even sandbags in the back don’t make it better than a bugeye Subie in the snow.
The Fairmont was so boring, I bet some of its designers and engineers don’t remember it.
I bought a 1980 Futura as a leftover in late 1980.
I paid $4,422 dollars out the door.
It had the fancy 2 tone blue “Basket Handle” paint job and absolutely no other options except power steering. 2.3 liter 4 banger with a 4 speed.
I put about 90,000 highway miles on it in 7 years and beat it like a rented mule.
When I traded it in on an ’88 Tempo (yeah, I know) there wasn’t much left of it below the wheel well/side trim, but other then oil changes, a battery and a set or two of wipers and tires….I spent “0” dollars on repairs.
Nothing broke for almost 8 years.
It was a shitbox, but it was a dependable shitbox.
Research updates: this does seem to have been some kind of full or at least large-scale prop and not just an illustration. It was featured in a television ad for the Futura campaign, which you can see here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_RJgEh9aHs. The ad gives you some additional views, including a view from above the prop, looking down onto the Ford, which starts at around 14 seconds in. There appear to be internal blinking lights of some kind and, at 0:16, when the car drives away, you see its reflection briefly in the transparent canopy of the ship, which would be a difficult effect to produce if you were shooting a very small model up close and forcing the perspective of the car at a greater distance. Not impossible, but it suggests at least a rather large model.
On the question of whether Ford execs would greenlight such an expensive prop for a one-off ad – it looks like the whole “spaceship” thing was a centerpiece of its 1978 marketing campaign. The Fairmont was new for ’78 and debuted alongside the Ghia-designed Megastar in the Ford exhibit booth at the ’78 Geneva Auto Show and later at the Chicago Auto Show. In the linked photo, you can see the concept car, and signage with both the spaceship image and the Fairmont Futura.
Wow, nice sleuthing work there. That Megastar is amazing.
Even more amazing is that there’s a Granada with a Cologne V6 somehow lurking underneath all that svelte sheetmetal.
Excellent spotting. The ship looks very much full-size. I thought the reflection might have been from a jib bringing the camera down over the cockpit, but it does seem to match the Futura driving off.
I seem to remember Space 1999 had a similar spacecraft but moreover the tendency to put hot women 8n space aluminum foil that exposed the bra. But hey did we help on the 2nd car recognition?
I’ll just say that I saw on a Futura in Gainesville, FL a couple of years ago and it was the fastest launch from a stoplight I’ve ever seen in person.
I’m thinking that this spaceship is merely an artist’s own one-off rendering.
Probably something prosaic like the Ford ad executive’s 14 year old nephew’s work he did for a school project after he was in the movie theater.
May the Fords be with you!
Read the FORD ad. Saw labor repair rate of $14 bucks an hour.
My sister had one of these with the 4 banger popcorn popper engine.
It was a total piece of shit. But with a labor rate of 14 bah, I would be willing to drive one today. For a block or two.
BTW, that space ship is owned by the IDF. And returning to earth to score some spare parts for the newly built Jewish Space Laser
Obligatory Mel Brooks clip:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sz7JGCj4Q5k
Thanks! That clip made my day.
Mel Brooks is a genius.
If you’re wondering how he eats & breathes,
And other science facts…(la! la! la!)
Then repeat to yourself its just a show,
I should really just relax…
When I was a senior in college in 1978, I’d rent a ’78 Futura from the local Ford dealer to go to my job interviews (as I didn’t own a car back then). It was blue on blue and had an anemic 4-cylinder engine and automatic.
The dealer really wanted me to buy it from them when I graduated, but no, I went with a ’78 Accord (which turned out to be the least reliable car I ever owned, but that’s another story.)
How in the world was a Honda the least reliable car? Just bought Corollad?
The EGR had issues and was contaminating the oil. They replaced the top end once and the whole engine after that. It’s the only car to ever strand me (and I’ve own some doozies of English, French and Italian cars too.) Honda did pay for the repairs out of warranty so that was the one plus.
Weird I once wrecked a Civic, it rolled over 4 times. After hauling it out of the woods and airing up the tires it started right up. Replaced the radiator and windshield and it was dependable and legal.
I can’t speak to the late disco-era scene in the background, but I had a ’79 Futura in the same colors as the one in the ad. 4cyl/4spd, manual everything. The red vinyl interior was, um, glorious? Actually not a bad car by early 80’s standards and served me well until I got broadsided by a drunk tree one night.
Oak tree you’re in my way – That smell
It’s just a plain old daily flyer commuter spaceship. Nothing to see here.
I’ll leave the answer to the Mystery Ship Question to others. What I think is worth a discussion is the maintenance costs described in that second ad. It says the labor rate at a Ford dealership in August of 1977 was $14.50 per hour!
A quick Google search reveals that the US federal minimum wage at the time was $2.30 per hour. So the Ford dealers’ labor rate was 6.3X minimum wage. The current federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour. Multiply that by 6.3 to get $45.68.
I doubt that any Ford dealership today is charging less than $100 an hour. And I think many are closer to $200 an hour.
Adjusting that 1977 $14.50 rate for inflation would be $72.75 today.
Anyone know what a dealership mechanic got paid in 1977 compared to today?
Tree fiddy an hour. But there was overtime offered.
I was thinking about it from the other side, how apparently noteworthy it is that the 80k service would only cost you $150. Benchmarking the $14.50 labour rate against the current minimum $100 dealer service rate, you’d be over $1000 for what would be a minor, routine service on a modern car (incidentally, similar math applied to the $4,267 MSRP listed works out to about $28,500, which seems reasonable enough in modern terms for a nicely equipped compact/midsize).
Every now and then discourse starts about how much better old cars were in the face of overwhelming evidence that they were kind of garbage.
$2.30 in 1977 is $31 in 2023.
The minimum wage rates today are a disgrace. Thanks, Reaganomics.
I am continually amazed by the quantity of drugs that supposedly professional people consumed in the 70’s.
If your job was to make those cars attractive, you’d want some drugs too.
Fair. And lots of them, too.
Disclaimer: I don’t have a shred of direct knowlege of any of this, so everything in my post is strictly from memory and observation.
I remember seeing these ads (TV and print) as a kid. I also remember watching a ton of scifi in the same time. Strange as it might seem, I believe that the ship shown in the hero image of the ad and on the TV ad may have been created specifically for this campaign, because I honestly don’t remember seeing it anywhere else, and full sized scifi props were very rare in any movie or TV series.
There were countless Star Wars/Trek knockoffs being made in every corner of the globe that I can’t account for, but this is different because it had to be made in the U.S., and somewhere in the west (assuming CA), based on the landscape and logistics of transporting such a thing. Also worth considering that the TV ad (youtube has it) shows the ship in different angles and prominently in the foreground of a couple shots. It’s a full sized prop – something that a cheap knockoff production company could not likely afford to make for a movie….but Ford could.
The other two ship images from the inset images appear to be airbrushed illustrations, which would have certainly been within the abilities of the accomplished artists of the day, but would have also added overall cost to the campaign.
From Ford’s perspective, they undoubtedly wanted to make a big splash with this campaign. They invested a lot in the development of the fox platform and it actually was something different for the American market of the day. It seems possible to me that doing something as outlandish and extravagant as fabricating a full sized prop for the introduction campaign may have actually been on the table.
I also remember seeing weird little, usually not highly detailed, spaceship-like things sketched into architectural renderings in the ’80s to give them a more futuristic feel. Take a look at Knut Kloster’s drawings for the “Phoenix World City” and see what’s hovering overhead
I did as you suggested….and now I want to break out my set of berol prismacolors and do some marker renderings.
It looks like a F-117 Nighthawk with a basket handle
But Uncle Owen, I wanted to take the Futura to Tosche Station to pick up some power converters!
You can waste time with your friends later.
This is not the 302 V8 you’re looking for.
Fun Ford Futura Factoid! The US market Fusion was supposed to be called the Futura, but Pep Boys owns the trademark for a line of tires. I’m not sure why they couldn’t sort it out like Jeep and Goodyear with Wrangler, but this forced Ford to reach for a trademark they already had but hadn’t used in the US (the European Ford Fusion was a Fiesta with a hat).
Booooo at Pep Boys for indirectly forcing the Fusion name upon us.
Deeper question, who forced the name ‘Ford Probe’ upon us?
I’m going to guess that it was the spandex clad couple standing next to the spaceship.
Another case of a name change! Ford had several Probe concepts showing off new designs in the early 80s. Since the name was already trademarked, Ford used it when their original name choice was met with an outcry. That name? Mustang.
“An outcry” is the understatement of the millennia.
I’m not gonna say it was aliens, but….
That’s the ’78 Tesla Cybership in the background. The huge uneven panel gaps make it easy to identify. Acting like typical tesla-stans, the couple looks down on the underdeveloped Ford. Not sure why Ford decided to put them in their ads. Maybe to attract the more conservative clientele?
Problem with the Cybership was it was constantly running headlong into left-turning meteors.
(No, not just the Canadian Mercurys either)
At least the ad designer had some strong continuity going on with the basket handle thing…
(Count me as a fan of the basket-handle T-bird and Futura, though. It was different and cool for the time!)
bingo. looks like a fairground simulator ride of the (then in development) space shuttle with the “basket-handle” thrown on as an allusion to the car.
A long time ago, in a Ford Galaxie far, far away …
Don’t know what this ship is, though it’s safe to say it’s not craftsmanship. Used to kluge together better spaceships from various model kits when I was twelve. Ironic (or perhaps just coincidental) that neither the car nor the spaceship accurately reflected the future of their respective modes of travel.
“A long time ago, in a Ford Galaxie far, far away …”
Take your upvote Dad, but since we’ve descended to this level already, I will posit my belief that the ship in the background is the Futura designer’s early sketch of the model year 2000 Ford Falcon.
Yes, that’s right… the Millennium Falcon
Outstanding.
pssst – the new millennium started on 01 Jan 2001, not 01 Jan 2000.
(The 2000th year was not completed until midnight on 31 Dec 2000.)
Bet you’re fun at parties… Next you’ll be telling me that Jesus wasn’t actually born on Christmas day….
No, it was nighttime, there was star…
And nobody is really sure because they didn’t do leap years back then.
Sirius?
I am Sirius, and don’t call me Shirley.
Yeah, but you know how car companies always used to introduce the next year’s model in the preceding fall.
It’s the rejected design for the cover art of Boston’s 1976 album of the same name. When artists Paula Scher and Roger Huyssen threw it out in favor of the now inconic “spaceship guitar”, it was going for cheap so Ford thought “We need a spaceship to put in the background of our new ‘futuristic’ car, so why the hell not?”
F-35 with two wing kits for a Subaru from Amazon. Note VTOL fire in one “photo”.
That’s no moon. It’s a forced induction.
I thought that was an alternator
Only in tattoo form 🙂
Use the Fords, Luke!
Millenium Falcon Squire Wagon
In a Galaxie 500 far, far away… (edit: Canopysaurus got it first!)
Pretty sure it’s a Lambo …