My 78 Fairmont Futura with 50,000 miles

Recently bought this one for $ 1800 CDN . In heated storage for 12 yr.s . Going to install a smallblock and a manual trans ( tach will be my ears ! )

That looks super clean! Whats under the hood? 3,3?

Revolution909 wrote:

That looks super clean! Whats under the hood? 3,3?

It has the 3.3 litre engine . Underneath , the car looks very good and it's a great foundation to build a hotrod !

Wow, super clean and a great color too.

-Mike S.

very nice!

it's nice to see a fairmont that looks so much like new, i remember my 82 model, although it had a 4 banger.
the fairmonts being the first fox body offered so much to the ford line of automobiles for so long, and yet they are the forgotten ones. sometimes it saddens me that these have no street cred, perhaps if they had a different name, or have been marketed differently there would be more appeal today.
hell everybody had one back in the day, they were cheap, fairly reliable, (except mine) drove well, quiet, smoth etc...but it seems like once the Fairmont badge disappeared so did most of the repair parts.
once in a blue moon you see one cruising around, usually by an enthuiast, or someone who is flat-out broke, but considering how many were built, and after 30 years there are very few still in operation, which kind of makes them unique. hell everybody and their brother has a mustang or camaro or firebird, but hardly any monts.
i like the body lines today as much as i did when the car was new, i like the cabin area, it kinda looks like a planes cabin,
the one thing you can always be confidant of......not going with the clone gang!
you have a beautiful car, sometimes you find a gem, i hope it lasts you many years. it does look very nice.

What you describe is not unique to Fairmonts, it's attrition. How many '79-'82 Malibus do you still see cruising around? How many Volares and Aspens from that era do you see? The first generation Chrysler Cordoba was a wildly successful car, but when was the last time you saw one on the road? Remember the splash the '83-'86 Thunderbird made? They are just about gone. The examples go on and on, but the main point is that average driver cars get used up and junked, with precious few examples saved by enthusiasts, old folks in retirement neighborhoods, and occasionally, one just lasts. Incidentally, I spotted a mint white Futura 4 door in a supermarket parking lot yesterday.

-Mike S.

fangar150-ex wrote:

it's nice to see a fairmont that looks so much like new, i remember my 82 model, although it had a 4 banger.
the fairmonts being the first fox body offered so much to the ford line of automobiles for so long, and yet they are the forgotten ones. sometimes it saddens me that these have no street cred, perhaps if they had a different name, or have been marketed differently there would be more appeal today.
hell everybody had one back in the day, they were cheap, fairly reliable, (except mine) drove well, quiet, smoth etc...but it seems like once the Fairmont badge disappeared so did most of the repair parts.
once in a blue moon you see one cruising around, usually by an enthuiast, or someone who is flat-out broke, but considering how many were built, and after 30 years there are very few still in operation, which kind of makes them unique. hell everybody and their brother has a mustang or camaro or firebird, but hardly any monts.
i like the body lines today as much as i did when the car was new, i like the cabin area, it kinda looks like a planes cabin,
the one thing you can always be confidant of......not going with the clone gang!
you have a beautiful car, sometimes you find a gem, i hope it lasts you many years. it does look very nice.

Thanks for the kind comments ! I've been steadily working on it ( and spending some $ ) , fixing all of the corroded light sockets and getting all of the lights working . The car deserves lots of TLC and it's going to get the very best .
Next is to fix some holes and rust in the driver's floor area and then repair an exhaust leak . For this year ( and possibly next ) , I'm going to keep the 6 cylinder in it and look for a good 5.0 litre , 5-speed Mustang donor car .
I recently bought a good set of used Hooker 2" tube , 460 into a Fox-bodied conversion headers . If I happen to come across a very nice 429-460 engine , I can always drop it in .

it's a pretty nice looking car, once you come across with a good plan, just stick to it, 5.0 & 460's are cool, but with each major mod, comes hidden reprocussions, springs,transmissions, throttle cables, brakes etc, it's cool to have a straight 6, and as long as it's running, you have no stress to make any mods. so when you find the parts you want, you can just hang on to them till your ready. it's kinda personalizing your ride, i ve seen some pretty cool mods that dont always cost a lot of money.
you are heading in the right direction with getting a complete donor car, it makes it so much easier to have all the parts ready at hand when the time comes. if you use the mustang engine, you may want to swap the k-members, or you can cut it like the cool wagon v-8 conversion, even the lines are in the photos and even which motor mounts to use..........
what type of radio do you have, mine had an am/fm cassette...i wish i had a heated back window.
even as it sits, you've gotta "gem".
good luck!!!