Yahoo Autos Junkyard Gem: 1981 Ford Fairmont Futura 2-Door
When it came time to replace the original Ford Maverick compact, which had sold well but was based on the increasingly antiquated chassis design first used under the 1960 Falcon, Ford turned to its brand-new Fox platform and created the Fairmont (and its Mercury-badged sibling, the Zephyr) for the 1978 model year. There were Fairmont sedans with two and four doors plus Fairmont station wagons, of course, but the sleek Fairmont Futura two-door and its Thunderbird-ish lines was the best-looking version. Here's one of those Futuras, found in an Oklahoma City boneyard in May.
1978 and 1979 were the only two years in which the Futura name (which began life as a Falcon trim level) was applied only to Fairmont coupes. For the remainder of Fairmont production, which continued through 1983, there were Futura wagons and sedans.
The Fairmont Futura got a snazzier snout with four headlights, while the ordinary Fairmont had to settle for just two headlights.
Unlike its Granada and LTD platform-mates, the Fairmont Futura coupe couldn't be mistaken at a glance for some other Fox car (other than its near-identical Mercury Zephyr Z-7 twin).
