1971 Ford LTD Country Squire
In 1971, like today, American's lived in a big country. Like today, Americans were bigger than pretty much anyone from any other country - though, not as big as they are today.
What they did have, was large families. This was the outworking of the 'baby boom' - a big population spike after the end of WWII. Fast forward 25 years, and you hit the peak of the baby-boomers baby-producing years. You will find quite a lot of LUGNutters born in 1971, or thereabouts (self included).
America was still pretty optimistic. Gas was cheap. Americans were rich (if you were white), and cars were big, and cheap.
So why not have a whole bunch of kids.
Of course, you need to drive them around to all the privileged white-kid activities, and the ride of choice was a full-size wagon. Ford would cater to your middle-class kid-carrying needs with any number of wagons. If you wanted to travel in luxury and style - it would be in the Country Squire, part of the LTD full-size, upmarket line for 1971.
Three seats in the front. 3-seats in the back row, and a jump seat on either side of the luggage compartment gave you room for 8. Or ten, if you buddied up in the trunk. Not that we are endorsing 8-kid familes (which did exist), but you could bring a friend or two on a family outing.
Country Squire weighed in at a not inconsiderable 4,500 lbs (2040 kg) on its 121 in wheelbase. Add 8 people and you are looking at about 6,000 lbs. You're going to need a lot of engine.
Luckily for 1971 there were a few to choose from, starting with a 351 CID (5.8 L) Windsor V8 with 240 bhp. Followed by a 402 CID (6.6 L) and 429 CID (7.0 L) big-blocks with 255 bhp and 365 bhp respectively.
Yowzers!
Fully 130,644 Country Squire wagons were sold in 1971.
All the down-sizing and fuel crisis issues to follow would mean that the 1979 'small' Country Squire wagon would sell 30,000 units, dropping to less than 10,000 per year thereafter.
This Lego miniland scale 1971 Ford LTD Country Squire Wagon has been created for Flickr LUGNuts' 99th Build Challenge - "Land Yachts" - a challenge to build a vehicle meeting the typical definition of a land yacht - a very large vehicle marketed to US consumers 1950 - 1980 fuel crisis.
1971 Ford LTD Country Squire
In 1971, like today, American's lived in a big country. Like today, Americans were bigger than pretty much anyone from any other country - though, not as big as they are today.
What they did have, was large families. This was the outworking of the 'baby boom' - a big population spike after the end of WWII. Fast forward 25 years, and you hit the peak of the baby-boomers baby-producing years. You will find quite a lot of LUGNutters born in 1971, or thereabouts (self included).
America was still pretty optimistic. Gas was cheap. Americans were rich (if you were white), and cars were big, and cheap.
So why not have a whole bunch of kids.
Of course, you need to drive them around to all the privileged white-kid activities, and the ride of choice was a full-size wagon. Ford would cater to your middle-class kid-carrying needs with any number of wagons. If you wanted to travel in luxury and style - it would be in the Country Squire, part of the LTD full-size, upmarket line for 1971.
Three seats in the front. 3-seats in the back row, and a jump seat on either side of the luggage compartment gave you room for 8. Or ten, if you buddied up in the trunk. Not that we are endorsing 8-kid familes (which did exist), but you could bring a friend or two on a family outing.
Country Squire weighed in at a not inconsiderable 4,500 lbs (2040 kg) on its 121 in wheelbase. Add 8 people and you are looking at about 6,000 lbs. You're going to need a lot of engine.
Luckily for 1971 there were a few to choose from, starting with a 351 CID (5.8 L) Windsor V8 with 240 bhp. Followed by a 402 CID (6.6 L) and 429 CID (7.0 L) big-blocks with 255 bhp and 365 bhp respectively.
Yowzers!
Fully 130,644 Country Squire wagons were sold in 1971.
All the down-sizing and fuel crisis issues to follow would mean that the 1979 'small' Country Squire wagon would sell 30,000 units, dropping to less than 10,000 per year thereafter.
This Lego miniland scale 1971 Ford LTD Country Squire Wagon has been created for Flickr LUGNuts' 99th Build Challenge - "Land Yachts" - a challenge to build a vehicle meeting the typical definition of a land yacht - a very large vehicle marketed to US consumers 1950 - 1980 fuel crisis.