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).

The base engine was the 2.3-liter OHC “Pinto” straight-four, rated at 88 horsepower and 118 pound-feet. This car has the optional 200-cubic-inch (3.3-liter) pushrod straight-six, an engine that powered many Mustangs back in the 1960s, producing the same 88 horsepower but a far superior 154 pound-feet. A 255-cubic-inch (4.2-liter) Windsor V8 with 115 horsepower and 195 pound-feet was available as well.

You could get a four- or five-speed manual transmission with the base engine, but a three-speed automatic was mandatory for 1981 Fairmonts with a straight-six or V8 under the hood.

This car has the optional vinyl seats with “knit-weave” cloth inserts.

The MSRP for a 1981 Fairmont Futura 2-Door started at $6,407 (about $22,469 in 2023 dollars), but this car’s out-the-door price would have been much higher thanks to the six-banger engine ($213 more, or $747 today), automatic transmission ($349 more, or $1,224 now), air conditioning ($585 then, $2,052 after inflation), AM radio ($51 then, $179 now) and so forth. We are spoiled by all the standard features we get in new cars today.

The perfect car to take to the disco (though this 1979 advertisement wouldn’t have been as relevant two years later, when disco was dead and even the Village People had switched to New Wave).