Being a Ford family in the 1960s and '70s


My dad started working for the Ford Motor company in St. Paul soon after we moved to Minneapolis in the early 1960s. He stayed there, working as the Traffic Manager, for thirty years until he retired. And it would hard to imagine a harder working, more loyal person, than my dad was. We were a Ford family to the core, for as long as I can remember.

My dad had been a GI in World War II, and his world view really never changed much - buy American, be American. And while the 1960s were still a good time for American car manufacturers, the seventies would see the end of their dominance.

I learned to drive on a 1973 Ford Torino station wagon (that's a 1972 at the top of this post, the closest I could find to the monstrosity that I remember. It was one of those cars that had a hood that "arrived fifteen minutes before you did". It was a wallowing, clumsy, boat and whatever designers the Ford Motor Company had had in the '60s, including the designer of the 1964 1/2 Mustang, must have retired. The best way to describe the Torino station wagon would have been ugly, and poorly made. Not that I would have said anything like that at the dinner table! There wasn't even any mentioning of Chevrolet! Certainly not the Japanese cars that were becoming more popular. Blasphemy!

When I was a little kid, my dad would always get little model cars which he would give to us to play with. My favorite was the 1968 Cougar, and I still like it. I had a lot of Matchbox cars when I was a kid, too, and in the 1960s there were a lot of cool designs, including Fords, like the Mustang.

I left for college in 1977, and did it in a 1965 MG Midget (a British sports car). My next car was a Saab Sonett, and then I went to Ford, getting a Fox chassis Mustang (a wicked cool design!). After that I stayed with American cars, including a ' 92 Saturn, and a 2000 Mercury Cougar (finally got my Cougar!).

My dad and I never talked much, and he was a typical strong silent man, but I can hear him saying that everything would be better if everyone just bought a new Ford every two years.
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