Junkyard Find: 1973 Ford Maverick Sedan
There was once a time when Mavericks (and their Mercury Comet siblings) were among the most often-seen vehicles on American streets. Being such a cheap and homely car (and built during one of Detroit’s build-quality low points), however, the Maverick just wasn’t loved enough for many examples to be spared from The Crusher when they got a little frayed around the edges. In this series so far, we’ve seen this ’75 Maverick two-door, this ’75 Comet sedan, and now today’s ’73 Maverick four-door.
I shot this car in a San Francisco Bay Area wrecking yard, and thus it has little (if any) rust. It shows signs of having spent decades outdoors, so there’s plenty of vegetation stuck to the body and everything is well-bleached by the sun.
No air conditioning, but there is a rear defogger.
Someone grabbed the engine, which probably now lives in someone’s work truck.
The vintage of the cassette tapes inside indicates that this car was parked for good in the middle 1980s.
Too bad nobody made a drag racer out of this car.
Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Autoblog, Hagerty, The Truth About Cars and Capital One.
More by Murilee Martin
Comments
Join the conversation
In profile, the original Maverick 2 door was the love-child of a 66 Toronado and a Henry J.
My friend John wound up with a '71, white over black, with one option: the V8. It was a hot car by the time he had it, round about 1977. Rubber floor mats. No radio. He called her Millicent. Millicent perished when John got into a bit of a drag race - the car could beat contemporary Trans Ams with badly emission control choked engines. John had a few friends in the car, and bottomed it out over railroad track while moving at a good clip. Bottoming out damaged the oil pan, and the engine seized on the freeway minutes later. RIP, Millicent.