Grabber & GT (Comet) prices and equipment

Look what showed up on Marketplace. They don't show the front so I assume it's a pile.

 

My 1st Maverick was a '71 Grabber in "Grabber Yellow". It was equipped with a 200 c.i. 6, floor shifted 3-speed manual, black Comfort weave high-back bucket seats, Grabber hood, Sport mirrors, trunk spoiler and "dog-dish" hub caps. Very similar to this car:

 

My goodness, I guess that would be a parts car for the good examples that remain. This has got me thinking that some years back I noticed they had a club with a website. By the look of it, they seemed to have moved that onto Facebook. I like the yellow coupe they use as a main picture:

EXP & LN7 Club

From memory when the EXP/LN7 ended I think Ford tried to replace it with two cars, one was the Probe and the other was the imported front wheel drive Mercury Capri from Australia. The Probe sold well, but the front wheel drive Capri didn't. The Capri was Ford Escort related, like the EXP/LN7. Pretty confusing.

 

Actually the Probe was to be the next generation Mustang. The dealers raised such hell at the thought of a front wheel drive Mustang that Ford dropped that idea and brought the car out as a stand-alone-item. The V6 Probe was a fun car to drive.

 

Didn't Hot Rod include a petition in their magazine for subscribers to send to Ford asking them not to discontinue the RWD Stang? Ford was about to kill a car that's now known as the second coming of the hot rod(first being '55 Chevy).

 

They did, there was a big letter writing campaign. It certainly changed Ford's plans, which was why the aging Fox platform car carried on for another 5 or so years. The Probe was going to be the replacement.

I was speaking that effectively the Probe and imported Capri took over from the EXP, which should have been the plan from the start, and happened anyway. GM wanted to make the 1982 F body front wheel drive too, but the success of the Foxstang changed their mind. Even so, by the early to mid '80s Ford wanted the next Mustang to be front wheel drive, but then CAFE got relaxed, gas prices fell and there was no need.

 

Hot Rod did, however it was Editor Donald Farr in the July 1987 issue of Mustang Monthly that actually sounded the alarm. Other magazines then followed.

To quote Farr:

"As much as I try to rationalize the whole deal, I just can't force myself to accept Ford's intended future for the Mustang. Call me old-fashioned or sentimental or just plain stubborn, but a Japanese car, even one built in America, is a Japanese car, and I'm not prepared to see a Mazda with the Mustang name and running horse emblems affixed to its fenders. After the Mustang has clawed its way to the top of the pony car heap once again, Ford plans to turn it into a front-wheel-drive copy of a Japanese car. Un-American, I say."

 

Ford's designer Janine Bay (chief program engineer for Mustang in the '90s) said in an interview they were looking at sales of cars like the Celica and Prelude, and wanted to get in there. "There was a strong desire to want to 'play in that playground' and some people said 'well maybe Mustang is a name we could put on it''."

And they are doing it again, didn't Ford just recently put the Mustang name on an electric car?

If Mr Farr is still alive, he should get in touch with GM's Mary Barra, and explain to her why it isn't good having more GM factories in China than America. That said, the second generation Escort built in America was based on a Mazda, and the Escort was always seen as an American car. Arguments against the Probe being the next Mustang should have been solely on the fact a Mustang has to be a rear wheel drive coupe, with a V8 option. That's just the nature of a Mustang, and an electric car can't be a Mustang.