Welcome to 1976. Muscle is out the door, personal luxury coupes are in, bumpers are now battering rams that will prove their worth at demolition derbies across the country for decades to come, and horsepower is a lingering memory in most cases. Welcome to Ford Motor Company…where Lee Iacocca and Henry Ford II are in the middle of a simmering disagreement that will end with Iacocca getting booted, scooped up by a nearly-dead Chrysler Corporation, and will wind up the star of the 1980s, hailed as the turnaround king. Welcome to the Ford lineup: the compact Pinto, the thrifty Maverick, the Mustang II, and a flotilla of battleships that made each Ford dealership look like the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard’s mothballed fleet. Torino, Elite, Thunderbird, LTD…what portion of “huge” would you like today?

The Elite is a weird one, because it’s a gap between the 1974 Ford Torino lineup and the 1974 Ford Thunderbird lineup. Seems a bit…redundant, right? Well, kind of. At the time, the Thunderbird and the Lincoln Mark series were twins, so the T-bird was deep in it’s “fat Elvis” stage. Compared, the Torino was pretty trim, but it was also pretty basic, as it was Ford’s bread-and-butter and fleet offer car. So, to capitalize on the successes that personal luxury coupes were gaining in the market, the Elite was born: take the Torino two-door, add a new front clip that was supposed to espouse an upscale attitude, the ever-popular vinyl roof with opera windows, the best engine options that started with both 351s and went as far as the 460, load the bastard to the gills and send it out the door. Did it work? Well…you make that call.

I will say this: as much as people bark on about horsepower and that wicked pin-you-to-the-seat feel that the cars of the late 1960s had, there is something to be said for a car you can get in, hit the floor, and roll in comfort. The Elite was never meant to be a road burner, and it certainly wasn’t a handler. It was a cruiser, a car that worked well with Iacocca’s view of all the gingerbread without the spice. Putting some grunt into a 351 takes little effort for a car that nobody sees and in the case of this black-on-black example, looks pretty respectable. And that’s strange to say, because my inner gearhead form of myself is screaming at the top of it’s lungs. Young McT absolutely hated these cars back in the day!

eBay Link: 1976 Ford Elite