Man Abandons His Ford To Show Wife That He Loved Her. Now He's Having the Car Restored

His wife totally hated the Ford Maverick Coupe that he was pampering during their marriage as if it were a precious family member. And she made no efforts to hide it. One day, she almost sold it to some stranger for $5,000. She had no idea how much it was worth. She just wanted to get rid of it.

At one point, she got so mad that she asked him to choose between her and the Ford. He chose her, but five years later, they got a divorce. The man realized that he had made a mistake abandoning his Maverick. The owner is now making efforts to make his Ford look like it did in the good old days.

The "good old days" for this Maverick were in the 1970s when Ford manufactured the two-door model as a replacement for the Falcon. Its name was derived from the term that defines unbranded range animals. The logo of the model was stylized to resemble the head of a Longhorn cattle.

It came with a long hood and a fastback roof, features that were made popular by the Mustang. A four-door sedan with pop-out rear side windows was introduced in 1971. Ford built nearly 579,000 during the first production year, which was not far from the Mustang's record: almost 619,000.

The Maverick even outran the Mustang in 1970 by almost 200,000 units. Ford built a total of 2.1 million examples and this one right here is one of them. The compact car was just the right car at the right time. It came in an era when gas prices were skyrocketing, and it had a starting price of $1,995, which would be the equivalent of approximately $16,000 in today's money. That was the ace up Ford's sleeve.

The Ford Maverick was the right car at the right time

The last Maverick rolled off the production line in 1977 when Ford retired it to make room for the Fairmont, which sat on a then-newly developed platform, the Fox. FoMoCo originally intended to phase it out sooner when the Granada came out. But they needed an entry-level car to offset the effects of the oil crisis.

For starters, the owner, who had left it sitting for five years, took it to a detailing shop to have it cleaned up. There isn't much work to perform on the car. Even though it sat for five years under a layer of dust, it still looks decent. It looks every inch a car that was well taken care of up to some point.

The detailing team does a power wash and a polish. Hours later, the orange paint, which Ford called "Original Cinnamon," starts to shine like it once did. So does the chrome trim. They take the seats out to clean underneath and also work on the brown leather upholstery. It's obvious that this car features all the options available at the time.

The detailing team vacuums the carpeting, which is still intact after all these years. Furthermore, the Maverick still has the original Ford-branded floor mats.

Ford Maverick coupe, powered by a 302-cubic-inch (4.7-liter) V8 Windsor engine, which generated 215 horsepower (210 metric horsepower). The car would now be estimated at more than $40,000.

The one who owns this Maverick Coupe is not planning to make up for the lost time. Instead, he is planning to take the car to an event and sell it for over $50,000. He might have just raised its value by $10,000 with a detailing that cost him $1,000. It turns out that he never really loved it that much. He is just trying to make a profit.

Ford resucitated the Maverick nameplate but as a pickup

Ford revived the Maverick nameplate in 2022. But in a world where everyone wants to drive crossovers, SUVs, and pickup trucks, it was a pickup that they brought to the market. And they definitely nailed it! With only front-wheel drive and unibody construction, the Maverick sits below the Ranger in Ford's lineup.

It looks nothing like the Maverick from the 1970s, but it does have something in common with it: the very high demand. Ford was unable to fulfill all orders it received for the 2022 model year. Again, pricing is the ace up Ford's sleeve.

The Maverick pickup rolls off the production line of the Hermosillo Stamping and Assembly plant in Mexico and still is Ford's most affordable model selling on the American market. It starts at $23,920. But the V8 is not an option. At least, not yet.