Sales of Ford’s midsize personal luxury coupe were trending upward, which was a good thing. The Elite was a decent seller, with the initial run of ’74s (officially the “Gran Torino Elite” for that year only) moving 97,000 copies, followed by 123,000 for ’75 and another 146,000 for ’76. For the sake of simplicity, I’m going to focus my initial comparison on the Ford Elite, which was an upscale Torino variant with a lot of Cougar in its body panels, and also basically the same size as the seventh-gen T-Bird that would follow. Later cars based on this platform included the midsize Ford Elite and Mercury Cougar XR-7 personal luxury coupes, while the substantially larger sixth-generation (1972 – ’76) Thunderbird, a near-twin to the Lincoln Continental Mark IV, also remained in production. The seventh generation Ford Thunderbird, in production for the ’77 through ’79 model years, was based on the same mid-size platform as the new-for-’72, body-on-frame Ford Torino / Mercury Montego.

You might be asking yourself if I’ve sneakily really written this essay about music, throwing in a few pictures of a car as a ruse, but there is a connection here. It has never left rotation in my active music library. I’d wager that most of us at least respect it. This single was released in August of 1978 (ahead of her eponymous debut album, which also went Gold), and it peaked at #12 (for three weeks) on the Billboard Hot 100, #1 on the Hot Soul Singles Chart (for one week), and as a double A-side along with “You Saved My Day”, charted at #11 on the Dance Club Charts.

She ultimately went with Columbia Records, and went on to record the multi-format success and RIAA Gold-certified smash “Got To Be Real”. Lynn’s story (and there’s a lot more to it, including her other theatrical roles before appearing on “Gong Show”), her episode of that program was taped in early 1976 (when she may have been but twenty years old), and by the time it aired in the fall of that year, she almost immediately had several major record labels blowing up her (rotary?) phone trying to sign her. She could arguably be considered the first successful singer who had first appeared on a reality show competition (even if “The Gong Show” was often silly), ahead of future American Idol contestants who have had lasting success and relevance, like Kelly Clarkson, Jennifer Hudson and Carrie Underwood (among a few others). I loved the music, my blue Schwinn, watching “The Gong Show” with host Chuck Barris (who also had a loose, curly Afro like I had in the late ’70s), and perhaps the most famous contestant to come from that show, one Lynda Cheryl Smith, also known as the one and only Cheryl Lynn. The second thought I had, and it may have been what had been playing on my earbuds at some point during that morning, was that the late 1970s seemed like a glorious time to be alive when I was a young kid. Sometimes, I’d like to have something genuinely classic and pre-owned instead of the clothing equivalent of fast food that will last for maybe a few years before it’s faded, worn, or no longer presentable. I have spent comparatively more on cool, retro pieces that once carried a fair amount of cachet, because as a matter of my personal preference and when within my means, it’s got to be real. I buy these garments for at least as much as (and sometimes much more than) a new, okay-looking golf or polo shirt or yet another pair of Dockers. However, when it comes to clothing to wear on my own time, I often gravitate to stores like Green Element, pictured above (or others in the area) to find that one, really nice, lightly worn shirt or pair of slacks from decades ago that might originally have cost a bit more money, to mix in with other items in my wardrobe. This ’78 Ford Thunderbird was parked in front of one of the more reasonably priced vintage / thrift stores in my neighborhood on one of those two days, and I had several immediate thoughts as I took in this scene.įirst, I’m an insurance professional, and when it comes to my work attire, I stick almost exclusively to nice, business-casual clothing bought from first- or second-tier department stores. Only about a month ago, it was warm enough in Chicago to take a walking tour of historic buildings and neighborhoods sponsored by the Chicago Architecture Center (which featured locales all over the city) and do some window shopping.

1979 thunderbird coup