Just came back from a friends house that is restoring (concours) a 67 Fastback S-code. Hardly any of the sheet metal has a spec of rust on it with the exception of the cowls, and front floor pans which theseare beingreplaced now.The carwas on a rotisserie and turned 90degrees up. Ithought there was something strange, and after a momentI realized,there was NO passanger side torque box. He had ask if the car may have some expermental thing that Ford had done. I replied "I don't think so", They had forgot to put it in. The owner has had the car since 67 and states there has been no accidents or replacement panels. From the originality and condition of the car I would have to agree with this 100%. I could find NO evidence where a Torque box was everinstalled by the factory. No spot or stitch welds or anything that would indicate it was ever there. It even has acontinuity of factory paint andBlue overspray over the brown factory primer. Its a wonder that 390 didn't twist the everything up.

 

alot of them came with no passenger side box you can put one on if you want to alot of us on here have done that

 

There was a strike at Ford in the fall of 1967. Many 'unusual' thingshappened prior to the strike, and just as many after. Workers did little acts of disruprion (parts omitted, lunch bags left in door panels or in the rear quarter, etc)to indicate their displeasure with Ford before the strike. When the strike was settled, re-starting the line was riddled with other disruptions (primarily the lack of parts). Face it, union labor is more in line with extortion than in efficiency.You, the consumer, suffers.
Jim

 

I thought they all supposed to have them on both sides.Is it notan intergial part of the unibody design. If not, I've learned something new.

 

Why American car manufactures suck and are begining to go out of business and Japanese manufactures are rising. It's a sad day when a crappy company such as GM witch is rated the lowest in effiency(sp) and reliability can afford to even negoiate a deal to BUY OUT Chrysler.

Ford is doing a decent job of restoring reliability to their vehicles. The trucks are, by far, the best made. The only thing that may start to give them a run for their money is the new Tundra, which, no offense, is a bad *** truck. It's just going to be a slow process for Ford and the other American companies. The Japanese cars are extremely affordable (realistic cars not the sport/luxury cars), have power and are reliable.

Japanese maufactures coming over here and producing these highly reliable and efficant(sp, again) cars put a huge burden on the American car industry and I believe it caused a lot of the newer un-reliable cars to be built. American manufactures were only concerned with competing, not with making their cars better or their production lines more comfortable for the employees.

Plus, Americans have a tendancy to be greedy. Look at the baseball strike from years gone by. These guys were making small fortunes EVERY YEAR on 5-10 year contracts, but still wanted more. I'm sure the production workers weren't doing it for no good reason, but they could have been more civil and if the manufacturers cared more about the employees than filling their own pockets, they could have avoided a lot of this.

You just have to put the coultures side by side and compare them. Americans are about having fun and spending lots of money on material things. Japanese are about working hard, becoming the best they can be at whatever they do.

Sorry, just had to get that rant off my chest.

Go ahead and flame me for saying Japanese cars are better. Ask any mechanic and they'll tell you flat out, a Camry will last a long time. My GF's next door neighbor is a mechanic and he says "Chevy keeps me in business. 75% of the cars I work on are chevys cause there's constantly something breaking on them. Fords have their moments, but I rarely have to do major work on Japanese cars." When she got her Scion tC, she told him she got the extended warrenty and his reaction was, "you'll probably never have to use it." Her friend bought a G6 and has had nothing but problems with it. She's taken it back for the same problem at least 6 times already and they never really fix it.

 

i agree with pretty much everything you just said, cept ford is leaving ALOT to be desired in terms of the cheezy plastic being used everywhere in the cars - ESPECIALLY in the interior

 

there are no cars like the old cars

 

Exactly!

Yeah, ford is using a lot of cheesy plastic gar-bage in their cars, but a lot of car manufacturers are doing that. Some make it look good and others *cough ford dodge chevy cough* can't.

For all over styling, old cars are WAYYYYY better. At least back in the day different models of cars (even if they were based on the same chassis) DIDN'T LOOK LIKE ALL OTHER CARS FROM THE SAME COMPANY! i.e. Dodge. The Charger, Avenger, and Caliber have THE SAME EXACT STYLING CUES. You can even see it in someJapanese cars.

Every year, there was a different body style. Now the same body style goes on for years on end. Granted, the Fox (Four Eye and Aero) were the same body style and lasted for 14 years without a significant drop in customers and even have one of the biggest, if not the biggest, "following" so-to-speak, but use your thinking device people! It's not that hard to come up with 3 cars that DON'T look alike!

 

its actually alot more profitable to run the same styles for a few years, if they'd leave **** alone maybe they'd make a buck (of course the car they leave alone would have not be a piece of crap to start with)

 

They never had a problem changing body styles every other year back in the 60's. Now they have to run the same body style for 4 years or more? They have to make their "economy" car look like their muscle car? You can use different cues on different cars, but when you use EVERY CUE from one car to a totally different car, it kinda kills it. I think they all look the same and they all look dumb as *****.