I was in the shop today looking at the Mavs and the Fairmont for a few minutes and something struck me... The front bumper on the Fairmont Futura highly resembles a Mav front bumper. It is smaller in girth, but about the same width. The shape lengthwise is like the Mav. The biggest benefit I can see though is weight. The Fairmont uses a polished aluminum bumper instead of chrome steel. Now, I don't intend to unbolt the Fairmont bumper and try it on a Mav, but I thought I would throw out the possibility incase a big bumper guy wanted to use a much lighter bumper. Then it is not much bigger than the 73 bumper at that, so you would lose some bulk too. Combined with the 'slide' mod, it might be a good option. The front of the 75 is pushed against the wall with no easy way to move, and the rear of the Fairmont is against the wall with about 1" between the cars... So I didn't get a chance to measure or check rear bumper for rear bumper, but the aluminum rear bumper may be a good width as well. ??????? Thought I would throw that out. Dave
This ugly old thing...or this one... Still kinda homely...Now I know what non-maverick fans think of our cars...
Steve (PGARFDS) has a nice Zephyr X7. I'll be down there tomorrow. I'll try to remember to look at it. We can park a Mav next to the Zephyr and take pics.
I can't tell from the angle, but the 4 door pic is of a 'regular' Fairmont. It looks like the Futura has a little different bumper. The one in my shop is a Futura. If you look at those pics though, the bumper is not much larger than our 73 bumpers. I would like to see someone pull it off! It looks like a good swap for a big bumper. I am sure you would have to tweak mounts and such... sure looks do'able.
Kinda funny, since both the Maverick and the Fairmont were built in the same factory, Fairmont/Zepher replaced Maverick at the St.Thomas Assembly Plant. Good idea thought, hard to find any around here anymore.
I tried to throw some comparison pics together... Kinda hard to judge this way, but the aluminum bumpers look much cleaner IMO. They are much lighter as fact. Dave
I wonder about that, because I have seen some of those Fairmonts that have rust holes in the bumpers, and aluminum doesn't rust...:16suspect
I had an 80 Fairmont futura,the bumpers are really light,they also use the bumper shocks,to give a little.She was a great car, I put 230k on that 200 6cyc.In fact shes still going today.
Maybe they didn't have aluminum when they first came out... I really don't know. I thought they were all aluminum.
I wasn't when I posted, or when you wrote that, but I am now!!! 2 down, 10 to go I will have some leftover for tomorrow. Will need them for when I am up on that ladder hanging those damned christmas lights that "she" keeps nagging me about...
