1986 Ford LTD: Foxy Four-Door It’s time once again for “Cars you saw everywhere as a kid that have disappeared.” As a kid in the ’80s, I saw tons of first-gen Chrysler minivans and countless Cutlass Cieras, Chevy Celebrities, Ford Aerostars, second- and third-gen Honda Accords, front-wheel-drive de Villes, and these Fox-body Ford LTDs and their Mercury Marquis corporate siblings. And today they are seen about as often as the Swedish Bikini Team in Duluth. One of these even lived next door to us in the ’80s. The Ohlweilers were a very nice elderly couple. Bill had an amazing flower garden that he kept immaculate in spring and summer, and he and Marion could often be seen on their screened-in porch on summer evenings, drinking Dr. Pepper. I have dim memories from when I was really little of them having a beige Ford Fairmont sedan. But around 1985-86, they traded it in for a brand new LTD, in the same beige with beige interior as the Fairmont. I remember that LTD very clearly (looking in my brochures, I think the color was Sand Beige). I’m not sure if it was a Brougham (I know, how embarrassing, me not remembering that!), but it was a nicely equipped model, with the deluxe full wheel covers, whitewalls, and nice upholstery. But it definitely did not have the center console with front bucket seats. That nicety was reserved for the LTD LX, which was the sporty model in the LTD line. Few were made new, and even fewer survive today, but they are prized among Fox-body Ford lovers. Many refer to it as a four-door Mustang. And at first, I thought this might just be that seldom-seen version. Upon further eyeballing, I determined it was not, but I still love it. The telltale is the console shifter. Actual LTD LXs had interiors with “charcoal premium cloth upholstery with Oxford gray accents,” a floor-shifted transmission, a six-way power seat, tachometer, and other niceties. Oh, and they had the 5.0L V-8, naturally! What we have here appears to be an enterprising owner who located a console and bucket seats from a different car and added them. I think it looks great—especially the black paint with the red interior. Also, it has the center-mounted rear brake light in the rear window, which was only seen on ’86 LTDs (and all other ’86 passenger vehicles—it was a new federal safety requirement). It was very tidy too, and the aftermarket wheels gave it an LX vibe even with the extra non-LX chrome trim. Further, the LX was sadly no longer available on ’86 LTDs. The Taurus was about to totally take over mid-size Ford duties, and so the LX was an ’84-’85 model only. But they were cool, and this was cool too, as an owner’s idea of what could have been a would-be ’86 LX. And as I mentioned earlier, these were all over the place as a kid, especially the sedans. For some reason, I don’t remember too many wagons. Perhaps because the LTD Crown Victoria full-size version was more popular as a hauler. I do remember lots of those, in plain and woody-sided Country Squire versions. The Taurus had appeared in ’85. with modern, then-novel, today-disdained “jelly bean” styling and front-wheel drive. They sold like dollar beer at a baseball game, and so ’86 was the final year for the Fox LTD—though the full-sized LTD Crown Victoria would last to 2011. The Crown Vic coupe made it to ’87, and the Crown Vic wagons to ’91. This LTD was spied at a show at the Northwest Bank tower on Kimberly Road in Davenport, Iowa back in July 2024. I was really excited to see it. It is only about the third Fox body LTD/Marquis sedan I’ve seen in the past 20 years! And definitely the nicest. A survivor of 58,270 sedans and 14,213 wagons built in ’86!
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