If you’re as old as I am, you’ll remember the nation’s 200th birthday as a Very Big Deal back in 1976. Now that I’m no longer under the age of ten, nothing seems as impressive as it did back then, but for some reason today’s 250th birthday doesn’t seem nearly as grand, and I know exactly why: few manufacturers gave us any cheesy special editions to celebrate the occasion.
For 1976, car companies went wild with eye-searing red, white, and blue paint jobs on virtually every car you could imagine:
Actually, it wasn’t just cars, since trucks received the treatment as well. Ford’s Bicentennial F-150 had a dramatic gold stripe that terminated in an eagle that was trying to fly away with a banner left behind by some bell-bottom clad partygoer.
You could even get a more tasteful all-white version:
Now, fifty years later we all pretend that we’re too cool to drive around in colorful cars, and we’re barely getting any special edition rides to honor the occasions of the 250th. It’s probably just as well, since they’d likely offer us something in three shades of grey with a subtle, barely visible “1776-2026” logo on it.
No, we need a REAL semiquincentennial, sestercentennial, or quartermillennial version or whatever you want to call it. I think the Maverick perfectly fits the description of “most American vehicle” for today, so it probably should be the one that gets the “250” makeover. Ford actually offered a special colors-of-the-flag Maverick back in the early seventies when the Maverick was still a car; the fact that they were making pre-Bicentennial versions even three or four years before the event proves how big a deal it was.
YOu tend to forget how the old ‘Mav was actually a pretty cool looking mini-Mustang kind of car in coupe form:
This USA 250 Maverick would get the wheels and body mods I made to the Maverick Grabber edition I proposed a while back, but with some red and gold accents to really push it over the edge.
We’re semi-closed here at the Autopian today in honor of the holiday, so we won’t have a Ford Friday or an Autopian Asks, but I’m curious if the rest of you miss these club-you-over-the-head with apple-pie-and-baseball multicolor sticker job cars. Maybe one of you will be inspired to go out to Pep Boys today, get fifty bucks worth of striping and turn your dull white Escape into a true tribute to the Land of the Free. Let us know if you do.
Man, that Maverick is so awful that I think I like it. Have a great holiday everyone!
topshot source: Ford
I know why there is such a dramatic difference but I can’t tell you
250 years is nothing. I never understood why we are celebrating 250 anyways? 200 years, yeah celebrate centuries but celebrating between centuries is pointless. The USA is so young that it really seems foolish anyways.
My Mom had a Spirit of America 76 Nova. She had a 68 Nova before that, and while it was more or less the same body, she said the 76 had the hatchback and it made it a way more practical car.
What a fucking terrible time to have our 250th.
This is the reason
The 250th celebration was borked because nobody could agree on what to celebrate, it is a bad omen if the nation cant agree on its reason to exist
Everyone agreed years ago. There was a whole nonpartisan group set up and everything.
It was borked because a narcissist took everything over and made it all about him, like usual.
I’ve never cared less about a 4th than this one.
Bingo…
It’s very easy to create a myth around the bicentennial when most of us don’t remember it, but like now, I don’t believe that in that moment everyone agreed about what this nation stood for. In 1976 we were just coming out a fraught and brutal war in Vietnam that deeply divided the nation. Gregg vs Georgia ruled that the death penalty is not cruel and unusual punishment. The 1973 fuel crisis harmed the well being of some Americans and would do so for a decade. Nixon had just recently resigned after Watergate. American Indians and Black Americans expressed frustration about having their narrative excluded from the nation’s bicentennial.
I could go on but my point is that we should not look back with rose colored glasses. The nation was divided then as it is now.
I was born in ’85, so I can’t comment on that part of it.
All I know is that there was no “myth” this time around. The 250th anniversary had every chance to be a uniting, nonpartisan event. This was created when Obama was president, and it continued operating and planning through the following two presidents:
https://america250.org/about-america250/
That website sounds like exactly what we should have been celebrating. Instead, when Trump got in for his second term, he essentially hijacked that commission and a lot of its funding and used it on his hyper-partisan “Freedom 250” via executive orders, rather than congressional approval.
There are always bad things happening in the world, but it is possible to put them aside for a uniting event. In this case, the uniting event was discarded and a dividing event was put in its place due to the hubris of one man.
I think some of that might have been exactly why the Bicentennial was so massive. We don’t have to rose tint what was going on politically or even culturally to say people were all in on the Bicentennial. YMMV but I remember whimsically painted fire hydrants, reenactment fever, TV specials out the wazoo. It wasn’t a reflection on the current time, but a reflection on the previous 200 years. Whitewashed? 100%, but as I recall it started in January and by May or June was a fever pitch. I don’t think the divisions affected the 250 celebration as much as the coopting by inept people. Had the bipartisan committee been given the full control and budget as intended, I suspect at the least air conditioning in DC would have been considered. It’s not like it was a surprise it might be hot in July. I think that one aspect indicates the greater incompetence, that put a pall over the entire thing. Add to that the clear partisanship and that affected the general public’s and state’s involvement.
Division didn’t ruin the 2026 celebration, one side did.
“Okay guys, one more thing, this summer when you’re being inundated with all this American bicentennial Fourth Of July brouhaha, don’t forget what you’re celebrating, and that’s the fact that a bunch of slave-owning, aristocratic, white males didn’t want to pay their taxes.” – Ms. Stroud, Dazed and Confused
That’s why the phrase “more perfect union” is so genius, we’re not there yet. We can acknowledge the troubled past, study it, and hopefully learn from it make better decisions.
Jefferson for example thought slavery was bad, but wasn’t in favor of abolition. Eerily similar to “mass deportations now” oh wait, not my cheap labor though… so, fits and starts I guess.
I fully agree that only one political party is responsible for royally screwing up the 250th celebration.
My argument is with the idea that we could all celebrate the same thing, and that I am less convinced. I think the illusion that we could come together and celebrate in 1976 persists because we were still an ~85% white nation and the only voices that mattered were still men. (There’s a NYT article from July 8, 1976 titled ‘Few Blacks Inspired by Bicentennial’.)
Fifty years on the nations demographics have shifted but that former majority is in power but unwilling to share the promise owed to all Americans.
(PS this is a wild and good community that we can have these conversations.)
Fair.. I was also in all white area of New England at the time, hence “YYMV”. That forced some reckoning later in life, long after 1976.
This time around it is SO MUCH WORSE than anything that came before it as far as the situation with our country, its government and its people. Some 35% of the US still thinks Trump is great and no matter how unhinged its gets they are all in.
Whatever Nixon did would be back page news and unlike then, there is no longer a government apparatus to stop the current president. At least Nixon stepped down. Trump will either exit when he kicks the bucket or is physically removed. The things trump is doing now on a daily basis is many magnitudes worse than whatever president came before him.
The nation is far more divided now. Because the media landscape has carved out the narrative that either side is the enemy and both sides have dug in. trump’s base have no clue they are being fucked over. Or even if they did- don’t care. To go to such an extreme to where people will gladly hurt themselves to “get back” at the “other side” is where we are at.
What 06 Z33 said. America 250 was formed by an act of Congress 10 years ago. Dear Leader took it over and supplanted it with his narcissistic America 250. HE’s the one who ruined it, turning it into a MAGA affair.
Um, “Freedum 250.” I changed the “o” to a “u” and dropped the “b” because the “b” is silent. Most people don’t know that about the “b.” I think I’m very clever. Every day I take the hardest intelligence test, and I pass it every time. No one else has ever had to take it every day.
I could go on…
The “most people don’t know that dumb has a ‘b’ in it” almost broke me. It’s clear that he didn’t know that dumb has a “b” in it. What a self own. None of this seems possible or real and yet here we are.
As a Bicentennial Baby I was once upon a time looking forward to this overall ‘America 250’ letdown. Based on what I have heard, America did it right in ’76 and was looking towards a brighter future.
I’m an old. I graduated HS in ’76. I was there. It was great. This, not so much. Squandered.
I miss both cars and government that don’t suck. Cars weren’t great in 1976, but there is a LONG list of 1976 cars that I would cheerfully buy, unlike 2026.
I’m not American but your design looks amazing. I hope Ford see’s it and options it. The depth of the white accents and those wheels are perfection.
They won’t. It will instead be sold in Australia, Europe, Mexico, the Philipines and everywhere else except the US because that is what US automakers like doing- sell all the cool shit somewhere else.
I recall the Bicentenial celebrations well, but like you, I’m almost old.
Those wheels look great on the Maverick. The red/white/blue paintjob is a bit much for me, but all the trim bits/etc… look like a production special edition… very cohesive.
When will Toyota bring us the Stout or whatever it’s gonna be called, so there can actually be a Maverick competitor in the market. It’s been like five years already! That’s long enough to develop something from scratch, let alone adapt an existing hybrid drivetrain and platform.
Nobody asked, but I MISS SAAB. 🙁
Same here. You never forget your first car.
My cousin had the Spirit Mustang. I can remember the seats and listening to Foghat on the 8-track. Kid me thought it was amazing.
“Jammin’ to Foghat on my 8-track
With a case of malt liquor and a bong in back…”
-Killdozer, The Pig Was Cool
250 years and the Americans still can’t make a proper cup of tea.
😉
We threw it all away in that harbor and never looked back
Nah… what Ted said https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJn17lwukCc
My rebuttal: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eELH0ivexKA
We can, we just added a ton of sugar and put it on ice to make sweet tea.
I was in grad school in 1976 in Cambridge, MA. For the celebration we went down to the Charles River to see fireworks. There was no wind at all. Except for the first few, all the fireworks were obscured by the smoke from the previous fireworks. Quite the dud. About 25 years later I was working in Japan and got to see a great show near Niigata.
I have to admit that the best fireworks show I have ever seen was the year there was an OOPS on the barge in Casco Bay that they used for Portland Maine’s display. All of it went up at once. It was SHORT, but it was *spectacluar*. Thankfully, the crew bailed overboard and nobody got hurt when it blew.
I’ve seen a few spoiled by no breeze too.
Another awesome year I was flying home from a work trip on the 4th up the East Coast right after sunset. Got to see dozens of fireworks displays all at once. Really cool from 30K feet. I’ve caught the nightly fireworks at Disney World from the air a few times too flying home to Sarasota. Usually into our descent by then, so a lot lower as we pass over Orlando too.
The best overall July 4th fireworks I ever saw was during a delayed Northwest flight from Newark to Minneapolis. We took off just as it was getting dark. I had a window seat and I got to see the fireworks from every town and city from above pretty much from New Jersey all the way to around Chicago, where it clouded up. Even then, I got to see the clouds lighting up with all the different colors from below.
Boston native here. Bummer that you got a dud show. I’ve seen some spectacular fireworks displays over the years in Boston with the Pops at the Esplanade playing the 1812 Overture and various guest stars…
In the 1976 Bicentennial celebration, my dad worked for the perks department in our East Texas town. He was responsible for coordinating the Bicentennial Parade, so the day before, he brought my sister and I down to some facility, and we got to ride around in the Shriners Model T wheelie wagon, complete with wheelies and wheelstanding spins! It was amazing!
Nice recoloring and stripe work on the Mav. I’m happy the plastic around the bed isn’t black and to see the extended roof/wing. And, the wing on the tailgate is cool, too.
I didn’t see any gold as you mentioned in the article. But none needed.
Plus, I’ll echo others to have a reduced wheel size to allow more tire sidewall.
You created a fun looking Mav, one worthy of running around the streets. I do like it.
I miss paint-job-and-decal special editions in general, so I definitely lament the lack of America 250 themed cars.. And I think more people would have been interested in buying them if a certain King Midas in Reverse weren’t trying to put his imprint on all the festivities and ruining them in the process.
Dude, yes! What happened to all the colors? Black, white, and every shade of gray in between is BORING.
People. People are what happened. We live in a boring, everything must be so safe, age. It’s a grayscale world right now. Maybe like the Wizard of Oz, color will wash over us again at some point.
The hot pink wrap on our Golf R finally failed and had to come off, and the cost to get a high quality full wrap has more than doubled, which makes it pretty hard to justify. So now i drive a black car and it makes me sad.
I’m sad for you and sad that the rest of us don’t get to be excited by a blip of color in our daily lives.