Ford does not build many cars like the Ford Elite: a 2-door coupe with 351 cuin Windsor V8, built from 1974 to 1976 as the oil crises and the first emissions rules rewired the industry.
The background
The Ford Elite is a personal luxury car produced by Ford and marketed in North America from February 1974 to 1976, using the name Gran Torino Elite for its first model year only then simplified to just Elite for the following two model years.
The engineering
Under the skin sits 351 cuin Windsor V8; other versions carried different engines, listed in the specification table below. The gearbox is a 3-speed automatic. The layout matters: a front engine drives the rear wheels, the classic proportion — long bonnet, cabin set back — that most people picture when they picture a sports saloon or a grand tourer. The wheelbase is 114 in. These are manufacturer figures carried by Wikipedia and Wikidata, not road-test measurements.
Where it sits
Where it sits in Ford's history is not in doubt: the Ford Thunderbird (seventh generation) / Ford LTD II followed it; it was built at Chicago, Illinois. On a showroom list of its day it stood against the Volkswagen Scirocco, the Volkswagen Golf, the Lamborghini Countach. Its Ford stablemates include the Ford 021C and the Ford Escort.
The money
There is no federal ownership record for the Ford Elite — it predates the complaint database or was never sold in the United States — so MotorJury publishes no running-cost figure for it. For a car of this age the price is set by the collector market and the condition of the individual example, not by a formula.