Peculiar old picture of cars in Kansas City cave finds new fame online: How it happened

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The road to internet fame can be winding. Case in point:

A peculiar photo of dozens — and possibly far more — 1973 Ford Maverick sedans painted in Easter egg colors of blue, gold, white, brown, green and orange, parked in a Kansas City cave as if hunkered down for Armageddon — has climbed its way to the social media surface.

At 51 years old, the unique Kansas City photo has been highlighted unexpectedly over the last year on sites for Street Muscle Magazine and Ford Muscle, Auto Evolution, Curbside Classic and continues to be seen on an unknown number of Instagram and Facebook posts, garnering thousands of views.

“Damn it … I wondered where all the 73 mavericks were,” wrote one user on the Facebook page Thingies.

“Bet those cars are worth more now than when they were built,” another rightly commented.

The tale (doubtful at best) that’s been accompanying the photo is that the sporty cars, with their rounded noses all pointed in one direction, were surplus 1973 Mavericks being stored in Hunt Midwest’s 11-plus miles of underground caves, known as SubTropolis , because the car’s sales had slumped that year.

That’s not at all so, said Craig Selvey, 57, a lifetime owner of some 40 Mavericks in Albany, Indiana, and vice president of the Maverick/Comet Club International.

“It wasn’t because they weren’t selling or hadn’t sold,” said Selvey. “Because 1973 was a very good year for the Ford Maverick and they would have sold as normal, even quicker, than other years.”

Ford’s own numbers bear that out.

Introduced in April 1969 (for the 1970 model year) the Maverick was assembled in Kansas City at the Ford Assembly Plant in Claycomo for its entire run until 1977. Built to be compact and inexpensive — sticker price $1,995 — the Maverick launched as an “import fighter” to go head-to-head against the wildly popular Volkswagen Bug as well as imports from Toyota, Datsun, Renault and others.

“Now Americans who want small car economy don’t have to spend their U.S. dollars overseas,” Ford declared in an ad in The Star on April 16, 1969, the day before the six-cylinder hit the market.

One day later, Renault shot back with a snarky ad of its own, a lampoon in which it “reluctantly welcomes” Maverick to the world.

“Frankly, Maverick, with the competition we already get from VW, we need another competitor like we need a broken leg,” the ad read. “However, when we consider the average Detroit car, we at Renault feel that any improvement — no matter how humble — deserves recognition.”

Renault then went on to tell Maverick, “You are not a bad car. … Second, you are not ugly,” before giving it some “Small Car to Small Car advice” about having old-fashioned rather than modern disc brakes, having an outdated transmission and, at 22.5 miles per gallon, drinking too much fuel.

“Maverick, a small car should not gulp gasoline. That is bad manners,” the ad intoned, boasting the boxy Renault 10’s 35 miles per gallon. “Do not take our criticism too hard, Maverick. For your first try at it, you have not done badly.”

Maverick did great, logging 569,000 sales in its first 16 months, April 1969 to September 1970. Meant to be a fun car, it came in a palette of fun colors: Brittany Black and Wimbledon White, sure. But there was also Anti-Establish Mint, a Hulla Blue, a Freudian Gilt or gold, a red Thanks Vermilion, Original Cinnamon and, in later years, a popping bright Home on the Orange.

In 1971, some 272,000 Mavericks sold, followed the next year by 255,000. In 1973, the year of the photo, sales rose to 292,000, and jumped to 301,000 in 1974. It wasn’t until 1975 that sales slumped, cut in half to 162,000, followed by 140,000. The car’s last year, 1977, sales bottomed out at 98,000.

Ryan Tompkins, Hunt Midwest’s director of sales and leasing, couldn’t speak to whether the cars that once filled their caves were surplus. The photo belongs to Hunt Midwest. A more likely explanation, he said, is that the Mavericks were just there to be kept safe. Ford had been using the caves since the early 1960s, a six-decade relationship. Their assembly plant is five miles away.

“I do know that it was storage for the vehicles,” Tompkins said, “to get out of the weather for the hail and tornado activity that Kansas City has. It is a safe and secure environment. I don’t know how many vehicles were down there, but they would be out of harm’s way. They had an operation in the Underground already.

“They found that this would be a good location to store assembled vehicles while they’re waiting to be sold and distributed out.”

The SubTropolis caves’ “automotive alley” remains the home to about 20 car- and truck-related suppliers and outfitters.

Zach Murdock, Hunt Midwest’s manager of corporate communications, said that the Mavericks photo found its way onto the internet after someone on Facebook discovered it on Hunt Midwest’s website last year.

“I think it was like a Throwback Thursday post or something,” Murdock said, “just something kind of hanging around. But when this guy took, it, it blew up. So now, every couple of months, it kind of surfaces again and people share it around.

“I mean, it’s a cool photo, and there’s a little cognitive dissonance to it. Like, ‘What are these things doing down here?’”

The simple answer: storage.

No, they’re no longer there. In 2021, Ford resurrected the Maverick name and gave it to a new compact pickup truck.

If someone once again has the urge to see a bevy of colorful Mavericks, Selvey of the Maverick/Comet Club said that his group plans to hold its 31st annual Maverick “roundup” — that’s horsey lingo for a car convention — on July 17 in Kingsport, Tennessee.

They expect 50 to 60 cars from across the country. Although the Maverick was made in Claycomo, the group has yet to hold a roundup in Kansas City, because there tends to be more attendees from the East Coast

“We’ve talked about it,” Selvey said of a Kansas City roundup. “I mean that’s definitely in the realm of possibilities.”

Maybe they could gather in a cave.