Like its younger sibling, the Ford Mustang, the Ford Thunderbird enjoys an impressive and loyal fan base whose adulation is somewhat out of proportion to the car’s tangible virtues. Admittedly, any model that survives for 50 years and 13 distinct generations has to have something going for it, but the T-Bird lacks many of the qualities that tend to make a car a classic. Particularly in their later, four-seat incarnations, Thunderbirds never had blazing performance, they’re hardly rare, and as for their styling, let us just say that they often flirted with the ragged edges of good taste. Still, people loved them and these cars inspired a host of imitators, so they were doing something right. Let’s take a look at the tumultuous and occasionally tacky history of the 1958-1966 Ford Thunderbird.
THE FORD THUNDERBIRD GROWS UP
There isn’t much doubt about why people love the original two-seat Thunderbird of 1955-1957, known to its fans as the “Little Bird”: It looked like a sports car, was far more civilized than a Corvette, and managed a fair turn of speed. The original design, developed by Frank Hershey and Bill Boyer, walked a finely drawn line between sportiness and class, managing to bridge the tastes of a wide spectrum of buyers of different ages, income levels, and social strata. In looks, price, and positioning, the Thunderbird was an inherently desirable car, which also made it a fine showroom traffic-builder.
The only ones who didn’t love it were Ford’s accountants. Ford sold around 53,000 Little Birds in three years, a highly respectable sum for a sports car, but barely break-even volume for a major automaker. Ford Division general manager Lewis Crusoe had never expected the Thunderbird to be a high-volume car; as Crusoe saw it, it was basically a promotion and as long as it didn’t actually lose money, it had accomplished its goals.
In the fifties, though, Ford was a company increasingly dominated by financial analysts, including the so-called “Whiz Kids” like controller Robert McNamara, who would shortly succeed Crusoe at Ford Division. The bean counters took a dim view of unprofitable products no matter how much promotional value they might have. Even as the Thunderbird went on sale in December 1954, there was already talk of killing it.
There wasn’t any particular mystery to the Little Bird’s modest sales. Everyone loved the look, but it was pricey and its lack of passenger space crossed it off the shopping lists of single-car families. As early as March 1955, Crusoe, now group VP, ordered the Thunderbird design team to start working on a bigger, four-seat version, code-named project 195H (indicating simply that it was for the 1958 model year).
THE FOUR-SEAT SQUARE BIRD
The four-seater Ford Thunderbird flew in the face of Ford’s usual development procedures. Ordinarily, new models started with Product Planning and then went to Engineering for validation before the stylists even saw it, to insure that the design stayed “on package.” Since Bill Boyer’s Thunderbird team had cooked up the 195H design on their own (albeit at Crusoe’s suggestion), there was no package. Naturally, Engineering didn’t like that at all and reacted to the four-seater with decided hostility.
McNamara, who became Ford Division general manager in January 1955, was no fan of the Little Bird — the two-seater’s allure was largely lost on him and he disliked its lack of profit — but he took a shine to the 195H project. At that point, the four-seater had little political traction and it looked like the Thunderbird would be dropped completely after 1957. McNamara thought the four-seat project was a unique product with a strong profit potential and became an ardent supporter.
Ford stylist Gene Bordinat later recalled with some amusement that the taciturn, no-nonsense McNamara was actually quite enamored of the four-seater Thunderbird’s styling, which Bordinat thought “hokey” and distinctly overdecorated. Still, however much McNamara liked the looks, he was probably more enticed by the numbers. Ford’s market research suggested that the four-seater might sell up to 100,000 units a year, which would make it a far more lucrative proposition than the Little Bird had ever been. Furthermore, a four-seat ‘bird could be built at Ford’s new Wixom Assembly Plant alongside the big Lincoln Continental, allowing Ford to better utilize the expensive new factory.
Like the ’58 Lincoln, the four-seat Ford Thunderbird had unibody construction, unusual for an American car of its era, but its main attraction was its styling. The two-seat Thunderbird had its share of gimmicks, including a false hood scoop and fake fender louvers, but overall it was a fairly clean, crisp design. The four-seater, by contrast, was a busy-looking hardtop with an odd combination of space-age accoutrements and a rather rigid and upright “formal” roofline.
The new Thunderbird, which quickly earned the nickname “Square Bird,” was quite a bit bigger than the Little Bird. The Square Bird’s wheelbase was 11 inches (279 mm) longer than the 1957 and stretched more than 20 inches (510 mm) longer overall. The two-seaters were never particularly svelte and the bulkier Square Bird added nearly 400 extra pounds (about 175 kg) to their curb weight. Unitized construction didn’t make the Thunderbird any lighter, but did allow the Square Bird to sit lower: only 52.5 inches (1,334 mm) overall, almost 5 inches (127 mm) lower than a contemporary Ford sedan.
The unit body also contributed to the new Thunderbirds’s other great stylistic claim to fame: its prominent center console and bucket seats. The new T-Bird had an obtrusive driveshaft tunnel, which also acted as a structural spine. Its low floor meant the tunnel intruded too far into the passenger compartment to allow a conventional bench seat. Instead, Boyer’s styling team substituted individual front seats and made the tunnel a decorative element, covering it with a console containing the heater and power window controls, the ashtray, and a radio speaker. The console gave the Square Bird’s interior a showy, airplane-cockpit feel that was widely imitated. (Indeed, center consoles are all but mandatory on modern cars.)
DEFINING A MARKET
Ford had always been cagey about calling the Thunderbird a sports car, preferring the term “personal car.” When the Square Bird appeared for the ’58 model year, it put the kibosh on any sporting pretensions the Thunderbird might have had. The four-seater had more power than the two-seater, but the extra weight meant it wasn’t any faster. Its suspension and steering were even soggier than before and its brakes were frankly poor. The racing team of Holman & Moody did convert eight 1959 Ford Thunderbirds into NASCAR stockers, but the standard models didn’t encourage vigorous driving.
Enthusiasts wailed in horror at the arrival of the Square Bird, but the buying public loved it. Many of the people who’d said they would buy a Thunderbird if only it had a back seat soon put their money where their mouths were; Ford sold almost 38,000 Thunderbirds in 1958 despite a nasty national recession and could have sold even more if the Wixom plant had been able to get production up to speed more quickly. More than 67,000 Thunderbirds were sold in 1959 and sales for 1960 were nearly 93,000. For once, the market research had been right on target. The Square Bird cost more to build than the two-seater had, but it was also more expensive and turned out to be a very profitable car.
Part of the reason the Ford Thunderbird sold so well was that there wasn’t anything else like it on the market. Its performance was nothing special, but it looked like an auto show concept car. There were cars with more prestige, but other than a handful of high-priced European exotics, few were more distinctive. The Thunderbird was also comfortable and reasonably practical, something that couldn’t be said of a contemporary Corvette. By 1960, the T-Bird had attained a level of brand awareness that any marketing executive in the world would kill to achieve. Everyone knew what a Thunderbird was and, discounting the disgruntled sports car fans, many people aspired to own one.
Ford’s rivals were perfectly aware of how much money Ford was raking in on the Thunderbird, but it took them an unaccountably long time to do anything about it. GM watched almost 200,000 Square Birds roll out the door before any General Motors division offered anything similar. The first riposte, the 1961 Oldsmobile Starfire, was a half-hearted gesture and the T-Bird promptly beat it like a gong. The 1962 Pontiac Grand Prix and 1963 Buick Riviera did somewhat better, but neither did much to steal buyers from their Dearborn rival.
THE 1961 FORD THUNDERBIRD: BULLET BIRD
The Ford Thunderbird was redesigned for 1961, retaining its four-seat configuration and basic dimensions, but trading the Square Bird’s angular lines for a streamlined fighter-jet look, developed by stylist Alex Tremulis. (An alternative concept developed by Elwood Engel became the 1961 Lincoln Continental.)
Mechanically, the new Thunderbird was much the same as before, although it was somewhat heavier, with a larger engine and standard power steering. Early in its development, engineer Fred Hooven had pushed for the Thunderbird to have front-wheel drive, but while Ford did seriously consider the prospect, even building several prototypes, the idea was eventually dropped on cost grounds.
Customers were not quite as enthusiastic about the “Bullet Bird” as they had been about its squared-off predecessor, perhaps because the public was becoming weary of the rocketship styling cues of the fifties. Even so, the Ford Thunderbird remained the car to beat in the personal luxury market.
THE 1964 FORD THUNDERBIRD
By the time the fourth-generation Ford Thunderbird appeared for 1964, the Thunderbird design studio had a firm grasp of what their customers liked and didn’t like. Since the “banana-nose” design of the Bullet Birds hadn’t gone over well, Bill Boyer and his team revisited some earlier styling themes for its 1964 successor. The Bullet Bird’s unloved recessed headlights, tail fins, and dog-dish tail lights all got the ax.
The new ‘Bird — known today as the “Flair Bird” — was fractionally shorter than before, but looked longer thanks in part to sharp creases in the body sides and a pair of horizontal “skeg” lines extending through the doors into the rear fenders, reminiscent of the 1961-1962 Cadillacs. The hood was lengthened and the greenhouse shortened to give more muscular proportions, but the now-expected fake hood scoop and formal roofline were still present and accounted for. Boyer later denied trying to rehash the Square Bird, but he admitted that his goal for the 1964 Thunderbird was to synthesize the most successful elements of the previous generations.
Under the revamped skin, the new Ford Thunderbird was the same old wine in a different bottle. The Flair Bird still had unitary construction, which was somewhat less novel in 1965 than it had been in 1958, but was otherwise a thoroughly conventional car, sharing its engine, transmission, and brakes with full-sized Ford sedans. Its main distinction was weight; the Thunderbird wasn’t terribly large by contemporary American standards, but it weighed more than 500 pounds (227 kg) more than a Ford Galaxie sedan, which was a significantly larger car.
Inside, interior designer John Najjar pulled out all the stops, jazzing up the familiar buckets-and-console theme with an array of toggle switches and flashing lights worthy of a B-52 Stratofortress. There was nothing that you wouldn’t find on a well-equipped family sedan today — just controls for air conditioning, power windows, power locks, power seats, radio, and heater — but it was a dazzling sight and could confuse the uninitiated.
Most of the Thunderbird’s interior gadgets were pure hokum, but again, the public ate it up. Sales for 1964 nearly matched the 1960 peak despite increased competition both from GM and from Ford’s own Mustang, which bowed late in the model year.
As always, the Ford Thunderbird’s success confounded critics because as an automobile, it was decidedly lackluster. It had adequate power, but it was definitely not a fast car, and fuel economy was predictably dire. Like its predecessors, the Flair Bird rode comfortably on smooth pavement, but rough surfaces destroyed its composure. Its handling was dire even by the grim standards of 1964 Detroit, and the brakes were wretched. For all its bulk, the Thunderbird still didn’t offer an abundance of interior space either, especially in back. It all was certainly elaborate, but its complexity did not translate into performance or utility.
However, utility was definitely not the point. People didn’t lay out $6,000-odd for a Thunderbird because they were worried about cornering grip or gas mileage. If buyers in this class had been interested in taste or performance, they could always have bought a Buick Riviera, which was classier, faster, and handled better. The Thunderbird’s raison d’être was inspiring envy in the neighbors and letting middle-aged businessmen pretend every trip to the store was an interplanetary mission.
VARIATIONS ON A THEME
The 1965 and 1965 Flair Birds were little changed in styling or features, but a useful addition was standard front disc brakes. The discs were enough to nearly double the Thunderbird’s previously anemic stopping power, helpful for a car that so encouraged daydreaming. For 1966, there was also an optional 428 cu. in. (6,990 cc) engine, essentially a stroked version of the standard 390 (6,391 cc) V8.
A CHANGE OF FLIGHT PLAN
After the end of Flair Bird line in 1966, the Ford Thunderbird hit the wall. Bill Boyer subsequently admitted that by 1966, his team had largely exhausted the potential of the original styling themes.
The subsequent 1967 Thunderbird was cleaner looking inside and out, if no less ostentatious. Gone were the hood scoop, the fake louvers, the fender skirts, and the confounding array of lights and switches. The new Thunderbird also reverted to body-on-frame construction, which made it even more like a regular Ford sedan under the skin. For the design’s second year, the Thunderbird even lost its buckets and console, which moved to the options list in favor of a standard bench seat. That made sense from a practical standpoint, but it sacrificed much of what had once made the ‘Bird special.
The big showpiece for 1967 was a new body style: a four-door pillared sedan, the Thunderbird four-door Landau. Ford marketing made a big deal out of the four-door Landau, but Car and Driver dismissed it as little more than an overdecorated Ford Galaxie. The whole point of the Thunderbird and the personal luxury genre it spawned had been to offer an alternative to ordinary sedans; a four-door Thunderbird was a sedan. (Its platform, however, was used very successfully to create the Lincoln Continental Mark III.)
The 1967 sold well, thanks mostly to the continuing allure of the Thunderbird name, but by 1968, the competition was closing in. The only American marques that didn’t offer a personal luxury car by 1968 were Chrysler and Chevrolet. Many of the new rivals had a technological or performance edge over the Thunderbird. All things considered, it was probably a bad time to tone down the ostentatious styling and Walter Mitty fantasy gadgets.
Throughout the seventies, Ford resorted to making the Thunderbird progressively bigger, plusher, and more expensive. By 1977, however, Ford was forced to trim half a ton of bloat and nearly $3,000 from the price tag, putting the Thunderbird back in the hunt with the popular Chevrolet Monte Carlo and Pontiac Grand Prix. Although the 1977-1979 Thunderbird lacked any real redeeming characteristics, it sold like mad. A second wave of downsizing in 1980 sent sales and prestige tumbling, although the sleek 1983 models — first wave of Ford’s “aero” revolution of the eighties — restored a certain measure of honor and brought the Thunderbird closer to its sporty roots. Still, none of the post-1966 cars will probably ever match the adoration that surrounds their fifties and sixties ancestors.
THE SYNTHETIC BIRD
What are we to make of those early four-seater Ford Thunderbirds? What makes a Flair Bird charming where its bloated seventies successors seem merely excessive? The Thunderbird was never really a sports car, nor was it quite a luxury car. If it could be called glamorous, it was a tawdry and ostentatious sort of glamor, and it was about as sporty as the Paris Las Vegas hotel-casino is European. Its buyers and fans knew that, of course, and they didn’t care. They recognized that the T-Bird was all about symbolism, and that symbolism was enough.
The charm of the four-seat Thunderbird lies in the fact that it is, as the great Italian author and semioticist Umberto Eco once wrote of the movie Casablanca, a synthesis of many genres, in this case ranging from sporty roadster to luxury landau. The 1958–1966 Thunderbird (especially the 1964–1966 edition, which we personally consider the apogee of the form) is a shameless, occasionally incoherent précis of every automotive fascination and stylistic fetish of its era, all rolled into one gaudy, crowd-pleasing amalgam. From a single 1964 Thunderbird sporting wire wheels and the Sports Roadster tonneau cover, one could almost extrapolate a complete automotive styling history of the late fifties and early sixties. By any rational standard, the four-seat Thunderbird was pointless, even absurd, but it was a grand and delightful absurdity, and it’s hard (even for your cynical author) not to love it for that alone.
NOTES ON SOURCES
Our sources for the development of the four-seat Thunderbird included the Auto Editors of Consumer Guide, Encyclopedia of American Cars: Over 65 Years of Automotive History (Lincolnwood, IL: Publications International, 1996); Mike Bumbeck, “Four-Place Ford Thunderbird,” Hemmings Classic Car #77 (February 2011), pp. 16–25; David R. Crippen, “The Reminiscences of Eugene [Gene] Bordinat, Jr.” [interview], 27 June 1984, Automotive Design Oral History Project, Accession 1673, Benson Ford Research Center, www.autolife. umd.umich.edu/ Design/ Bordinat_interview.htm [transcript], accessed 17 July 2008; John Gunnell, ed., T-Bird: 40 Years of Thunder (Iola, WI: Krause Publications, 1995), and Standard Catalog of American Cars 1946-1975, rev. 4th ed. (Iola, WI: Krause Publications, 2002); John F. Katz, Soaring Spirit: Thirty-Five Years of the Ford Thunderbird (Kutztown, PA: Automobile Quarterly, Inc., 1989); Richard M. Langworth, The Thunderbird Story: Personal Luxury (Osceola, WI: Motorbooks International, 1980); Aaron Robinson, “2002 Ford Thunderbird Road Test: After hatching a few buzzards, Ford finally sires a swan,” Car and Driver Vol. 47, No. 1 (July 2001), pp. 58-62; “Little Bird Meets Big Bird” from Special Interest Autos #11 (June-July 1972); Tim Howley, “1958 Thunderbird: Flying Off in a New Direction,” Special Interest Autos #151 (January-February 1996); and Arch Brown, “1966 Thunderbird: ‘Big Bird'” Special Interest Autos #106 (July-August 1988), all of which are reprinted in The Hemmings Motor News Book of Postwar Fords: driveReports from Special Interest Autos magazine, ed. Terry Ehrich (Bennington, VT: Hemmings Motor News, 2000), and Josiah Work and Vince Manocchi, “SIA comparisonReport: Two Kinds of Personal Luxury: Riviera and Thunderbird for 1963,” Special Interest Autos #94 (August 1986), pp. 34-41.
Additional information on the Sports Roadster came from the LoveFords.org site (www.lovefords. org, accessed 18 July 2008) and Michael Lamm, “1962 Thunderbird Sports Roadster,” Special Interest Autos #44 (March-April 1978), pp. 12-17, 56-57.
We also consulted the following period road tests: “Technical Study of the All-New T-Birds” and Ken Fermoyle, “Thunderbird Road Test,” Motor Life March 1958; “Road Test: Ford Thunderbird: Stop off here on your way from a U.S. sedan to a sports car,” Road & Track June 1959; “Thunderbird 1961 Analysis,” Motor Life November 1960; John Lawlor, “Special Report — 1961 T-Bird,” Motor Trend December 1960; “Car Life Road Test: Ford Thunderbird,” Car Life July 1961; “New Look for the T-Bird,” Motor Trend December 1961; “Thunderbird Sports Roadster: Chrome wheels and a tonneau cover add a bit of dash to Ford’s prestige car,” Car Life July 1962; and Jim Wright, “MT Road Test: Thunderbird,” Motor Trend September 1962, all of which are reprinted in Thunderbird 1958-1963, ed. R.M. Clarke (Cobham, England: Brooklands Books Ltd., ca. 1990); and “No Thundering Noise in this Lightning Swift Thunderbird,” Auto Sports October 1963; “Thunderbird,” Motor Trend November 1963; “The Thunderbird Grows New Feathers,” Car Life October 1963; Martyn L. Schorr, “0-60 in 6 Sec., 135 mph Top Speed…This Is a T-Bird?” Cars October 1964; Bob McVay, “1964 Thunderbird Road Test,” Motor Trend February 1964; “Thunderbird Convertible: Who wants a Thunderbird? Every last Walter Mitty in the entire United States, that’s who wants a Thunderbird!” Car and Driver, August 1964; “1965 Ford Thunderbird: At Last, Brakes to Match Those Fancy Feathers,” Car Life November 1964; John Ethridge, “Thunderbird: More Fingertip Feathers for the Bird’s Plush Nest!” Motor Trend March 1966; “Ford Thunderbird vs. Cadillac Eldorado,” Car and Driver November 1966; “Thunderbird 4-Door: Ford’s Shapely Prestige-Maker Is also an Industry Pace-Setter,” Car Life February 1967; Brock Yates, “Viewpoint: Thunderbird: The Pursuit of ‘Luxury’ Is a Game Played by Another Generation’s Rules,” Car and Driver February 1972; Rick Busenkell, “’76 Thunderbird Driver Report: They may have gone too far this time,” Complete Ford Book 1976; and Tony Swan, “Farewell to the Big Bird,” Motor Trend February 1976, all of which are reprinted in Thunderbird Performance Portfolio 1964-1976, ed. R.M. Clarke (Cobham, England: Brooklands Books Ltd., ca. 2000).
Umberto Eco’s essay “Casablanca, or, The Clichés are Having a Ball” — which your author enthusiastically recommends — has appeared, inter alia, in On Signs, ed., Marshall Blonsky (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985), pp. 35–38, and Signs of Life in the USA: Readings on Popular Culture for Writers, eds. Sonia Maasik and Jack Solomon (Boston: Bedford Books, 1994), pp. 260–264.
How much do 1962 thunderbird Kelsey Hayes wheels wieght?
That’s a good question. Wire wheels were fairly heavy, particularly ones approved for OEM use on American cars of that era (which were [i]heavy[/i]; a ’62 T-Bird roadster weighed close to 5,000 pounds). My guess would be in the neighborhood of 25 pounds each, maybe a little more.
I am trying to located I think a 1965 t-bird but the dashboard is like a thermometer. Have you ever seen this kind to dash board or what its called
1964 & 1965 T Birds both had this type of speedometer, and are interchangeable. It was actually a long tube like a barber pole with a red stripe that advanced across the MPH gauge which ran off the transmission. It looks like a red thermometer line when operating.
I own a 64 T-Bird
I’ve heard that style of speedometer called a ribbon speedometer. Many cars have had them. The Volvo 544, 122, and 144 come to mind.
This speedometer was also used in Continentals from 1966 through the mid 70s. The way it actually worked is there is a white cylinder with a red line spiraling around it one time. The “ribbon” effect is achieved through the use of a magnifying lens in the speedometer. If you look closely, you can see that the red line in the speedometer is just a tiny bit off the vertical.
The Opel Admiral (Admiral A, 1964–1968) also had a speedometer like that.
Several corrections. The 58-60 Thunderbird was a work of art by Bill Boyer and his design staff.Introduced in 1958 in the mist of the auto industry which had a ression Thunderbird sales were near the 40,000 mark. Not bad for a new car in a ression that was not cheap. Thunderbird performance was not lame. Speeds of 120 were realistic and probably faster with the 430 (350 H.P) in 59. Ford would take the 430 Thunderbird special and run a close 2nd at Daytona 500 in 59. Several Thunderbirds were set up by Helmon and Moody to race at Nascar. Thunderbird handling was better than the average sedan although is was far from a sports car and Ford never advertized it as such. In 1960 where near 100,000 units were sold it became known as the world most wanted car. Things went down hill in 61. Th agressive looks were gone and more weight was added and the 390 just could not move the car. It also lost some of its handling ability. In 64 Ford went back to what was a sucessful formular, classey agressive looks, the 429 as and engine option,and styling gimicks that drove the public wild. The Thunderbird recieved its death blow in 67, and from then on the Thunderbird was never the same. The insult of the retro bird two seater was Ford biggest mistake since the Pinto.For those who wanted class, looks and power the two series of squarebirds fit the bill perfectly. Thunderbird caused GM to build the Rivera and the Toronado. GM knew Ford was onto something and they tried to play catch up.
The 430 cu. in. engine was very rare on Square Birds — most had the 352 — and the Holman-Moody racers were extensively modified for track duty. The “Bullet Bird” had perfectly adequate performance with the 390 and was quicker than the heavier ’64-’66 cars with the same engine. (The 1961-63 ‘Bird was also faster all out, being somewhat more aerodynamic, although that mattered little in the U.S.) Ford tried offering a hotter 340-horsepower engine on 1962-63 Thunderbirds, but buyer interest was negligible; people weren’t buying Thunderbirds for performance. The 1964-65 Flair Bird had the same 390 as the previous car, with the 428 (not the 429) becoming optional in 1966. The 428 wasn’t a performance engine either; it was essentially just a bigger 390. The 429, which was an entirely new engine, arrived in 1968.
The retro ‘Bird was a decent idea undermined by the lack of a really appropriate platform that wasn’t going to cost a mint to develop. They ended up having to share the DEW98 platform, which wasn’t conceived with convertibles in mind, and then had to make a lot of compromises to keep the price within the realm of reason. As automotive misfires go, there are lots of worse examples, although it was certainly a disappointing end to the line.
I completely disagree about the retro Bird being disappointing. I have one, and couldn’t be more pleased. I also have 2 Flairbirds, a style I loved since I was a child. Nothing else looked like a Thunderbird, inside or out, from 1958-1966. Perhaps to some, this is ostentatious and tacky, but I do not agree with that point of view. The author of this article very clearly has a bias against just about all T-Birds, except for the originals.
I am accused on a fairly regular basis of being biased, which as far as I can tell is intended to condemn me for failing to echo someone’s opinion with sufficient fidelity. Sure, I’m biased — as, I submit, are you, and as is anyone who reads articles like these (much less writes them).
As the article explains at length, I don’t dislike the 1958–66 Thunderbirds at all. I find them silly in some respects, but there’s nothing inherently wrong with being silly. Had I gotten more direct exposure to the Flair Bird when I was about 11, it would have been one of my favorite cars ever, so it’s hard not to feel some affection for it for that alone.
For the record, the only Thunderbirds I really dislike are the ones from the ’70s, about which the nicest thing I can say is that I like some of the colors available. I’m not especially fond of the 1980–82 iteration either, although it’s hard to summon any really strong feelings about it. The 1983–86 cars are okay, the 1987–88 a better rendition of the same idea, and the MN12 cars flawed but attractive.
I don’t hate the Retro Bird, but I find it very disappointing, as I said. I’m not a big fan of retro cars in general, just as I’m rarely that happy with modern remakes or rehashes of old movies or TV shows. I see what they were trying to do, I can see the various practical reasons it didn’t quite come off. It could have been worse, certainly, but my net reaction is “Mehh.” I’m not alone in that, although I’m quite aware that there are some people who like them and are satisfied with what they are. That’s fine — if you like your car, there’s no reason you have to stop just because some people disagree.
The main problem with the retro bird was the fact it only had two seats. Most 2-seaters are more sporty, so people wanting a luxury oriented convertible car wanted room in the back for people, pets, and additional storage. We see a perfect example of that in the 1950s, Ford just forgot their own history lesson.
There’s something to that, but I think the fundamental issue was that a lot of people (not least at Ford) liked the *idea* of a modern reinvention of the two-seater, but Ford didn’t really have a suitable platform and trying to make the DEW98 work as an open car (which it wasn’t designed for) forced a lot of other compromises, both mechanically and in terms of content and design. (I also think it just didn’t look right; you see immediately what they were going for, but the proportions and detailing end up feeling awkward. To my eyes, the body-colored bumpers really don’t work aesthetically.) Being a two-seater, it was never going to sell like the old four-seat ‘birds did, but Ford expected that. They just thought it was going to do better than it did.
I own a 1978 model. Non ttop or anniversary but very nice in Lipstick red. Just 46ppp original miles on the clock. A once a month drive
That ’79 was my first experience of driving on the right.
From New Zealand, via Fiji landed in LA in early 79. After 17 hours flying and waiting in Hawaii, as United were on strike so Continental were loaded to the max, I requested a Compact.
Got a choice of an LTD or T’Bird. Took the ‘bird.
The size was undaunting, we had had an Impala back home in Auckland, but the 351 with just 351 miles on the clock(yes!) was gutless. To add to the political lessons I arrived in the middle of the gas crisis, Socal trying to push the price over $1 a gallon, odds and evens for fill up days, cars stranded beside the freeways, you know the story.
After 2 days, not wishing to spend ALL my first American experience in a queue (line), I turned in the T’bird and flew to ‘Frisco. The radio had The Beach Boys first up so I left it at that!
The American dream!
I learned to drive on my Dad’s “Sandshell Beige” 1962 Landau. I kept it after he passed away in 1967 but disposed of the car when the transmission failed and no one knew how to repair it. I went through a lot of cars from the time I went into the Army. A 1968 327 Camaro an Alfa-Romeo 1750 GTV, a Lotus Europa, another Alfa 1972 convertible and a few others including two Monte Carlos. My first T-Bird was a 1995 coupe followed by a 1993 Super Coupe with a five-speed stick. Very fast but nobody could work on it. It blew head gaskets regularly. I then purchased a 1964 triple-black T-Bird convertible in 1997. Purchased from the original owner, it has just been restored. Heavy, slow and gorgeous, especially with the wire wheels. I briefly considered the “Retro Bird” and found them disappointingly ugly and underpowered. I purchased my first Corvette instead. Two seats. No regrets. That Torch-Red Convertible is fast and I love it. BUT….It’s the Black T-Bird that gets all the attention, especially when the top mechanism is in action. I really am a T-Bird lover, but when I’m in a hurry, it’s the Vette.
I just purchased a 1966 Thunderbird. Love it,but it is a little confusing.For instance,why no mirror on right side or where is the emergency flasher ? Help if you can.
Four-way flashers were not required by law on new American cars until the 1968 model year, so earlier cars rarely have them. Similarly, passenger-side rear-view mirrors were uncommon until much later — even driver’s side outside mirrors were typically optional in this era — and so Thunderbirds of this era didn’t have them, unless someone added one aftermarket. Be glad it has turn signals! Those too were optional on most cars not that many years earlier.
Charles ,I have the base model 66 and the flashers are a switch under vent switches toward middle dash mine is a toggle with a bulb next to it.I also do not have a right side mirror would be nice but was a option.I at least have back side windows where Town hard top and Landau did not and have more blind spots.
Dies anyy9one know where I can get trunk drains for a 65 big bird. They are now obsolete at Larry’s and MAC’s with only the coupe available. And that doesn’t fit.
I hate to be a pest, but both the red and the white T-bird convertibles are 1967 models. Tell #1 is the one-year-only steering column chest pad, as Ford still was working out the bugs on their federally-mandated collapsible columns. Tell #2 is ovbious only to a former owner, or a locksmith as I am – the ignition lock shows the doubled-sided keyway for Ford’s new two-way reversible keys, which were touted for being able to accept the key no matter which way was up. This feature was introduced for the 1966 model year, so it can’t be a ’65…and those hideous steering column pads ID these as 1967s.
Otherwise, a great and informative article. Keep them coming!
[Edited with corrections.]
Neither convertible could possibly be a ’67, since the Thunderbird was redesigned completely for MY1967 and no longer offered a convertible at all. (Picking out a ’65 from a ’64 or ’66 takes some attention, but the ’67 is not mistakable.)
I tried to see how the owner of the red car identified it on the show entry card, but unfortunately I don’t have a clear shot of the card that’s high enough resolution to read. That said, the front clip is very clearly a ’65 (the ’66 has a different front bumper and a different grille with the Thunderbird emblem across the grillework rather than on the nose). The rear clip is also a ’65. Obviously, the red car is not entirely authentic in other respects (the tonneau and wire wheels weren’t offered in ’65), and it’s possible some interior pieces are correct for 1965. Admittedly, I am not familiar enough with the keyway to recognize that from these photos, although you’re right about the reversible keys being new for 1966.
The two sided key was a feature on the 1965 Thunderbird. I drive a 65 Thunderbird convertible now and I drove a 65 hardtop in High School. So, it’s a fact I had the same key on what I know was an original car that I purchased 1972 with 27,000 original miles. As far as the cover and the wire wheels you could still by them as a dealer option in 1965. The cover on the bird picture however, is a an aftermarket cover and not a dealer option cover. I just wanted to clarify.
That is definitely a 1965 Thunderbird. Front, rear and side designs are correct. Any Google search and actual historical reference books confirm this. The steering wheel center hub is correct. That is NOT the corporate “flowerpot” center pad all Fords used in 1967 which was thicker at the facing end and narrowed down to the column, and was made of soft pliable vinyl.
The use of the double ended keys could just be a newer style replacement the restorer preferred. Things like that are often replaced because of wear over time and newer parts will sometimes be substituted.
Great article, as we have all come to expect.
A couple of questions……..
How many 1964 T-birds had the tonneau cover option?
How many 1966 T-birds had the 428 cid, (and all the same tune?).
The 1964 tonneau cover and wire wheels were dealer-installed options ($269 for just the tonneau, $415 for the set), so there are no factory figures for how many were equipped. Some leftovers probably ended up on ’65 and ’66 cars.
I checked John Gunnell’s Forty Years of Thunder, my usual go-to for obscure Thunderbird details, and there was no indication of how many ’66s had the 428. The bigger engine was a $64 option, not associated with a specific model series. You’d probably have to contact the Ford Archives to see if they have that information in their records, but it doesn’t appear to be in the published production tallies in any of the sources I have.
The Thunderbird option was the 345 hp “Thunderbird 428” engine that was standard on the Ford Galaxie 500 7 Litre and option on other full-size Fords. It was not a performance engine, just a bored-and-stroked 390. One dealer did build a ’64 Thunderbird with a 427, “export” suspension, and flashy custom paint job, but that was by no means a factory option; people who cared about performance turned up their noses at the T-Bird and T-Bird fanciers weren’t that interested in performance.
Is there any truth to claims the coil on the upper control arm in the front suspension of 59-71 Ford compacts and intermediates (along with their Mercury variants) were related to unrealised plans for putting driveshafts to the front wheels?
Otherwise why would they be there when they would have simply stuck with their coil on the lower arm as on the ’50s-90s full size, and avoid those huge springtowers in the engine bay?
No, that is not true. Ford DID seriously consider FWD for the 1961 “Bullet Bird,” along with MacPherson strut front suspension, although both ideas were dropped for cost reasons. However, there was never any serious consideration of giving the Falcon/Comet or Fairlane/Meteor lines (especially the former) front-wheel drive.
The rationale for the high-mounted coils was the same as it had been for Nash, which developed that approach for what became the 1950 Rambler (although it was also applied to full-size Nashes): ride quality. American engineers were terribly concerned that compact cars would not provide the “boulevard ride” domestic buyers had come to expect. Nash’s solution was to adopt an extra-long, extra-soft coil spring. (With coil springs, the stiffness is inversely proportional to the length of the coil.) Since this was too long to fit between the lower arm and a subframe rail in the conventional fashion, they instead put the spring on the upper arm, acting against the fender apron. This provided a softer ride, although it sets the roll center on a journey to the center of the Earth, which makes for tipsy handling. (The degree of the latter is evidenced by the front suspension modifications made to the original Shelby GT-350, which actually altered the control arm mounting points to unearth the front roll center and added an anti-roll bar as thick as a barrel.)
Thanks for clearing things up, guess using the Ford Straight-6 would have been likely one barrier if Ford in the US ever did go down such a route.
Somewhat OT though did Ford US ever have an equivalent of GM’s TASC and VOH programmes? Admittingly not sure how Ford could have pull it off though find it surprising such an idea was only considered by GM.
Well, Ford began the unification of its European lines not long after the VOH program, the first practical hints of it being the Mk1 Transit, the Mk1 Escort, and the Capri. It was not an overnight process, obviously, but they were thinking along similar lines for comparable reasons. Australia and the the U.S. remained outliers because their market tastes were more divergent to easily integrate. (One could argue that, for instance, the U.S. version of the Mk3 Escort should have been more like the European one, but comparing the U.S. and European cars is illustrative in this regard.)
Ford in this period had two quite different straight sixes. The older was the 1952-vintage engine used in the full-size cars, which had been very modern a decade earlier. The Falcon/Comet/Fairlane six, in its original form, was brand new, compact, and quite light; 345 lb for a 2.4-liter cast iron six was a meritorious figure, although the later seven-bearing versions were more durable. The 2.4/2.7-liter six was purpose-designed for the Falcon rather than an obstacle to its development.
We may speculate, of course, that had Ford gone ahead with the U.S.-market Cardinal/Taunus P4 and if that had been reasonably successful, it might have spawned follow-on FWD derivatives in the manner of the later Tempo/Topaz line. (I don’t know if you’re familiar with the Tempo, but it was a stretched version of the U.S. Mk3 Escort platform — not rebadged Ford Orion — for American consumption.) That may be a reach, however, considering the intense resistance to FWD that still prevailed when the Mk1 Fiesta was developed a decade later.
The position of the coil spring in a double wishbone suspension has nothing whatsoever to do with the position of the roll centre. The roll centre position is determined by the geometry of the wishbones. You can use coils mounted on the top or bottom wishbone, torsion bars (mounted on either top or bottom wishbone) or you could activate the springs by push rods or by pull rods, but you will not alter the position of the roll centre by a single millimetre unless you change the geometry of the wishbones themselves. That is, you need to alter the position where the wishbones attach to the vehicle and/or the position where the wishbones attach to the front hubs/carrier assembly. Same deal goes for adding an anti-roll bar. The presence or absence of one makes no difference to the position of the roll centre.
Intrinsically, no, but the way the high-mounted coil layout was implemented — initially by Nash, then by Ford — was intended to maximize wheel travel, allow the use of a longer coil spring, and position the spring along or nearly along the kingpin axis (points Nils Wahlberg’s US2635895 patent spelled out in 1950), which resulted in geometry that lowered the roll center while providing a very soft ride.
I was mostly interested in what year the curved rear seat was offered and what the divider in the center of the back looked like. I think I have it now.