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TRANSCRIPT
December 2020
Thunderbird Owners of New York
Thunderbird Owners of New York
Web-page
http://clubs.hemmings.com/tony/index.html
Member Classic Thunderbird Club International – Chap. 49
OFFICERS:
President
Stan Matusewicz – 631-231-3156
Vice President
Dennis Benfante– 631-447-3847
Secretary
John Cattonar - 631-269-4705
Treasurer
Pete Cochrane - 631-363-6662
CTCI Advisory Council Rep.
Bob Ceraso - 631-757-9476
Tech Advisor: 1955’s
Bob Ceraso - 631-757-9476
Tech Advisor: 1956’s
Stan Matusewicz -631-231-3156
Tech Advisor: 1957’s
Lou Realmuto - 631-226-1733
Computer Advisor & Newsletter Editor Sal Perrotta - 631-991-0306
Next Club Meeting
Thunderbird Owners of
New York
At this time there is no meeting scheduled pending a final decision from Stan.
I will notify you by e mail if a meeting is scheduled
the location
Newsletter Message from
Sal Perrotta
December 2020
This month we celebrate Hanukkah which starts December 10th, Christmas on December 25th and Kwanzaa on December 26th
Hanukkah, Hebrew for “dedication,” is the Festival of Lights commemorates the victory of the Maccabees over the Syrian Greek army, and the subsequent miracle of rededicating the Holy Temple in Jerusalem. Restoring its menorah or lamp is the miracle of Hanukkah as only one vial of oil was found with just enough oil to illuminate the Temple lamp for one day, and yet it lasted for eight full days.
Christmas is a celebration of Christ's birth. In the Western world, many people celebrate Christmas, some of them for religious reasons and others in a more secular way.
Kwanzaa is a Swahili word that means "first" and signifies the first fruits of the harvest, from December 26 to January 11th. In Africa, there are many customs that are common among the various ethnic groups found on the continent. One of these is the celebration of the harvest. At this time of the year, people of the community come together to celebrate and give thanks for their good fortune.
We all celebrate the holiday in different ways. The traditions we embrace as part of our family celebration and the customs we pass down to our children and grandchildren are memories they will embrace and enjoy for their lifetime.
It is my wish that however you choose to celebrate the holidays please know that I wish you all a joyous holiday and a safe and hopeful 2021.
As we close out 2020, I am sure we can all agree that this was not a great year for our club and gatherings with friends and family. This week the new reports were encouraging that a vaccine to combat the virus that has so disturbed our lives has tested well and the results are hopeful.
Please remember your club dues for 2021. Please submit payment to our club Treasurer, Pete Cochrane as soon as possible. The goal is to have all dues paid by December 31st.
November 2020 Newsletter Correction:
I included a write-up in the November Newsletter that highlighted “Improving Windshield Wiper Function”.
I was unaware of the name of the original writer of the article. I have learned that it was Mr. Walt Knuckles. I want to be sure to acknowledge Mr. Knuckles at this time.
I was told that Walt was a great Tech writer and a wonderful man from the Big D Little Birds club. He was also a very generous person when it came to helping many owners of Thunderbirds. This was unintentional and I regret the error.
SECRETARIES REPORT
Meeting Recap November 2020
JOHN CATTONAR, Thunderbird Owners of New York Secretary
CATTONAR'S CORNER
WORKING UNDER THE DASH
After years of working on our Thunderbirds, I thought I'd throw out a few tips when you need to do anything under the dash.
The first thing you want to do is disconnect the battery. Unless you have brand new wiring, the old wiring does not like being moved around too much.
Second thing is to fold the top down on the back deck. Next thing is to remove the seat. It's only 4 nuts that attach the seat frame rails to the floor of the car. It only takes a few minutes and will save your back. If you can, have someone help with this so you don't mess up the seat. This is a good time to grease the seat tracks and do any repairs/cleaning of the seat.
Now whatever you're working on, you can see more easily by lying with your head under the dash and your feet up on the back deck. Also, keep in mind that the Thunderbird does not have a fuse block like most cars. So, if you have some kind of electrical problem try to find the inline fuse first and check to insure it is good.
If you need tools for what you're working on, make sure you lay out every tool you might need (Climbing in and out of the car because you forgot a tool can really get to be a painful).
Additionally, light is critically important so I recommend a small battery powered light source with a magnet. Based on my experience using a drop light is difficult it always seems to get in the way.
If you do not have a concourse quality car and you have no plans to enter a show then I suggest that if you check out a wire and determine there is a problem somewhere in the factory bundling do the following:
Run a new wire rather than ripping apart the taped bundle. As an example, I ran a new power wire for the passenger's side door courtesy light button rather than cut into the factory taped bundle of wires. I located the power source, soldered the connection and used electrician tape to insulant it.
After I was finished, I marked a small piece of tape with what the wire was and wrapped it around the new wire. I also recommend using a few plastic ties to hold some wires together. This keeps them from moving around when you hit a pothole or bumpy road.
Hope this will be helpful and happy T-Birding! John Cattonar T.O.N.Y. Club Secretary
News from the Club
From: Sal Perrotta: Some Vintage Club Photos
From: Arlene Swenson
Thunderbird Owners of New York
DUES are DUE – All membership dues for 2021 are due by December 31, 2020
Please your check, payable to T.O.N.Y. to:Peter Cochrane
41 Arthur Avenue
Blue Point, NY 11715
2021 Dues Please circle type of Membership:
Individual - $20. Family - $25. Business Advertiser - $36.
Name: ________________________________________________________________
Address: ______________________________________________________________
* Board members: FREE – spouse of Board Member: $5.00
From: Sal Perrotta * Reprinted from, Road Tests & Classic Cars:
The 1955-57 two-seat Ford Thunderbird is among the most recognized iconic American cars. It's been put in television shows, movies and print advertisements, not to mention being pictured on a U.S. postage stamp.
The mass media often has mistakenly called any sporty looking car, such as the Ford Mustang, a "sports car." It's given the 1955-57 Thunderbird the same description, although Ford stressed from the get-go that its new baby was a "personal car."
Ford knew that the sports cars market was very limited and that calling the Thunderbird a "personal car" would give it much broader appeal.
The 1955-57 "T-Bird" was America's second mass-produced sports car from a large domestic automaker, right behind the Chevrolet Corvette. Smaller U.S. car producers, such as Nash and Kaiser, built a limited number of sports cars in the early 1950s to enhance their image. They saw that British sports cars, such as the MG and Jaguar, drew lots of attention and sold relatively well here. But few of those U.S, sports cars were sold, largely because their producers lacked resources to compete with big automakers..
The story goes that the Thunderbird two-seater was built because Ford division general manager Lewis Crusoe was admiring European autos at the 1951 Paris auto show with Ford designer George Walker.
"Why can't we have something like that? " Crusoe asked Walker after examining a sporty European two-seater.
"Oh, but we do," the quick-witted Walked fibbed--and then telephoned Ford headquarters in Michigan and told it to get to work fast on a two-seater so Crusoe would have something to see after returning from Europe.
That story isn't entirely true. Ford had been working on a two-seater, but wasn't serious about it because sports cars accounted for a tiny percentage of the U.S. market.
The Chevy Corvette from General Motors was the only sports car from a big domestic automaker in the early 1950s. It arrived late in 1953 and GM didn't hesitate to call it a sports car, although the first-generation (1953-55) 'Vette was all wrong for most sports car buyers in America.
GM knew nothing about building sports cars. The Corvette was racy looking but had clumsy side curtains--accepted on British sports cars--instead of roll-up windows expected on a GM sports car. It also lacked outside door handles and had a then-odd creaky fiberglass body and ill-fitting soft top.
The Corvette had few comfort or convenience features for comfort-minded Americans, and wasn't inexpensive. And it had a lazy, power-soaking two-speed automatic transmission, when foreign sports cars usually had manual transmissions.
GM tried to make the Corvette both American and foreign--and failed on both counts. It had a hard time even giving away the first Corvettes for promotional reasons to VIPs and celebrities, many of whom disliked the car. Actually, the new Corvette wasn't all that bad despite its drawbacks, being fairly nimble and reasonably fast for its era.
But, in contrast, the 1955 Thunderbird had a tight steel body with smooth, clean, youthful lines and rakish long-hood/short-deck proportions. It had the same 102-inch-wheelbase as the Corvette and sexy Jaguar XK-140 but echoed the styling theme of full-size 1955 Fords.
The new T-Bird used a good number of regular Ford parts to hold costs down. They included headlights, taillights and instruments. The parts sharing also let Ford successfully use the 2,980-pound Thunderbird to rub off some of its sporty, glamorous image on the restyled regular Fords.
The new Thunderbird was better for 99 percent of the U.S. market than the Corvette. It could be had with options including power steering, brakes, windows and a power front bench seat designed to look like two bucket seats. (Only two adults actually fit, so the 1955-57 T-Bird always has been described as a two-seater.).
The new Thunderbird came with a standard removable hard top or optional, snug power soft top--or both. It even was offered with a push-button radio.
By 1957, you could get a T-Bird with automatic windshield washers, a Dial-O-Matic power seat with fore-aft, up-down memory and a radio with volume that rose as engine speed increased.
Powering the 1955 T-Bird was a V-8 from Ford Motor's Mercury division. The 292-cubic-inch engine generated 193 horsepower with a three-speed manual transmission and 198 with the Ford-O-Matic three-speed automatic transmission. Now this was an engine Americans could appreciate.
Most didn't know or care that the T-Bird V-8 wasn't as good as the sensational new 1955 Chevy V-8, but it was potent enough to give the T-Bird good performance. And it handled better than the average car. A privately entered model beat rival foreign cars in the production sports car class at the Daytona Speed Weeks in 1955, hitting 124.6 mph.
But speed wasn't what the new T-Bird was all about. Rather, it was essentially a stylish, luxurious, upper-middle-class cruiser--a car perfect to give your girlfriend, wife or mistress for in-town showing off.
By today's standards, the 1950s Thunderbird two-seater had an offbeat driving position, with occupants sitting low and a big steering wheel set close to a driver's chest. There also was a bad blind spot with the hardtop in place, which is why: “porthole" circular rear side windows were put in that top in 1956 and 1957.
The 1956 model had a "continental" spare tire put outside in a rear metal case because it occupied too much trunk space. The spare not only greatly improved trunk room, it also shifted weight slightly to the rear and slightly improved the car's good balance.
The Corvette made do with an old, slightly modified Chevy six-cylinder until 1955, when Chevy's new V-8 arrived. But the 1955 "Vette" looked the same as the 1953 model and was almost dead until GM began making it a genuine sports car with more performance and comfort features in 1956, when its sales finally began to take off.
GM hated the rival Thunderbird because that Ford model was an instant success. Ford intended the T-Bird to mainly be an "image car," with annual sales of only 10,000 units. The automaker was surprised when 16,155 T-Birds were snapped up. That compared with merely 674 Corvettes produced in 1955.
The 1955 Thunderbird had base price of $2,944, or virtually the same price as that year's Corvette. The T-Bird cost more than Ford's $2,224 Fairlane Sunliner convertible. And even the Thunderbird's optional convertible top added $290.
Ford didn't want to mess much with success, so the 1956 Thunderbird had the same styling as its predecessor. However, its ventilation was improved and the ride was made more comfortable. The horsepower race was on, so power of the base engine was raised to 202 with the manual transmission and a larger 312-cubic-inch V-8 was added. It produced 215 horsepower with the manual gearbox and 225 with the automatic transmission.
Thunderbird sales dipped a bit in 1956 to 15,631 cars, but sales soared to 21,380 units in 1957., when model year production ran through the end of the calendar year. It still far outsold the Corvette. The 1957 T-Bird's price had climbed to $3,408, but it remained an attractive buy.
The 1957 Thunderbird was arguably the best 1950s T-Bird two-seater, although it lacked the clean lines of the first two models. It had a new combination front bumper/grille and longer rear end, which again enclosed the spare tire. Rear fenders had modest canted fins, as did regular 1957 Fords because Ford wanted to maintain the potent Thunderbird sales influence on regular models.
A new instrument panel from full-sized Fords had gauges nestled under a cowl, and arriving were options such as the Dial-O-Matic power seat, which automatically went to a pre-set position when the car was started.
A manual-transmission T-Bird still had the 292-cubic-inch V-8, but its horsepower jumped to 212. Also offered was a 312-cubic-inch V-8 with 245, 270 or 285 horsepower. And there were 208 supercharged "F" Thunderbirds with the "312" V-8 that produced 300 to 340 horsepower, mainly for racing. A 1957 T-Bird hit 146.3 mph during the Daytona Speed Weeks.
The Thunderbird was successfully turned into a four-seater for 1958 to improve sales and profits. But the two-seater had proved in the end that it could be a true high-performance car, if not a sports car.
Ford sold a modern retro-style Thunderbird two-seater from 2002 through 2005 that resembled the 1955-57 model. While decent, it was just moderately successful.
It's often impossible to match an original.
From: Sal Perrotta
Newsletter Car QUIZ
· Bottom of Form
Strange Driving Laws
1. In Sarasota, FL what is the fine amount for hitting a pedestrian?
A. $78
B. $10
C. $1 million
2. In Bloomfield, Connecticut it is illegal to --- in your car.
A. Take pictures
B. Eat
C. Sleep
3. True of False. In the Los Angeles, California courts it is illegal to cry on the witness stand.
A. True
B. False
4. In Marietta, GA which of the following is not illegal to spit from?
A. Bus
B. Car
C. Truck
5. In which city of Illinois can you not drive a car through town?
A. Crete
B. Park Ridge
C. Evanstown
6. In which state has the "Ice Cream Man" been banned from?
A. Utah
B. Florida
C. Iowa
7. In which state is it illegal to run out of gas?
A. New Hampshire
B. Ohio
C. Rhode Island
8. True of False. You will get ticketed in Oregon if you leave your door open longer than is necessary.
A. True
B. False
9. True of False. It is illegal to drive in Rhode Island with beer (opened or unopened) in your vehicle.
A. True
B. False
10. In which South Carolina town is it illegal to store trash in your car?
A. Gaston
B. Hilton Head
C. Springdale
Quiz Answers
Question Number
Answer
1
A
2
B
3
A
4
C
5
A
6
C
7
B
8
A
9
A
10
B
From: Sal Perrotta * Reprinted from Newsday (Tom Grippa’s Retro Thunderbird):
From: CTCI: ARE YOU A MEMBER "NOW WOULD BE A GREAT TIME TO
Classic Thunderbird Club International
Toll Free 800.488.2709 • PO Box 7393, North Kansas City, MO 64116 USA • Email: [email protected]
Web site: www.ctci.org
MEMBERSHIP APPLICATION PLEASE TYPE OR PRINT:
Name____________________________________________________Spouse’s Name______________________________________
Mailing Address_______________________________________________________________________________________
City_______________________________________________ State/Province______________ Zip/Mail Code___________________
Telephone (______) _____________________________ Email Address__________________________________________________
CTCI Chapter Affiliation (if any) _________________________________________________________________
• New members please fill out application and send payment (in U.S. funds ONLY*) to the address below.
• Make checks payable to CTCI, or pay by credit card by email, fax or phone.
• Mail to: CLASSIC THUNDERBIRD CLUB INT., PO Box 7393, North Kansas City, MO 64116
Please select one of the following prorated amounts:
· Month Joining One Time Initiation Fee + Dues = Total
· January thru March $15.00 + $37.50 = $52.50
· April thru June $15.00 + $29.00 = $44.00
· July thru September $15.00 + $19.00 = $34.00
· October thru December $15.00 + $10.00 = $25.00
· NOTE: Add $18.00 to select Premium Packet with CTCI Grill Emblem.
Annual dues renewal will be $37.50, payable January 1 of each year.
Signature _______________________________Date ______ Check here if you wish to be listed in the CTCI roster, as of April 1st.
I give permission for my phone number and/or email address to be listed in the CTCI roster.
(NOTE: Phone numbers & email are for office use only, or for the roster if you choose to have it published. Roster addresses may be sold only to T-Bird vendors to be used only for catalog purposes.
Are you a former member of CTCI? Yes No If Yes, what is your former CTCI membership number? ________________
Sponsored or Referred by _______________________________________________ CTCI # (if known) ________________
From: Joe Marchione
The History of the Car Cup Holder
It wasn't too long ago that car cup holders were hard to come by. Here's how they became such an important automotive feature. Written By: ANDREW SHELDON • OCTOBER 28, 2020
The beauty of automotive design is that it has evolved in lockstep with societal changes. License plates were needed to keep track of all the cars that filled the road in the early 1900s. Bumper stickers were the product of wartime technologies. The humble car cup holder is no different. If you follow its lifespan, you get a glimpse into how changes in the way we live gave rise to this new feature. It’s less about a circular indentation in your console and more about societal shifts.
Overreaching? Maybe. But some have even gone as far as suggesting that the inclusion of cup holders in cars make us feel safe by allowing us to drive next to warm liquid, which reminds us of mother’s milk.
Whatever the reason, this feature is clearly important to us.
In 2007, Price, Waterhouse Coopers reported that the number of cup holders was more important to new car buyers than fuel economy.
So, how did the ubiquitous car cup holder come about? Let’s dig in.
The Early Days of Cars and Beverages
Although automobiles were much different in the early 20th century than they are today, food was clearly still on the minds of passengers back then. Some early cars came with picnic baskets and kitchenette sets in the trunk or attached to the sideboards. In “The Great Gatsby,” F. Scott Fitzgerald describes Gatsby’s Rolls Royce as having “supper-boxes.”
But the idea of eating or drinking while the car was in motion was still far away. Cars didn’t run very smoothly and most roads were anything but pristine. Traveling by automobile was not conducive to eating a meal or sipping on a drink.
The Origin of Car Cup Holders
The history of the car cup holder can be traced back to the 1950s and ’60s when it became popular to eat in your car as drive-in restaurants were having their heyday. But in this case, customers were stationary when eating and drinking. Any beverage could be placed on the dashboard or floor, or secured between the knees.
However, it wasn’t completely uncommon to see rudimentary cup holders incorporated into snack trays. A newspaper image from 1950 shows a snack tray hanging from the dashboard with two holes cut out to put beverages.
In 1953, the Automobile Seat Article Holder received a patent. This device consisted of a metal plate wedged between two seat cushions. Three years later, a slightly enhanced version emerged in the Refreshment Tray for Automobile Instrument Panel, which had wells better able to hold beverages upright.
Glove Compartment Cup Holders
Starting in the late 1950s, car designers began incorporating cup holders into the backside of glove compartment doors. For one reason or another, these were usually a miss. In 1957, Cadillac devised a magnetic glove compartment for its Eldorado Brougham. But it was designed to be used with the four metal tumblers that came with the vehicle, not just any beverage you had on hand.
As we moved into the 1960s, manufacturers continued to look to the glove compartment in an attempt to accommodate beverages. These early iterations, however, were usually a pair of very shallow circular indentations that would never be able to keep a beverage standing upright if the vehicle was in motion.
From: Pat Scomello (A reprint from Hemmings News)
Over and over again, Ford's design team kept trying to add a particular concept car feature to the Thunderbird. By Daniel Strohl on Oct 19th, 2020
They say that the definition of madness is doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different results. If that's the case, then perhaps a handful of Ford designers in the late Fifties and early Sixties should have been sent to the asylum for repeatedly trying to get butterfly flaps onto the Ford Thunderbird's roof.
The idea was simple enough: Cars were getting progressively lower while drivers were not. The stooping and ducking to get into newer cars could be mitigated or avoided altogether by cutting out a section of the roof and filling it with a flap that would raise and lower as the door opened and closed. Rooflines could be further lowered, egress for rear passengers would improve, and nobody would have to worry about knocking off their hat or messing their hair getting in or out of a car again.
According to Thunderbird designer William Boyer's "Thunderbird: An Odyssey in Automotive Design," the idea cropped up at least three times in conjunction with Ford's personal car. First, in 1957 or so, as a proposal for the 1958 model year Square Bird; in Boyer's photos above, Lowell Simpson demonstrates what Boyer called the "flipper roof." Given the lack of any sort of mechanism other than a hinge, we're going to presume Simpson was demonstrating a manually operated version. According to Boyer, it was "never implemented due to mechanical complexity and sealing problems."
Then, in 1963, Boyer and his crew tried again with a converted 1962 Thunderbird. This one appeared a little more complete with struts to keep the panel up, a little upholstery on the underside of the panel, perhaps even a complete mechanism to automatically raise and lower the flap. It, too, went nowhere.
Photo via Chicago Auto Show
One would think they'd give up at this point, but they tried one more time with a Flair Bird. Specifically, the flaps went on the Golden Palomino show car, which used a vinyl covering over the rear portion of the roof and what appeared to be stainless steel for the flap portion of the roof. But, as Boyer wrote, even after the third try the idea wasn't going to fly. "Sealing problems and cost, plus warranty worries, always shot down our proposals."
At least one account out there claims Boyer had even pitched the idea one other time, in a sketch during the development of the first-generation Thunderbird. Curiously, Boyer doesn't mention anything of the sort in his book, but he does note that the roof flap idea did come up during the Baby Bird's development, pitched by none other than Gordon Buehrig. "(Buehrig) had built a T-roof on a '55 T-Bird somewhat earlier and shown it to Ford management," Boyer wrote. "It was an idea, however, whose time had not yet arrived."
Recall, of course, that Buehrig, after World War II, pioneered the T-top in his 1948 TASCA prototype. Though that car never got off the ground, his work on it led to his employment with Ford a year later. According to the Farrells, Buehrig started at Ford as a manager in the Ford body development studio and held various body engineer and product planner positions for the Continental and Ford divisions. Though the roof flaps and Buehrig's T-tops weren't exactly the same idea, it's conceivable Buehrig worked with Boyer and his designers on the former idea.
Gil Spear's concept sketch for the D-524 roof
On the other hand, credit for the roof flaps idea might also go to Gil Spear. In early 1954, Spear's Special Projects Studio started work on the D-524 concept car. Though it was eventually built with a solid roof, Spear initially intended it to have not just a pair of roof flaps but four of them, one for each door. According to the Farrells:
As originally designed, the roof of the D-524 was shaped like a "T" with the top of the "T" folding downward to form the C-pillars. The roof was hollow and acted as a conduit for cold air coming from the air-conditioning evaporator located in the trunk. Cold air from the evaporator flowed up and through the hollow C-pillars and into the hollow roof section exiting through perforations in the headliner... Over the doors, and extending into the roof by about 18 inches, spear designed Plexiglas panels that were hinged toward the middle of the car's roof. For ease of entry or exit, each panel was automatically raised or lowered by an electric motor when a door underneath it was opened or closed.
It doesn't look like that feature actually made it into the driveable D-524 prototype that Ford built, but it did transfer over - essentially just as Spear intended it, just minus two doors and two flaps - to the XM-Turnpike Cruiser concept car, which was coming together at about the same time as the D-524. These days, Tom Maruska has the unenviable task of not only fitting the butterfly panels to the roof of the XM-Turnpike Cruiser, but also getting those panels to work as intended.
Mercury XM-Turnpike Cruiser.
T-tops, of course, did enjoy a period in vogue in the Seventies and Eighties, though it appears no car manufacturer put the butterfly panel idea into production, unless one counts the Subaru Brat's side-opening sunroof panels.
It also appears Boyer finally let the idea die for the Thunderbird by the mid-Sixties. Perhaps after his superiors at Ford threatened to send the men with the long-sleeved jacket after him if he proposed it one more time.
From: Sal Perrotta Reprinted from Dyler.com (https://dyler.com)
Ford Thunderbird – the Original Personal Car
Ford introduced the Thunderbird roadster as a direct competitor to Chevrolet Corvette. While the 1955-1957 Thunderbird resembles Chevrolet’s sports car in many ways, it offered higher level of comfort to its passengers. This overlap of sportiness and creature comforts meant that Ford has discovered a new niche, which they named the “personal car”.
There are two versions of the Thunderbird’s origin story and you are welcome to make your own judgement. Ford states that the idea was conceived in 1951 when their executives Lewis D. Crusoe and George Walker were visiting Paris and admiring European sports cars, and Crusoe suggested that Ford should make something like that. Walker, responsible for the development of new models, said that there was something very similar in the works. Actually, there was no sports model developed at that moment, but Walker shared the idea with the headquarters in Dearborn, US and by the time Walker and Crusoe returned, the car was already being developed.
Another version of this story is not as romantic, it suggests that the development of Thunderbird began in early 1953, immediately after the Corvette prototype was presented. Ford developed the car so rapidly, that in February of 1954 it was officially presented to the public in the Detroit Auto Salon. The secret to such swift development was using off-the-shelf components of models from Ford and its subsidiaries. The frame itself was a shortened version of the components used in other Fords of the era, it was adapted to match the exact length of the wheelbase of the Corvette, 2.59 m. Although Ford claimed the size of the car was determined by looking at European counterparts, namely Jaguar XK 140. When the car reached production in 1955, Thunderbird’s 4.8-litre V8 was sourced from Ford’s Mercury marque, putting out reasonable 198 hp. Thunderbird shared multiple exteriors and interior components, including headlights and taillights with other Fords at the time.
Even though Ford and Chevrolet are essentially Coca-Cola and Pepsi of automotive world, their sporty products differed quite significantly. Firstly, Corvette utilized a lightweight fiberglass body, which lacked the refinement that Ford’s fully-steel counterpart was offering. Roofless Corvette did not match the structural rigidity that Thunderbird had, thus there were far fewer squeaks when driving the latter. In addition to that, the first-generation Corvette was offered with inline 6 engines, while the Thunderbird only came with V8. Thunderbird was also less focused on going fast through the twists on a track, so it was not exactly a sports car. Instead, Ford discovered it would best suit a niche of its own, which they dubbed a “personal car” class.
Ford Thunderbird
1956 model year Thunderbird featured several changes, among which, a new higher performance engine was offered. Ford Y-block 5.1-liter V8 had 4 Holley carburetor’s and produced 225 hp. The standard engine was still on offer, with its power bumped up to 202 hp. Thunderbirds design was revised as well, most notably the car had a relocated ‘Continental Style’ spare wheel, which was mounted in the back of the trunk. Other minor tweaks included bumper-exiting exhausts and optional round rear side windows to aid the visibility. 1956 was also the year when Thunderbird was converted to modern 12-volt system.
For the last year of the T-bird, 1957, some more changes were in line. The front grille got bigger to aid cooling and the trunk has been elongated with more prominent jet-inspired tailfins. The spare wheel was moved back into the trunk, making the lines cleaner and trunk access easier. Normally, this being an American sports car, the revised model was even more powerful, with improved engines across the range. A new top of the line supercharged version of the 5.1-litre V8 was added, capable of 300 bhp. All Thunderbirds of this iteration had soft padded dashboards, which were considered a safety feature back then, but are a laughable innovation today.
Ford’s first attempt at a “personal car” was replaced by a new four-seater in 1958. Just over 53 000 of first-gen Thunderbirds were produced over the three years. The nameplate was used for eleven generations of the car in total, although it was less sport-oriented in later versions. The eleventh generation of T-bird came out in 2002 and was clearly a homage to the first cars, featuring retro styling and mechanics derived from Lincoln LS.
First generation Thunderbirds in good condition are sold for 30,000 € and upwards. Unsurprisingly, they are easier to find in the US, but plenty is available in Europe as well. The upkeep of these roadsters should not cause too much of a headache, as the components are shared with other Fords, Lincolns and Mercuries of the era, making the parts easier to come by.
Fran Paci
12/1
Mary Benfante
12/1
Jeffrey Heilig
12/4
Robert McMinn
12/7
Al Continelli
12/10
Dennis Blinder
12/11
Joe Marchione
12/19
Miguel (Mike) Borrero
12/20
Lucille Marchione
12/21
Andrew Signoriello
12/22
31