The T-Birds in the late 50s and early 60s were probably the most beautiful cars ever made. It basically said to the buyer beauty and luxury a sense of class.
Class A - assemblies - doors, hood, deck lid, roof fenders and quarter panels for 55 - 62 T-Bird and later Towncar and Mark and Continentail were supplied by the Budd Co. I visited Wixom in 1983 for a Budd Co. rep. was stationed there. State of the art clean plant - hard workers.
I was nine years old when these cars were new. It may always be my favorite. I never clearly saw an interior. Much better than I imagined I totally love it.
One of my neighbors, I was in my teens at the time, brought home a Thunderbird Convertable. In the "Beat This" one-upmanship act, his neighbor bought himself a Thunderbird. This car had a removable rear seat cover. The cover had what looked like built-in headrests. The most beautiful car I've ever seen.
You comment on what appears to be missing trim at the bottom of the windshield and the backlight, I love the way it looks with a clean belt line front and back, as if the hardtop is somehow floating above the body. A beautiful design feature of this third generation 'bird. Thank you for these walk arounds, living in Central Oregon I don't get too many car shows of this caliber very often. Thank you for bringing it into my living room.
Yes, it makes the rear shelf look like a continuation of the rear deck, and the jet tube shape of it at the sides is seen in the shape of the bottom edge of the rear window.
Perhaps the accountants and penny pinchers did have a say in the missing mouldings Ont the front, rear windshield and door handles but I think the designers had a big input into this as a more streamlined rocket look streamlining. Very nice designed year for the T-Bird.
I’d love to be a fly on the wall while you guys wander car shows, discussing commonly overlooked design intricacies. I learn so much just by watching these videos.
My favorite year of T-bird. I think the lack of lower window moldings was to give it the look that the roof is sprouting organically from the body and they didn't want to disturb the line from the hood through the body out to the deck. On some cars it might look like it was a cheap thing but on these I think it looks fine.
My Grandpa bought one of these and Ford provided a well-built very detailed plastic model of the car that you bought to put on the mantle. I had some basic understanding that the little model was important, but at 6 years old still didn't take good care of it. I'll bet it's worth some good money today all by itself!
2:55 I'll venture a guess that that wasn't any cheaper to make, with the molding having to bear the force of the door being grabbed, but it does look great.
It's not the same cowl. The Thunderbird is three inches narrower than the Lincoln and an inch lower. And the Thunderbird has a taller greenhouse so the Lincoln cowl is even higher. The windshields do not match, and neither do the wipers. The Thunderbird has traditional clap-hands wipers, and the Lincoln has parallel wipers (but for some reason, backwards for the left side driver position). And the through the cowl heating systems are completely different. The Lincoln has a heater core and fan on each side behind the front wheel well, and the Thunderbird has one core and fan under the dash like most cars.
i’ve read that same ‘myth’ somewhere that they are the same parts. thanks MJ for spelling out those points. i’m going to take a closer look next time i park my bullet bird next to a ‘61 Continental 😊
I once owned a '62 Convertible it was white w/ red interior & black top, very low mileage. I bought it around 1989 for $3500 and sold it 3 years later for $7000, not a bad investment! I loved that Thunderbird to death!
Hope you do a video on the 1960 Thunderbird. My favorite. Grandma had one and I have home video of her pulling into drive. I have the taillights in my bathroom rigged so they illuminate. They are heavy! Great videos!
The 1962 Thunderbird was my first car. I bought it in 1971 or 1972. It rode like a boat on the highway, just floating along. A very heavy car (4k+pounds as I remember) with a 390 V8 and a four barrel carburetor. It wasn't in the best of condition mechanically but I loved the car and it's design. Unfortunately I only had it for a couple of years.
@@jerryparks6123 that must have been fun to drive. I went the other way. Living in NYC, the car after the T bird was a VW Beetle, but it had a manual transmission!
When I first started taking better quality pictures (I'd hesitate to call them photographs even now) I loved the 61-62 'bird. So many interesting shots.
I love these cars, as they have so many unique design elements. FYI, I think that the first FoMoCo car to have the lower window molding "deleted" as a design feature was the '57 Mercury -- sedans and hardtops.
That was great !I learned a few things that I had not noticed on this body style before, such as the exterior door handles, and the lack of moldings along the base of the windshield and rear windows. A very cool car 👍
Ugh I LOVE thunderbirds! The 57 was one of my first automotive loves, but over the years I've come to love all generations. I'd really love to see Mark's 67, maybe as a comparison with your Mark III? The electric shaver grill birds are freakin awesome and it isn't easy finding good videos on them.
There is a Volkswagen Corrado SLC in the background! I had one of these, the car was a hooligan with the VR6 engine. That engine seemed to "encourage" you to drive faster than you should. The Lancia Delta HF Integrale next to it is almost as cool. When I grew up on Grosse Ile, one of the teachers at Parke Lane Elementary school had one of these Thunderbirds. Mrs. Fox kind of looked like the car too... Great video!
In 1999 I was working at an AutoNation USA Used Car Superstore. I saw a 1963 Thunderbird cruising along the 5 freeway in Irvine. The next day the same car came in trade at our store. It was in poor shape and was sold wholesale. It was a beautiful champagne color and was definitely complete.
Years ago I was driving along and a pheasant hit my windshield. My windshield mounted rear view mirror flew into the backseat, but fortunately the windshield never broke. It sounded like a gun going off.
In my reading of Ford design of the era I remember this car being originally a Lincoln design proposal. The design was well recieved but shifted to the thunderbird and the same team was instructed to produce a larger proposal for the eventual lincoln.
The Bullet Birds were also originally slated to be front wheel drive cars but Ford nixed the idea due to cost. GM used the tech later in the Toronado and Eldorado.
The "square bird" and "flair bird" are my favorite Thunderbirds. Everybody loves the original 2 seat Thunderbird, but I thought the Corvette was the much cooler and better performing car of that era. Those early 60's Thunderbirds had some wild styling and were kind of compact. Seemed like every "luxury" or "aspirational" American car of the early 60's was the size of an expensive yacht. The Thunderbird bucked that trend, it was a "tidy 205" in length for 1962, while a Coupe Deville was 222" long.
I have owned MANY Thunderbirds. 6 baby birds, one square bird, two bullet birds and three flair birds. I never got around to owning a glamour bird before I switched to Buicks. Going from a 1963 T-Birds to a 1963 Riviera is like going from a lumber wagon on jack in the box springs to a velvet carpet ride. But my heart still in my throat whenever I see a 50s or 60s T-Bird. I guess the imprint will never completely fade. The ONLY non US car that has ever interested me are the 230/250/280SLs. But not enough for me to actually buy one.
TBirds from 58 thru 76 were built in the Lincoln plant, on a Lincoln platform. Basically, they WERE all Lincolns. In 61, the Lincoln produced was designed to be the Thunderbird, but the design was commandeered by upper management for Lincoln. This is why the Lincoln had suicide doors. They had to convert the 2 door TBird body to 4 door for Lincoln. Standard rear doors destroyed the car's proportions, and looked odd. The suicide doors solved the issue.
Forever beating myself for not buying the 63 Thunderbird Monaco I drove last year. It needed work, but man did it drive well. That's a fairly rare car right there!
Marc’s deep knowledge on the history of car design continues to amaze and delight me. My dad was a Thunderbird guy and the 61-63 and 64-66 were his favorites for their sporty cockpit style vibe. However, the 1967 was a much more luxurious car. As a small kid, I recall riding in my dad’s and thinking the engine as stalled as we exited highway. Nope - it was just better NVH. Silence! Hopefully, Adam and Marc can do a future video with Marc’s 1967 Thunderbird - maybe compare it with Adam’s 1968 Marquis. The bird was a bit more expensive, but I imagine the two were cross shopped.
My dad bought the family a triple black 61 T-Bird. 390ci it was low-mileage beautiful and powerful. Only issue was that it was a no-AC car, and we lived where it was too hot for that in summertime. Other than that it was awesome.
I own a 63 Sport Roadster which is Partisan Green or Turquoise which was a Continental and Thunderbird color. I love the flowing lines of the Bullet Bird. I only wish that they came with a tachometer in lieu of a clock
What a beautiful thunderbird, 1962 is probably my favorite too. Wonder if it had the optional (only for '62) M.E.L series 430 engine or the standard issue 390 F.E series. I really hate when people at car shows don't open the hood, I think I speak for most when I say we want to see all those horsepowers under the hood!
What a beautiful car. One of my sister's first boy friends had a red convertible. I remember almost crying when he was driving very fast down the beach road with us in it. Needless to say, my parents didn't care much for this guy.
I raced a T-Bird like that standing start to whatever. I was driving my XK120, with newly installed 3.8 from a Sebring raced D Type. The poor Bird never had a chance. I got him out of the hole, and never was challenged. Ah, the games of youth.
Adam, When does Marc get his own channel? You can be his first guest and ridicule him mercilessly😉 On the subject of special guests, when do you feature a whole episode with the classic Volvo P 1800 we caught a glimpse of at 3:05 ?
We had several of those over the years including a 62 Bird convertible. This was back when they were not worth much money. Thunderbirds had fantastic dash designs up thru 66. Then they kind of cheapened the product.
They still had full instrumentation in ‘67 through ‘69 sans tach. Not so sure about “cheapening” as it was a completely different look where as audio 8 track, better climate control, and cruise control were introduced. Less heavy chrome but more function.
My father still contends that Ford ruined the Thunderbird by making it a four-seater, but I don't know, I think this version is quite elegant. Love the color, too. My KitchenAid stand mixer is more or less that color. :)
Ford (corp) also connected the dome light to the automatic locking system, with comical and annoying results. If you stopped the car, leaving the transmission in Drive, and someone opened a door, to enter or leave, when the dome light went out, the doors automatically locked again. If you had multiple passengers leaving at uncoordinated intervals, the door locks might have to be unlocked multiple times.
T-birds were built alongside Lincolns at Wixom all the way up through 1976! have you seen this amazing video? ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-AzidBCvngNI.html
Mark makes the car look tiny. I was 8 when they appeared at the Ford dealer and it was awesome to crawl into. We had a new Falcon and it smelled like the rubber floor mats that it had. The T-bird smelled delicious....the interior plastics I guess. Restored cars get everything right but never that new car smell. It cannot be achieved.
I'm thinking they omitted the lower windshield and rear window trim in order to keep debris and rain water from collecting in those areas and rusting the body.
With the costly failures of the Edsel, the Mark II, the Skyliner retractable and the 1958 to 1960 Lincoln, FoMoCo was no longer bleeding cash because it was pretty much all gone. But things got better quick when Ford put out the brake fading, engine overheating, trans slipping 1960 Falcon. Robert MacNamara wanted to ax Lincoln Division as unprofitable. But then the 1961s came out and it would be the Thunderbird and Continental that saved Ford from insolvency. Even President Kennedy ordered a '61 phaeton for his use. So it was fitting that Lincoln should get its own grille design
Having driven this particular model thousands of miles I can honestly say that they were show stoppers for a certain set. The trunk was large and held a lot luggage. Doing any kind of work under the dash could be problematic, the space was very tight. The curved, "club seating" on later models was uncomfortable after a short while, and was not a place to be on a long trip especially for an adult.
