1980s Assembly Line Magic: How the Ford Thunderbird & Mercury Cougar Came to Life 

My dad bought the same one I can remember him picking me up in that car when I was 5, I was blown away by that car...it was the first car i ever encountered with automatic temperature control

Just an FYI, there is no E in COUGAR.

Fiero GT best looking.

I'll agree with that. I have had four 85/86 Thunderbirds, and I still have one of the 85s.

Yes

I have the same car does black with gray leather a line it was beautiful that thing was like the most wonderful car fast too first year for throttle body I think

Agree, probably 1985 model year. The cougar symbol near the rear windows appears to be the lighted version. 1983 & 84 had the chrome silhouette style, if I recall correctly.

Yes, 1985. First year of that snazzy dark blue non-metallic paint color 3U (Midnight Regatta Blue)

15:05

Correct, and likely at the Lorain, OH plant which operated from 1958 to 2005.

Bill Elliot ran & won with a T- Bird

Seventy five dollars for a hood pinstripe, while the rubstrip is just five dollars? Not challenging your numbers, but that sounds crazy from an economics standpoint. Usually the pinstripe is nothing more than vinyl tape, while the rubstrip is a manufactured chrome and rubber piece. Seems to me the rubstrip would be a lot more expensive.

@@houseofno The pin strips were paint on my T-bird. The old window sticker is a little hard to read after 41 years. The bumper rib strip was all part of the mounded bumper. Not even sure why they charged extra.

As the years past the MFGs made most of those features standard equipment & created “Option Groups” A,B,C, just A more clever Way to Screw & confuse you and then you have your Limited or Special Edition models that came very well equipped and you could still add some options from Package Group 1a, or 1b, well you get the picture years ago in another time & space Contium called the 1970s where things were more affordable & more simplistic you could sit down with the Sales Associate in his stuffy little office with the sliding glass door and go threw big note books with the option codes and he/she would explain All these features & check off the appropriate boxes and oh by the way we were told back then and even today when you order a new vehicle / via this method it is going to cost you more money then selecting from dealer inventory then they take this tin or aluminum plate with the dealership info & all your info and slide it in this key punch thing and he punches in all the option codes you so desperately wanted and at this point you better be sure because this is not an easy task and the disposition of Lady/Gentlemen can change fast & not for the better LOL that’s why my Parents were advised by the general manager when he came in the cubicle to approve the sale he was very procurious as to why are you folks trying to by a new station wagon this way we have Four sitting out back that are well equipped And have the H.D. Towing package which by the way is a very expensive option because of the features and oh by the way are you really sure you need the heavy trailer tow package because you are not going to retain the famous Ford LTD luxury car ride your car is now going to ride & handle like this F- 150 parked out here so you need to really consider that And I’m going to need to see some more deposit cash because if we get stuck with this Super Country Squire and can’t move it for a long time it’s bad for us but I’m concerned for you too Mister & Mrs Wilson are you honestly wanting this car because people just don’t order & buy this way your complicating the process and costing your self more money and don’t get me wrong I want your business but I want you folks to be happy again let me understand you that you really have to have “everything “ and a specific color so the colors I have out there now you do not like May I ask why my mom told him he laughed & said ok got ya he came back about 20 minutes later smileing and said ok you know what I want to see you happy I just made a discovery I don’t know if your aware we are a partner with a Lincoln / Mercury dealer just 10 minutes up the street I just talked my Basketball buddy & he says they have a new 74 Mercury Grand Marquis Colony Park fully equipped ‘ then some 460 engine trailer towing package even a Vynyl roof super soft leather dual power lounge seats gorgeous Ginger copper metallic two tone interior Dark brown & ginger but it is new but it is a 1974 Demo that the owner has been driving it has 3400 miles which would be pro rated back To you plastic still on the seats you are going to love this car trust me I will tell him your on the way because it is a 74 demo you are going to get such a great deal on this car I could have done deal like this for you on the 1974 Squire demo we have but you said you wanted the new style 75 because of the concealed head lights the 74 LTD don’t but the 74 Colony Park does have headlight doors and the Demo sale price now if you go over there and try to negotiate a 1975 it’s not going to happen so since this got so long I will tell you that neither deal happened and latter that year we did get new 75 LTD Country Squire fully equipped minus the HD Class 4 towing package & minus Vynyl roof My Dad really dealt on this one but with state Sales Tax & some other fees it was 5 figures past $10,000 which was rare for one of these in those days until 1976 when entry level LTD wagons well equipped surpassed $ 5 figures oh well!! You have to pay for your pleasures

Back then, they used paint for the pinstripes. My 85 Thunderbird still wears its original paint stripes from the factory.

Wow that’s awesome!!!!!

You are one lucky person. I am a huge huge Thunderbird and Cougat fan.

The best is when you purchase another 10mm socket, then find the missing one in the corner of the garage.

Practice makes perfect.

Well they have a special contraption of it, it’s nearly impossible with a basic shop crane.

Keep in mind, that the car was moving forward while they dropped the engine into it, plus the guy in the pit pulling it in, hard to do trying to move forward a rickety engine crane without a pit guy.

Vinyl interior was available, but quite rare. I've had two 85 and two 86 Thunderbirds all in cloth. My current 85 Elan has non power cloth seats. Even my base 86 had a power seat on the drivers side, and the other two had both driver and passenger power seats.

Thank God for that!

@@jmc6000 you ain’t kidding - though most of the differences I see here versus auto assembly plants today is the ergonomics. Much more use of lift assist devices; far less bending over.

There were multiple versions of the 2.3 turbo. The earliest version made around 130 hp from 1979 to 1981. That one had a problem with overheating and self destructing because Ford made the engineering mistake of mounting the turbo near the exhaust. Later versions moved the turbo to the cooler intake side, added fuel injection (first CFI then multiport injection) and intercooling added with the final versions. The final versions were making between 190 (late Turbo coupe) to 205 (SVO, which had to be dialed back to 200 so that the engine would run on non premium fuel - the T-birds had a switch allowing the driver to tell the computer if they were running premium or regular unleaded fuel). Despite the 2.3 turbo's amazing power output for its displacement, it was also pretty old, noisy and crude, and due to dating back to the Pinto and Mustang II days in the early 1970s was having trouble meeting newer fuel economy and emissions standards that were emerging. This engine survived in various forms in the Ford Ranger compact truck through the early 21st century.

@@houseofno Yes I worked alot on the Turbo Mustangs by memory seem to have had a lot of bad turbos we were always checking boost on them. I also test drove a SVO Mustang when it was new off the lot no those bastards screamed they flat hauled ass too wait a little for the boost to come on. I could tell you a funny story about my Mom and a new SVO we test drove but people dont like to talk anymore or carry on a conversation. I Loved the SVOs and the Turbo T birds and they handled really nice driving down the road

What happened to it?

Had four turbo coupes. Wish I had all of them back. Especially the 88. All 5- speeds.

Assembly back then was a lot more hands on. Most of that task is handled by a robot today.

85s received the new dash. The 83-84 used the holdover dash from the previous generation as Ford was cash strapped and wanted to make sure the cars were going to be a success before investing in the tooling for a new dash.

@robmcdevitt4107 wow something from 1985 that had styling from 1986. Weird that they'd give 85s the Taurus styled dash and interior

You mean all the people just walking around not producing a darn thing?

Mr Mom with Michael Keaton (pretty sure he worked for Ford in that movie).

I had an '86 Cougar and I believe they were built in Loraine, Ohio.

Lorain assembly Lorain Ohio.

hilarious😅

That’s one big advantage with manual assembly is that you can find these mistakes immediately. With robots you “may” find these defects, but sometimes not and the cars are delivered with mis-matched components.

That what I thought too, it looks like a pretty chill assembly line. i’ve seen videos of the 79 Mustang production at the Rouge assembly at it looked insane (and having a few of those, the slopiness in the build quality shows, did you leave all that hardware under the carpet too ? Found a brand new wiper stalk, some candy wrappers, bolts, nuts, clips under the carpet of 79s.

Actually for the first two years of the MN12 Thunderbird (the generation after these, produced from 1989 to 1997) you couldn't get a V8 because it wouldn't fit under the sharply raked nose. Customer outcry forced Ford engineers to find a way of shoehorning it in starting with the 1991 models. You couldn't get a V8 with the first year of the Mustang II in 1974, which soured a lot of enthusiasts on that car (with that vehicle, they did the opposite by lengthening the front fenders and hood to accommodate the 302).

Mercury closed its doors after the 2011 model year. Most of these brands closed due to mismanagement in the brand's final years. AMC got bought out by Chrysler in 1987. Oldsmobile shuttered its doors in 2004. Pontiac, Saab, Hummer, and Saturn were shut down as part of GM's bailout agreement in 2009 (one could argue that one or more of these brands also being mismanaged would have contributed to GM seeking bailout money in the first place).

Computer controlled lasers have now pretty much eliminated that job too and pushed it further down the end of the line. The computer or robot controlled lasers can spot imperfections in the paint that would escape even the most experienced human eye. I don't favor the complete replacement of humans by robots, but for repetitive or hazardous work, I don't see it as replacing human jobs.

It's called watermarking and it's a copyright protection tactic. Not sure if the copyright owner does this pre-emptively to prevent unauthorized sharing on other channels, but to me and apparently the rest of us, it's pretty unobtrusive. At any rate, it's THEIR content, and they have a legal right to protect their content.

1986 got the new dash to match the Tauruses these are 86 models I'm certain in this video and are the year that is sought after because also that year they became fuel injected ditching old carbureted engines. These started better and all around drove much better from the 83-85s. 87-88 retained the 86 interior and engines but got a slight face-lift before the 89 redesign

@@SmackdownsRKO2024-xk9ew I owned an 85 model mainly because Bill Elliott was chewing up NASCAR and it had the new dash in there. Matter of fact I had a digital dash. But it was upgraded in my 85 model.

@@markcrew3696 did it have a third brake light? Could be an 86 manufactured in later 85

It's actually a pretty mixed bag. There's a level of craftsmanship associated with building a car by hand (which is why premium brands like Rolls Royce and Aston Martin still use it). The desire to become a volume car manufacturer has pushed productivity levels up, but there's also the cost in lower build quality associated with the reduced role of human beings.

that's ate up

I imagine that it helped to catch the designers at the right time. Years after the 1973 oil embargo raised the price of gasoline to unheard of levels, Ford designers continued their tone-deaf design philosophies right to the end of the decade. By 1980, Ford was losing around a billion dollars a year from their management miss-steps. The fact that Ford designer Jack Telnack didn't even like the car designs going out to the divisions spoke volumes about the culture at Ford at the time. Ford took a gamble on aero and it paid off immensely.

Wow! Didn't know they did these one-offs. I am pretty sure Ford charged you a pretty penny for their trouble. Congrats! That's one of the last Ford platforms that such a huge engine would have fit under the hood without a riser.

On the plus side, this era was the Thunderbird and Cougar's highest selling era. They were also as aerodynamic as a barn door, the smogged powerplants could be outrun by a hamster on a treadmill, and the fuel mileage meant it would pass everything but a gas station. This was my first car and I don't miss it.