Ford Thunderbirds for Sale

The Ford Thunderbird was introduced for 1955 and remained in production through 1997, being revived again for 2002 through 2005. During that time, the model has seen changing body styles and engine displacements, swings from sporty to personal luxury to f...

The Ford Thunderbird was introduced for 1955 and remain...

Designed around a V-8 engine and a Ford passenger car frame cut down to a 102-inch wheelbase, the original Thunderbird was a ?personal? car--lively though without the discomfort and unreliability of the day?s sports cars. It offered two seats, a trunk for longer trips, and high style. Initial T-Bird power was via a 292-cu.in. four-barrel version of Ford?s Y-block V-8; by 1957, Ford offered a choice of high-performance 312 V-8s: one with a pair of four-barrel Holley four-barrel carburetors (E-code) and one with a McCullough/Paxton supercharger (F-code; these are often referred to as ?F-Birds?). After three seasons, 53,166 two-seat T-Birds were sold.

The all-new 1958 Thunderbird, available as a coupe or convertible, was a car of well-chosen compromises. It featured unit-body construction, which allowed a low 52-inch roof height, six inches of ground clearance, and ample room for four. Ford?s sales increase (nearly 38,000 sold in for 1958, with a whopping 198,191 ?Squarebirds? sold through 1960), despite the Eisenhower recession of ?58, can only be seen as a victory. A convertible was a late addition to the range in the summer of ?58.

As the third-generation ?61 models arrived, Thunderbird owned the personal-luxury market. The new models measured out to within an inch of the previous generation, but looked lower, longer and wider, with a tapered nose and jet-aged styling cues. All of Thunderbird?s engines were 390 cubic-inch Ford FE-series V-8s. The new 1962 Sports Roadster version added a fiberglass tonneau to cover the rear seats, to give the appearance of a two-seater. For closed-car fans, the new Landau model offered a vinyl roof with S-shaped bars on the wide C-pillars.

The 1964 restyle drove the fourth-generation Thunderbird upmarket. Multiple models were available: hardtop, convertible, Sports Roadster, and the popular Landau. A variety of upgrades arrived for 1965 including standard front disc brakes and new sequential turn signals. With more than 236,000 built from 1964-?66, it became the best-selling Thunderbird generation yet. Yet convertible sales dwindled, and the ?66 Thunderbird was the last open ?Bird of the millennium.

For 1967, Ford further nudged the fifth-generation ?Bird toward Lincoln territory. A four-door sedan with rear-opening ?suicide? rear doors joined the lineup, riding an all-new full-frame chassis. The nose, designed to resemble a jet engine air intake, featured a full-width grille and hidden headlamps. Full-width rear lights retained sequential turn signals. A 1970 facelift saw new sheetmetal including a dramatic beak-like V-shaped grille.

The new-for-?72 T-Bird shared much with the Lincoln Continental Mk IV. The sedan was quietly dropped, and Thunderbird consisted of a single two-door 429-powered hardtop model. Sure-Track brakes, an early anti-lock braking system, was an option. Four-wheel-disc brakes became available for 1975. The ?1974-?76 models differed only in trim and options.

The seventh-generation Thunderbird moved onto the full-frame, mid-sized Torino/LTD II chassis, dropping ten inches in length and half a ton in the bargain. Hideaway headlamps returned, and thin pillars mixed with a ?basket handle? B-pillar motif for an airier cabin. Engines ranged from the popular 302-cu.in. V-8 to the 351M and 400 V-8s. Thunderbird?s smaller size, mixed with a $2,700 price cut, meant that this was Thunderbird?s best-selling generation, selling more units in a single year than T-Bird sold over any previous generation?s entire lifespan.

The next round of downsizing, with the eighth-generation Thunderbird nestling into the Fairmont?s unit-body ?Fox? chassis, seemed perfectly timed for both the Thunderbird?s 25th anniversary and the second OPEC fuel crisis. The result was a car 18 inches shorter and 900 pounds lighter than the previous model, and used a new, smaller 4.2-liter (255-cu.in.) version of the Ford small-block V-8 engine.

Dramatic change came for 1983: the Fox chassis remained, but the ninth-generation Thunderbird put a bold and aerodynamically friendly face to the wind. Doors wrapped into the roof, a la Avanti, and chrome trim was curtailed. For the first time there was a 2.3-liter four-cylinder Thunderbird: the 130-hp Turbo Coupe, which included sports suspension and a five-speed manual transmission. (An automatic Turbo Coupe arrived in 1984.) The change got middle America?s attention: From 1983 to ?86, more than 610,000 of the aero-slick ?Birds were sold. Standard Thunderbirds could have a 3.8-liter V-6 or the 5.0-liter V-8. A 1987 facelift (including new composite headlamps) saw Thunderbird garner another quarter-million sales in just two years.

For 1989, Ford launched its tenth-generation Thunderbird on an all-new chassis; it was shorter than the previous Thunderbird, but had a nine-inch-longer wheelbase, as well as four-wheel-independent suspension for improved ride and handling. A new Super Couple replaced the Turbo Coupe and utilized a supercharged 3.8-liter V-6, available with five-speed manual transmission. More than 961,000 Thunderbirds were built from 1989 through mid-1997, with sales over 100,000 units for six of its nine extant years.

Half a decade after the last MN12 ?Bird, Ford launched a new Thunderbird concept: a two-seat coupe/convertible that used styling cues from Thunderbirds past yet seemed thoroughly modern. A production version sharing chassis with the Lincoln LS and S-Type Jaguar rolled into showrooms in 2002. It was aimed at empty-nest Baby Boomer retirees who could afford the $40,000 sticker price; once the early adopters got theirs, demand fell hard, and the eleventh and final generation of Thunderbird was laid to rest at the end of the 2005 model year. Barely 68,000 eleventh-generation ?Birds were built.

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