Now it’s time for another automotive admission of guilt: my favorite Thunderbird, bar none, was the tenth generation. I’m sure this is to cause nearly as much controversy as my thoughts on the Honda CRX, but to this day I’d take a mid-90’s Super Coupe with a manual over any other T-Bird to have as my own. Second on my list would be the same generation, except a T-Bird LX with the 4.6, those awesome fan-blade wheels shod with BFG Radial T/A’s – white letters out, thank you very much!
My Dad and I visited the local self service junkyard last weekend searching for parts for mom’s Mustang GT and lo and behold – this one is almost perfect! I couldn’t believe how many cars I’d lusted after as a teen that were now sitting up ready to be torn apart by ham-fisted gear heads in search of a bolt, bracket, transmission or what have you.
It even has a sunroof!?? Oh man, this car was just killing me. 4.6, sunroof but… that color. I guess that’s why this car didn’t get so much love – I can’t imagine much of a resale for a mint on green Thunderbird in a state that gets snow. Still.. those wheels! Do they get any better?
As it turns out, they do! Now the above car caused some mild amusement on my part, and some thought about “if it had been black.. it would be killing me right now..”. What happens as I turn down the next row? Our cover car.
Admittedly the cover angle was it’s best side but still – this one! A LX with the 4.6, black on grey with that 90’s spoiler on the trunk. Given a choice for a good weather daily driver, I’d choose almost this exact car. You have to admit having the 4.6 and that big chassis around you has some appeal to it while cruising the city streets. It ain’t no Prius, that’s for sure, but man.. what a cruiser!
I’ll pass on leather and take the cloth instead, but that interior sure looks comfortable. Another admission of guilt in that I would take this over a cramped little sports car any day of the week, and definitely over any other Thunderbird. So this one is black with a 4.6 and leather, what other surprises can it hold?
Wheels! I’d completely forgotten that you could get these Super-Coupe styled wheels on the LX and man – these things sure did look good. Okay so the black ‘bird is winning, but notice what else we see there? For those keeping count add to the 4.6, leather, 148,000 miles, rust free body a seemingly low-worn set of Goodyear TripleTreads which aren’t cheap at all. I was pretty surprised they were still here. So what could have led this ‘bird to it’s last resting place instead of my driveway?
I’ve got to get better at finding cars like this before they hit the boneyard in our disposable society. Of all the cars I saw, that one just killed me!
Bad “breaks,” indeed!
If that’s really what took it there.. it’s almost worst than the spelling!
Does anyone know how to spell BRAKES anymore?
Apparently not .
A sad thing indeed .
-Nate
Cars of that generation are considered disposable by almost everyone. Many consider anything newer than a ’72 disposable, but I’ll go up to around ’80. To me it’s computerized electronics, EFI, ABS, airbags, crap like that that make a car disposable. It may have been a very good car when new, but most of these governmentmobiles are not worth saving. The cost and lack of availability of all those computer parts makes them almost impossible to work on.
It’s funny you say that. As a child of the 80s that came to age in the 90s, I consider OBDII cars the pinnacle of automotive engineering. The rust proofing is profoundly greater than anything before, and the electronics are pretty simple and easy to troubleshoot. Given that anything with a 4.6 will go 200+ miles with lax maintenance, I consider anything older crap and anything newer too complicated. To each his own.
The black one is a sport package going by the wheels and spoiler. Sadly I’ve only found a handful of these cars that were junked for good reason, these just seem to get beaten by degenerate owners due to their scrap metal value. Luckly for me I’ve accumulated the best of the best from yards like this to make my Cougar what it is.
I realized shortly after posting this – and doing some research – that one was a bit rare indeed! Just kills me – and if you like Cougars, my next Outtake is going to kill you too.
I wish I could have picked this T-bird up before it hit the yard, but oh well..
“I’ve got to get better at finding cars like this before they hit the boneyard in our disposable society. ”
I made that same vow. When I found my 89 SC the price of admission was low enough that I couldn’t lose.
People do junk Super Coupes too. With scrap prices where they’re at, I’m pretty sure that was my Bird’s next stop.
A friend of mine is the original owner of a 93 with the 5.0 and all options. Its a Metallic Red with every option. It wasn’t fast by any means but cruising I-65 to Indy at just under the speed limiter (111 mph on the digital dash) was a great ride.
Oh man, I’d love a SC. My only problem with an SC is that I’d never want to drive it – and I don’t have anywhere to put it. Which leads me to being able to somehow justify the cheap acquistion of a LX because it would make a great DD in the summer months.
I can keep telling myself that, at least.. 🙂
I didn’t know you could still get the digital dash in 1993 with the 5.0 litre?
They are very rare but they exist. They’re pretty desirable in the Thunderbird/Cougar circles since the 1993 cluster is the only digital cluster that doesn’t stop at 85mph(although the previous ones would read up to 199kp/h)
This saddens me immensely. The black Bird is identical – I mean identical – did I say identical? – to the one I ordered new in 1996 and whose build sheet was featured earlier today.
However, the glimmer of hope in my selfish little, this-cannot-have-been-my-car world is that this may be a ’97. The cup holder on the console resembles what came about in ’97 and the filler piece on the door (to the rear of the door handle) is black whereas mine was gray cloth amongst the leather of the seats.
Of all the posts I have read on this website, this is the only one where I have had a visual punch to the gut.
My Dad and I commented just how sad that one was to see. Of all the cars we saw during our trip to the yard, that was one of two that were both cool enough and in good enough shape that they could have been saved. If it really was scrapped for bad brakes, it makes it even more painful.
To help ease your pain, for my refernce I grabbed a shot of the door sticker – it was indeed a 1997.
Still, just kills me.
It’s rather like seeing someone hit their thumb with a hammer….you are happy it wasn’t you but it still hurts to see it.
Thank you for letting me know.
It’s odd, I have “problems” with the 83 to 88 T-Bird because it looks like a big car on a small(er) car platform. They fix that problem with the 10th generation T-Bird…but lose points by making the car so BLAND looking. I would take a 93 or 94 Cougar XR-7 over the same year T-Bird….if I could find one. But then I’m a big Cougar fan.
Oh I found a Cougar.. and it’s almost as painful to see as the black one. Wait for my next installment that I’ll publish.. soon hopefully. Another car I wish I could have intercepted on the way to the boneyard..
The junk yard in Des Moines, IA is going through MN12’s at a pretty good clip as well. Prices for these cars should be at their low point.
Bad brakes doesn’t sound like an impractical repair. There is a Ford dealership in ferndale, MI, calling Ed Schmid Ford. They picked up all rust free( or less rust ) cars with various problems like mileage rolled back, or burning oil that make them undesirable in other states or ineligible for registration renew to Michigan. To them, no brake is no issue at all! They will spend quite a while fixing them.
I’ve always liked this generation of T-Bird. I bought a green/blue, black interior 3.8 L ’92 LX off a friend in ’94. I owned it until 2002, it had 70k miles on it. Sold it to a relative, and 12 years later, she’s still on the road! It only gave me one headache when I owned it, it blew a headgasket, other than that it was a great car.
Can’t believe its 22 years old, and still going, and this poor ’97 is done. Very sad.
This is why I usually buy my vehicles from Junkyards or from Folks who are just about to junk them ~ mostly the non wrecks are low mileage never abused ones that were just ‘ too old ‘ to their owners .
I get ’em cheaper this way and less ham fisted repairs have been done previously .
-Nate
I’ve owned two of these Thunderbirds and have personally junked one of them. The other (my COAL) was donated to purple heart after some soul searching. The problem is that these cars are nearly worthless here on the east coast. I loved these cars but they have their issues and are not all that fun to work on either. Plenty of them in the junkyards here; most of them very fixable. I too would love to find another low mileage bird. In fact I had to be talked out of buying an old man’s car low mileage 89 just a few weeks ago. I need a Ford 3.8 like I need a hole in my head gasket. But it was rust free and low mileage. Guy bought it for his kid from an old man but the kid didn’t want to be seen in a baby blue tbird. He sold it for $1200.
This was also my favorite generation T-Bird. The only thing that sucked was the gradual switch over to tan and gray interiors as the only choices unless you sprang for a turbo which usually had charcoal. Bleh. A beautiful 1997 ice blue T-Bird was sitting on he side of the road for sale this Summer with the 4.6 and gray cloth and moonroof for a mere 3500 bucks and it was clean and low miles. Too bad I already purchased the 96 Caprice as I don’t have the room for a 4th car.
I actually like that mint green! Definitely a shame to see what was likely a very fixable car consigned to the junkyard…but at least these are donating their parts to others, rather than a direct trip to the crusher as happens to most cars sold for scrap metal value.
Came close to buying a ’95 LX with the 4.6 while I was in college…a friend’s dad was selling his, pearl white over gray leather, something like 175K miles but mostly highway (he drove constantly for work). Loved the car and would have been thrilled to have something that was only ~5 years old, but I just couldn’t quite put together the money. I still like the looks of these quite a lot but I did prefer the pre-facelift versions–the mini-grille on these never did anything for me.