Two road tests of Coupes are up for you reading pleasure.
This is from R&T’s 1987 August issue. They couldn’t be more different one from another, could they?
The Honda will go first:
Now for the Turbo T-bird:
Vintage Road Tests: Honda Prelude 2.0 Si, Ford Thunderbird Turbo
– Posted on February 17, 2016
Wow they didn’t have much good to say about Motor Trend’s 1987 Car of the Year.
I liked the styling of the pre-face-lift aerobird far more than this one. Extending the overhangs completely ruined the looks of what had been an attractive car. Somehow they managed to make bespoke headlights look like they’d been repurposed from some other car after they’d done a superb job of incorporating generic sealed beam headlights too. Following a very brief period of Ford doing things right, this car marked the corner being turned back in the usual orientation that led to quality becoming a joke again, the 2nd generation Taurus being a retrograde revamp of the first, and the Mustang GT becoming a body-kitted anachronism. Ford’s positive influence in shaping Detroit in the ’80s hit the wall when they decided the T-bird needed sizzle. The first Thunderbird turbo coupe, the ’86 Mustang GT, ’86 Taurus, Lincoln MKVII LSC, even the Bronco II suggested that the bad old days were something you should shop GM for, although the S10 Blazer was also better than GM’s cars in design. This Thunderbird made it clear that the few good Fords that slipped out were a fluke, something that everything they’ve done since has driven home. Sure, many of the Ford’s I’m praising shared their interior architecture with a ’78 econobox in the form of the Fairmont, but the things that Ford could change cheaply had been changing for the better. It seemed likely that they’d use the money they made off these cars to address their more fundamental shortcomings, but nothing could be further from the truth. By 1998, the difference between the sophistication and refinement of a Honda and a Ford would be far more drastic than they were in 1988. By 2008, they were basing many of their products on the work of other car makers. They still have old Volvo platforms under a few of their vehicles, although the Mazda platforms have been replaced by less reliable stuff from European Ford. For me, Ford’s near-renaissance in the ’80s is one of the sadder chapters in Detroit’s history, as the least able of the once-big-3 seemed to be on the right path for the first time in almost seventy years.
Having owned an ’88, I entirely agree with you. At one time I did prefer the styling of the face lifted Aerobirds, but with the passage of time, I think the aesthetics of the ’83-86 Birds have proven stronger.
There are a number of problems with the 1987 refresh. At first glance, the flush side glass and composite headlights give it a more contemporary appearance, but it corresponded with several other minor changes disrupted the proportioning that was so well balanced with the earlier Thunderbirds. Excessive overhangs were always a stylistic shortcoming with this generation of Thunderbird, but somehow the extra few inches added to the pointy beak of the 1987 make the hood look excessively long. The bigger problem was the raised deck lid. On the earlier ‘Birds, the trunk lid gently slopes down to the tail, breaking up the hegemony of the design when the car is viewed in profile. After, the MCE, the angle of the decklid was changed so that not only was it perfectly horizontal, and also about the same height of the hood. And this had the unfortunate effect of completely altering the profile, as one is now confronted with his unbroken horizontal plane from stem to stern, which in turn draws one’s attention to the short wheelbase and excessive overhangs, the effect of which can clearly be seen in the picture in the article above.
The face-lift added almost five inches to the car’s length. When it was done, the result was a 202 inch long car on a 104 inch wheelbase. More than eight feet of overhang is a strange choice for a coupe that had its engine in a conventional location, but Ford did it. Admittedly, 197.6 inches of a car on a 104 inch wheelbase is also a ton of overhang, but they handled it rather gracefully in my opinion. If they’d been content to add flush headlights and leave everything else well-enough alone, it would have caused me to look at Fords in a better light until the Taurus MK2 arrived.
Completely agree with your assessments. A few inches here and there will indeed make a profound impact, and the changes that were made to the 1987 Thunderbird certainly make me appreciate the brilliance of the design team that was responsible for the ’83, which has remarkable poise and grace for a car with such odd proportions.
Having reviewed the two articles in painstaking detail, it’s amazing that the wheelbase on the ‘Bird is only three inches longer than that of the Prelude, although the Thunderbird is a whopping 26 inches longer!
In the future, 4 wheel steering will be as common as fuel injection, radial tires, and ABS? We see how that one turned out. And, if I recall, the take rate for the 4ws package wasn’t all that high anyway. Interesting though that it was mechanical rather than hydraulic or electrical–probably a good thing in terms of less complexity. This generation of Prelude is still by far my favorite.
The Turbo Coupe, on the other hand–wow. Very little good to say about it, indeed. I’ve always liked the styling of the TC–the pointed, grille-less nose working very well IMO with the rest of the body shape–though the overhangs are indeed too long (a criticism that can also be leveled at the ’83-’86 cars). The turbo 4 did always seem to be an odd match for a car of this size, however. The supercharged V6 of the MN12 made more sense. Or maybe it was just ahead of its time, given that turbo fours are now becoming the engine of choice for mid-size to large sedans.
The best version of this generation of Thunderbird was the Sport version with the V-8. It was a very nice update of the “personal luxury coupe” theme, but without the tacky opera windows, coach lamps, etc.
PSA was fitting all its cars with 4WS from the mid 80s using a passive system activated by throttle imput it works great, I have one and it corners like virtually no other out there, I also had the Honda variety briefly and it wasnt as good though on a well used $100 car I suspect it wasnt as good as a new one.
I can spot two similarities in these road tests. Both new models withstood 300 pound weight gains with no increase in room. This ate up most of the power bump in both cars. The era of increased package efficiency with every redo was over.
They both we followups to beautiful designs with derivative, fussier styling.
I’ll give you the Thunderbird, but I absolutely fail to see how the ’87 Prelude can be considered fussy. It’s smooth, well-proportioned, and clean. In fact it has less extraneous detail than does the previous model!
This generation of the Prelude looks better than the one immediately before it – and the one after it.
With the Thunderbird, I’d take either this version, or the one immediately preceding it. They both look equally good to me.
Agree; the Prelude generally improved after ea. restyle, or at least didn’t get worse. Another example of a now-extinct Japanese sports coupé.
Wiki says the name “Prelude” was a Toyota ™, but they released it to Honda anyway!
The reviewers’ remarks about the 4ws Prelude might explain why the system never went mainstream; too little gain for the extra cost & complexity. Still, Honda gets points for trying.
How the Turbo Coupe should have looked, in my opinion:
awful?
Those wheels were a real pain in the butt to clean.
Funny, but the pictures make the T-bird look quite graceful. Yet, when you walked up to one 20-25 years ago they looked so huge. Seemed like it was a pointless waste of metal and money for a car about as big inside as a (smaller/shorter) Mustang.
Interesting that Honda took a slightly different track with what was a T-bird like car. Ford gave you a RWD car with a sophisticated engine while Honda concentrated on the suspension and steering for their idea of a personal (luxury/sporting) coupe.
Different, yes, but I wouldn’t say the Honda’s DOHC 2L was unsophisticated compared to the harsh blown Pinto engine.
Sophisticated is certainly not a word I’ve previously seen used to describe the Ford 2.3 liter turbo.
Im guessing the T-Bird’s turbo was plumbed as a suck thru as opposed to a blow-thru design? The turbo lag sounds absolutely horrendous, especially since if you crunch the raw numbers its not that far off what some of the intercooled turbo Mopars were doing.
I always liked the looks of the Preludes, even if they were entirely too mild mannered in the HP department. The thing that baffles me is why Honda let the ‘Lude die on the vine while keeping the Accord coupe. The market has all but abandoned personal luxury coupes that are all style and no performance in favor of coupes that can walk the walk also. Its not like Honda doesnt have access to competitive engines that could make a fwd based sports coupe a serious performance car.
In the era of fuel injection, those terms are essentially meaningless. FWIW, the injectors are mounted in the pressurized intake manifold, close to the cylinder head.
The problem was that in order to have a goodly amount of boost one needed a pretty good sized turbo, which took a while to spool up. That was a problem with all of these cars beck then, until turbo technology improved (variable vane,etc.)
To a point, I think youre right in that it means ‘less’ on a multipoint injected setup. Others who have forgotten more about turbos than Ill ever know tend to agree that the suck thru setup is just a less efficient way to go. But I see your point and also that hardcore boostheads have biases too. Youre spot on about variable vanes. That’s helped to all but eliminate turbo lag…you could barely feel it on my GT Cruiser which had all of the advanced turbo tech available in ’03.
One thing I didn’t notice the first time around is that this bird is intercooled….that tells me that its likely that Ford was using multiport injection, and not TBI like the first few years of turbo Mopars. Theoretically, you could intercool a suck thru on that setup, but not using a carburetor or TBI since your charge would go thru the I/C containing fuel…which would condense out.
Chrysler’s 2.2 liter turbos always had multi-port injection. They have a throttle body, but it only meters air. There was a TBI 2.2, but it was a naturally aspirated engine used in base models of cars like the Lebaron GTS and Daytona.
DERP. I think youre right….I knew some 2.2s used TBI…Thought a few of the early turbos did too. Ive only owned one turbo car (’03 PT Cruiser) so all of the fleshing out of what worked best was by and large figured out well before then.
Tbird was multiport since it’s 1983 intro. The truly horrible Turbo 2.3s used in the 79-80 Mustangs were suck through with a carb
Having had an ’83 Turbo Coupe, I have to admit that the shortcomings of that engine could be quite frustrating. It was great out on the open road, like whistling up over the mountains and across the Mojave to Mammoth. But in traffic, with the A/C on, it was a PIA.
Ford absolutely needed to put balance shafts in that engine, or use something else. But they were too cheap.
The T-Bird would have been perfect with a 5.0 High Output and a T-5. I wonder how many backyard mechanics swapped their Turbo T-Birds over to V-8s. The grille-less nose looked so much better than the base model’s (I owned one, and I always was jealous of the Turbo’s styling), so that would be a great not all that hard swap.
I never can decide if I like the ’83 or the ’87 style better; I guess they’re about equal to me. Both still look great, but I wonder if both might have looked a little better on the Mark VII’s 108-inch wheelbase. The overhangs are a bit absurd, and there is very little room in the back seat of one of these things.
I had both of these ’88 ‘birds – a Turbo Coupe and a 5.0 LX with all the trimmings. The Turbo Coupe was fun to drive, but the 5.0 was a much nicer car overall. Both were plenty fast enough for me.
My dad still owns an ’88 Mustang GT convertible (with AOD and a 2.73 gear, unfortunately), so I have plenty of miles behind the wheel of 5.0 equipped vehicles. The AOD seemed to sap a lot of power compared to 5-speeds we drove, but it’s a good driveline. I prefer the T-Bird to the Mustangs of this era, but I still like them both.
I loved driving the Turbo Coupe with its five speed. It handled great, and was a blast, but when it came right down to it, I really preferred the 5.0 T-Bird LX on a trip. On the highway, it was smooth and powerful, and didn’t have all the noise that the 2.3 had at those speeds. Plus, my 5.0 bird was equipped with leather, and the Turbo Coupe had a cloth interior. My wife preferred the Turbo Coupe, so it worked out well, as she drove that car most of the time. But when it was time to go on a road trip, the Turbo Coupe stayed home.
As a long time Bird watcher, and several year owner of a 1989 version, I too fell in the camp that said the ’87 revision missed the mark for styling. But, look at the comment in the review that brings up the Chevy Monte Carlo. The Monte that was more or less stuck in the late 1970s. Ford looked at the admirable T-Bird sales of its ’83 – ’86 version and decided to keep the car fresh and relevant. Chevy cancelled the Monte after 1988. In that context, the ’87 Bird is sexy as hell.
There is no doubt that the most satisfying versions of the T-Bird after 1982 were the gone and here again 5.0 V-8 cars. The V-6 was competent for the era in the way that big cars with V-6s were, but generally too slow for the folks willing to pony up mid-price bucks. Ford’s performance experiments with something beyond the good ‘ol American V-8 were admirable, but like most turbos of the era, they sucked. Air. Fuel. Money. Whatever.
Very ironic, of course, GM nailed the concept of the turbo charged car for the era with the Buick Grand National, but stuck it in that oh-so-seventies Regal body. Which they cancelled after 1988.
If only Ford had achieved a Grand National worthy drivetrain in a T-Bird body……..
Reading this article makes me miss the ’88 Thunderbird Sport that I drove for seven years. It seems like the Sport was the one to have for those interested in driving dynamics, as they had the interior and suspension of the Turbo Coupe (minus the troublesome electronic shocks), but were powered by the low-po 5.0, which was quite suited to the overall demeanor of the car. I’ll admit to being somewhat curious as to what a Turbo Coupe would have been like, but reading the article and Paul’s recollections make me more grateful for what I had.
Back then I didn’t really understand the accolades for cars like the Prelude, which were well designed and well built but had very pedestrian performance at a premium price. I would have preferred the T-Bird by a landslide.
Today I feel the opposite, that cars concentrate too much on performance and not enough on driving pleasure and comfort. Everything tries to be a sports car and luxuries are tacked-on electronics that more often than not interfere with the driving experience rather than enhance it.