(first posted 6/11/2013) Somehow, gazing on this mid-‘80s Thunderbird I spotted near San Antonio, the first thing that popped into my head was the name famously suggested by poet Marianne Moore when she was asked to help come up with a moniker for what eventually became the Edsel. Ok, maybe ‘Utopian’ is a bit strong, even if the 1983-88 Thunderbirds were major hits for Ford, but there’s certainly an, er, turtle-y aspect to it. This looks to be a base version; Apparently the high-mounted center brake light identifies it as an ’86.
www.oldcarbrochures.com
Ford’s initial attempt at building a personal luxury car off the mid-sized Fox platform, sold from ’80 through ’82, missed the mark as far as the public was concerned, with sales pretty much going off a cliff. A drastic transformation from angular to aerodynamic styling for the ’83 model year, however, turned things around. Moreover, the rounded contours of this car are widely considered to have paved the way for the radical shape of the ’86 Taurus, which could fairly be said to have permanently transformed the public’s expectations for domestic styling.
www.carsdomain.com
My own experience with one of these dates back to summer ’85, when I took advantage of a hefty promotional discount at Hertz and rolled out for a long weekend with a white (ugh) rental T-Bird, equipped with the base 3.8 liter Essex V6. At the time, I recall being less than impressed with the thing, but then it was probably unavoidable, based on what I was mentally comparing it to.
Firstly, my expectations were perhaps a bit distorted by fond memories of an earlier Fox-based vehicle. Around ’79 or so, my parents, not ordinarily known for driving factory hot rods, had somehow ended up with a brand-new Mercury Zephyr ES. Almost forgotten today, it was a bit of a sleeper; ours was equipped with a 302 V8 and a suspension package that made it one of the best-handling and best-balanced domestic cars I’d ever driven. I had a lot of wheel time in the Zephyr, and given that the T-Bird was heavier, with a weaker engine and traveling on the base suspension, it shouldn’t be surprising that it felt wallowy and slow by comparison.
unknown, via Flickr
Then there was the fact that my daily driver at the time was an Audi 4000 5+5 (illustrated car is not the precise model but mine looked very much like it), another fairly sprightly performer, with fewer horsepower (100 vs 110) and one less cylinder than the V6 ‘Bird, but hauling around at least 600 fewer pounds. A more fair comparison might have involved a higher-spec T-Bird with the 302 V8, or better yet the boosted 2.3 liter four-pot of the Thunderbird Turbo Coupe, but they were a bit thin on the ground at Hertz that day. Yeah, I know; different cars intended for different markets, and the T-bird was a thrashed rental, whaddaya expect?
Lastly, there was the interior, a festival of velour and plastics and a little too grandfatherly for my tastes. As I recall, my rental had the optional electronic gauges, but I could easily have done without. Bottom line: while a smooth and sedate ride, and coherently styled in a modern idiom, the Thunderbird came off as a little stolid and visually at least, just didn’t evoke the magic of, say, the early ’60s ‘Bullet ‘Birds’.
Nearly thirty years later, I’m feeling considerably more charitable to this generation of T-Bird. The styling remains handsome and relatively clean of line, and the color of the featured car (looks like Medium Sand Beige), even though worn, is a bit more flattering than the dead white of the one I drove back in ‘85.
It seems bone stock, but look closer and there’s a bit of a mystery: check out the dog-dish wheel covers! Yes, cop ‘caps on a T-Bird. Review of period brochures indicates that full ‘luxury wheel covers’ were standard on this generation, so it’s not certain how these ended up on it. Obscure delete option? Liberated from someone’s junked Fairmont? I’ve no idea.
In any event, although faded, this veteran is solid, rust-free and complete. Although I admit I didn’t appreciate it at the time, with a bit of age on it I think this car cuts a rakish figure, and I’m glad to see it still rolliing.
I must say, I really really like the look of this car with the dog dish hubcaps. They give this car an “I mean business” kind of look. Now, a 5.0 HO out of a Mustang would finish out the package.
As I look at this car again, I still think that it is one of the best looking cars of the 80s. It made the styling of the Panther cars (which were only 4 years old when these came out) obsolete overnight.
Ditto; never seen one with dog dishes before, and I like it.
Me too. Very ’71 Galaxie 500 -esque. Or Custom, better still.
I can just imagine how bad the interior smells.
Nice looker compared to 67 on T birds.I see a Ford tradition of peeling silver paint has carried on,many silver UK Fords could be seen shedding their silver paint in the 60s and 70s
The Zephyr ad reminded me of my ’79 Zephyr 2-door purchased new. I special ordered it including the 302. I got upset about it because it came with a hole in the oil pan. After 3 tries to fix it with putty Ford put on a new oil pan which required engine removal. I should have just put a sheet metal screw with sealant in the small hole. The auto trans shift linkage fell apart in my driveway after losing some parts on the road. I fixed it with a cotter pin and took it back to the dealer to add the missing parts. They said my fix was good enough The tachometer was for a 4 cylinder 2.3 so it read 2x what it should have. I changed a resistor to fix that. I wanted a tan interior but it was that awful orange-tan flesh color. The heater core sprung a leak and since it had AC I had to remove the entire dashboard to change it. Even with all parts put back it was never the same. With no AC the heater core comes out easily through the glove box. The power was good for the time. Being reasonably light it handled fairly well. Visibility was great. The horn was honked by pushing in on the turn signal lever. I never got used to that and in an emergency the natural response was to push on the middle of the steering wheel which did nothing. I sold it after a few years. I missed it for what it was when it was gone.
I saw a Fairmont on the road yesterday, & still think it was the best-styled Fox, esp. the coupé pictured above (which I wish Mom got instead of the Futura). It didn’t need the go-faster Euro trim to look good, & I agree that with the 302 it was a fun car. Other than a cracked lower dash, Mom’s didn’t have the strange problems yours had. True, it had pretty cheap trim, but its role was downmarket family transportation, like the Falcon. It was the best ’70s Ford.
I heard the stalk horn-button was in anticipation of driver’s airbag standards, which turned out to be premature.
The T-bird above was indeed a watershed of sorts, paving the way for the Taurus. Nowadays, however, I think the aero fad has been overplayed & wish for a return to boxier styling like the Fairmont’s.
I should say the family’s Zephyr was pretty poorly assembled (for example, I still remember it arriving in the driveway from the dealer with globs of glue sticking out all over the little black trim piece ahead of the C-pillar). Also, we didn’t have it long enough for the bloom to go off the rose; it was totaled out in a horrendous accident in its second year. During the time we had it, however, it was a pretty sweet ride.
I agree on the best looking Fox. Too bad the ES suspension parts were not available without the black body paint. More early on problems I remember is that the right front wheel bearing went bad and the right rear shock absorber lost it’s fluid and locked up in an extended position. The left front tire had a steel wire sticking out of it, and when I pulled it out with pliers the tire went flat. I thought it was road debris but it was part of the tire steel belt. I guess the car was jinxed. Funny, I never realized back then that it was the Falcon II. But in hindsight that’s what it was. It’s good they later figured out how to properly honk the horn with an air bag. I too am tired of the aero look and miss the box styling. I wonder if Paul’s father’s Zephyr had the type of problems ours had.
I had long flown the coop during his Zephyr years, except for visits home. He seemed to be quite happy with it. But then he seemed to enjoy taking his cars in to his favorite mechanic for service….
Thanks Paul. If his was anything like mine he would have had many enjoyable trips to his favorite mechanic. I still really liked the car though, especially in retrospect.
Owner/driver – mechanic relationships were then a sub-category of socially-acceptable male-bonding…
Your tach was reading wrong because the person who installed it didn’t set the switch to the correct position. Just like aftermarket tachs there is a 4-6-8 cyl switch. Comes in real handy when sticking a v8 in a previously 4cyl Fox.
Thanks for your comment Eric. The funny thing is I took it back to the dealer before I worked on the tach. If I remember correctly it wasn’t reading at all. They told me they ordered a new tach, and I took the car back when it was in. When I got the car back it was reading double. I don’t know what they really did. I guess they figured if it moved at all I’d be happy. These were the same geniuses that put putty and blue paint on the hole in the oil pan. I wonder if they ordered a dedicated tach for a four cylinder because I swear there was no switch to change like the aftermarket tachs. That’s when I changed the resistor. I know Ford was famous for making running changes. I had an early ’72 Ford that had more in common with a ’71 than a later ’72. I think they waited to use up all the old parts first or just initiated running changes.
My 80 Fox stang hand the universal tach remove the lens and the switch is accesable. Ford preferred universal tachs an 87 Tempaz we had had a tach with 4 and 6 cyl even though a 6 wasn’t offered in that year.
My bet is the tech just assumed it had a 4cly or just left it in the as shipped position not knowing that he needed to set it.
Hmmm…….now I’m not sure. It was about 35 years ago. It seems to me I did all the work on the back circuit board side. I made the tach suitable for 8,12, and 16 then. 🙂 It’s sad that the Mercury dealer couldn’t/wouldn’t fix it.
The car you found to photograph is an ’86. You can tell by the federally-mandated high-mounted brake light. These became required starting in ’86.
OK, changed; thanks.
Im surprised that generation of Thunderbird hasnt found a hot rod afterlife like their GM G-Body brethren. Its a Fox body so the aftermarket support for go-fast parts is there and its a good looking car in its own right. If I was Ford guy and looking for a project, Id build one.
When I did the piece on the Fairmont Futura, it was pointed out that the front K member was different in V8 cars, which made a 6 to V8 swap a problem. I wonder if these have the same issue. However, the 6 in these was the V6 and not the old inline, so maybe not. Had Ford offered these with the HO 5.0 and a 5 speed, I would absolutely have bought one. And I would drive one today as well. I wonder how hard it would be to make one today.
Edit – I looked up a forum on these that discusses performance mods. They say that the easiest way is to start with a Turbo Coupe that already has the manual transmission and bolt a V8 in.
The straight 6 K member is the unique one, the 4, V6 and V8 use the same one. So yes if you want a 5sp the best bet would be to start with a 5sp Turbo Coupe and drop in the Mustang HO 5.0 and 5sp.
I’ve got a “hot rod” 88 Thunderbird LX. It’s a factory 5.0 car with Edelbrock Performer heads, GT40 intake, 2800 stall converter and modified AOD, and a 3.73 Traction-Lok rear end. It’s kinda fast ;). Some people do mod other Foxes besides the Mustang.
that sounds like a fun car!
I agree the dog dish caps do work on the car and that paint does look good on the car.
Did anyone notice that the wheel appear to have been painted body color at some point? Clearly they are Fairmont caps but someone made an effort. Although they are probably the same wheel.
Putting Mustang rims on T Birds seems to have been popular you used to see that a lot.
I wonder what the HP figure was on the motorvin the ad? Evidently Ford only wanted us to think about TQ…
130 HP in this application, if I remember correctly.
How far we’ve come from those early emissions-strangled engines. My ’08 Altima is rated at 175 HP from a four-cylinder half the size.
It would be something to find a Turbo Fairmont…
To my amazement, I actually did find a turbo Fairmont Futura on hemmings.com a couple of years ago, apparently a factory job. I say amazement because I thought Ford never was able to sell the them because they couldn’t get them EPA certified, or something along those lines.
According to what I have seen,they built 1158 turbo Fairmonts. Of course it was direct swap from the Mustang. I don’t know what would be easier a turbo or 302.
I think the base 2.3 in the Zephyr had about 88 horsepower. The 5.0 V8 had about 130 horsepower. The turbo 2.3s were 115 plus or minus five.
This one is not rust free, notice all the spots under the rear window, the common place for these to rust and when it happens water goes into the trunk.
I drove an ’87 Cougar through most of the 90’s. Loved that car. I still poke around on Craigslist for a replacement and I’d settle for a T-Bird but they are hard to come by and even more rare with a stick shift.
I had access to a turbo ‘bird back in the 1980’s. Weak acceleration while the low compression Pinto engine struggled to over cone inertia until the turbo spun up for a peaky pop of something resembling power. Clever turbo drivers would quick shift from gear to gear while keeping the turbo in the useful range. Typical drivers would let the turbo fall off between shifts so that the Pinto engine had to gasp upwards as best it could.
The other impression was the siren-like whine of the turbo sounded exactly like a police siren just as you got the rpms up to a boost situation. So you struggled to get the motor up to power… and then it sounded like The Heat was pulling you over for exuberant driving.
I’ve owned one of these “Aero Birds” for almost 11 years. Mine is an 88 Thunderbird LX so it got the later composite headlamps. These cars are very good highway cruisers and put together very well. They have some of the best styling of cars to come out of the 80’s and still look good today. Most of the fun of these cars comes from owning a 5.0 model. The V8 makes the car feel like a Thunderbird. I’ve driven a few of the V6 models and they really are slow. The best of the V6 cars are the 88s, which got the revised 3.8 with port fuel injection that looks like the 3.8 used in the 89 and up MN-12 Thunderbirds. The 83 3.8 had a 2bbl carb and the 84-87 3.8 had CFI. The port fuel injected cars were much more responsive and had about 20 more hp than the previous V6 cars.
The base car interiors were kind of meh. Once you stepped up to an Elan or later LX model you got better interior materials. Nicer velour seats (or optional leather, like my Thunderbird LX has) replace the cloth seats. The door panels are different as well, being made of vinyl and having the entire surface made of soft tough materials. The carpet is thicker and has more pile as well. Plus the higher trim cars had more sound deadening than the base model. The difference in material quality between the base/rental model Thunderbird and the Elan/LX/Turbo Coupe of the period is actually quite noticeable.
Beautiful car. My parents had an ’87 LX that was loaded with every option except leather. It was maroon with a gray velour interior. You’re exactly right about the huge difference upgrading made.
Ah yes the Audi 5+5, you have great taste in cars. When they finally got old enough for me to afford I checked out a whole bunch. I’ve never seen a car get more crispy with age than the 5+5. Everything, and I mean everything, faded on those… the bumpers, the moldings, the paint, the dash and especially that seat cloth that seemed to turn to dust. It’s like the parts came from suppliers that lived where there was never any sunshine.
I remember that tiny little shifter, it was sublime in its look and action. Snick, snick.
Neat to see one of these. Most of these are gone from the roads around here. Only the occasional Turbo Coupe (and usually an 87-88 model) still can be found from time to time here.
I am biased in my opinion, but I liked the subsequent MN12 Thunderbird better. These Fox-based birds looked good at the time, but seemed too narrow after the MN12 debuted. I have also never driven the V8 version, but the V6 Fox Cougars and Thunderbirds were very wallowy compared to the Mustang and the MN12 successor. Definitley was set up for soft comfort without the handling.
Now I have driven an 88 Turbo Coupe that belonged to a friend a bunch of times, and it was much better. It was also a 5 speed, with the intercooler so it had the higher Hp version of the 2.3. That car was a blast.
There was nothing more annoying than the digital speedometer. Giant green numbers right in front of your face. If you like to maintain speed it was a constant reminder that you were falling off pace….and despite having an extra digit (for kilometers) it would never display anything higher than NHTSA restricted 85 mph. The refresh rate was so slow that I used to see how many numbers I could skip while accelerating.
They can be modified to read out to 199mph by soldering a jumper wire across two pins. I modified a few of those clusters that way for some people. It makes the rest of the drawbacks you mentioned slightly forgivable.
And the full digital clusters are way cooler than the goofy base no-tach/digital speedo/analog other gauges one. The one with the digital tach and multiple fuel/speed readouts are real neat IMO.
I only ever drove one, a 1987 standard model with a LoPo V8. Still, it had lots of torque and could break the tires loose very easily. The one i drove was in our trim shop for a seat repair. it belonged to the RCMP Commercial Crime Division and had a police radio in the glove box, connected to the standard fender antenna , and his Kojak light was in the trunk. Evidently he had little need to pull people over. A little snooping through some documents I found revealed the assignees baliwick was investigating outlaw motorcycle gangs in the province.
The pic of the Audi 4000 actually is not a 4000CS either. Just a regular 4000 from between ’80-’82. I believe the S came out in ’83, stayed through ’84, then got restyled for ’85 still as an S, and in either ’86 or ’87 became the CS. The older body style never had a CS. However the pictured car looks nice and pretty much does look like a 5+5…
The S had the same engine as the VW GTI, this continued until the end of the run in ’87 when that engine was put into FWD ’80’s. Normally aspirated Quattro’s in the US always had the 5cyl that the Coupe GT and the 5000 had, as did the 80Q and all 90’s, quattro or not.
Yep; sorry, faulty memory. I’ve updated the text.
Don’t be hatin’ on white. My last 2 new cars were silver; I just bought a white one after much consideration. How the design lines stand out. How the silver and gray trim play off the base white. The head and tail lights. Finally, it seems to me visually a white car ‘ages’ less severely.
Looking at colors, I think maroon and med-dark blue are swesome.
I don’t understand dark gray…..
Rented them all the time in those years. The V6 wasn’t bad, but in major cities Hertz had the SC supercharged V8. THAT was a fun car.
Minor nit… the SC was a Supercharged V6.
You’re right.
I think the car looks good in NASCAR trim.
Give me that T-Bird, a Coyote engine and manual trans, a few suspension bits, and watch what happens 🙂
THAT would be a fun car. My ex and I had his and hers T-Birds, both ‘88(s). Mine was a 5.0LX, hers a 5-speed Turbo Coupe.
Hers was the fun car to drive, but mine was way nicer as a Grand Tourer on the highway. And its V8 yielded way more low end grunt.
Your fantasy ‘Bird there would be the best of both worlds. 👍
Strangely for this part of the planet Ive seen one recently, so somebody liked them well enough to have one mailed over, the 50s models to my eyes are preferable.
Just striking when they first came out – made everything else look dated. I owned a 1986 Turbo Coupe and it was a wonderful road car, especially at high speed. Nice dash, too all analog). At the same time my wife had a 1983 convertible Mustang with the HO 5.0. Both were quick, but with the T-Bird you had to be much more attentive to RPMs. With the Mustang it was old-fashioned muscle – didn’t much matter when your shifted gears. I would love to have either one back.
Someone who lives in my area still owns a Thunderbird from this vintage in a similar color, maybe slightly darker. I have no idea which engine it has (haven’t asked the owner about it), but to my knowledge it’s still in running condition as I’ve seen it once or twice on the road every month. On a side note, several Fox-body Mustangs have been popping up for sale lately. I believe the best of the ones I’ve noticed is a white ’87-’90 GT hatchback similar to the one shown with the turbine wheels (which I believe were replaced with 5-spoke alloy rims in ’91) at Oswalt’s Classic Mustangs right in town. It’s a good bet that all the Mustangs have the 5.0 in them.
I had a ‘86 Thunderbird élan with leather. It was a very nice highway cruiser.
Did I read that right? The 3.3 is a 1 valve job? If so, how?
My mom had one of these before I was born and lusted after one ever since.
I have a 1986 elan…30000 miles in perfect condition