Five years after the last of the two-seat “Baby Birds” rolled off the line for the last time, Lee Iacocca’s team at Ford Motor Company was busily brainstorming ideas for what would eventually become the 1965 Mustang. Among the styling prototypes was an idea that would have made financial but not practical sense: the Budd XT-Bird.
The two-seat Thunderbird enjoyed a long final year of production, with the line firing up on September 17, 1956, and not shutting down until this car rolled off the line on December 13, 1957. Yes, this car…it is apparently the last two-seater off the line, the car onto which the line workers attached a sign saying “Bye bye, baby.” It’s on loan to Gilmore Car Museum, and it’s been spectacularly restored; painted “Thunderbird Bronze,” it has the optional 270-horsepower E-Code 312 with dual Holley four-barrels. Yes, it’s a special T-Bird.
Not to stray too far from the topic, but I was taken aback when I found this advertisement; notice the ’57 T-Bird pictured as a fuzzy footnote to the 1958 Ford Motor Company offerings. The new four-seat ’58 models weren’t ready for production at the beginning of the model year, hence the ’57 model’s continuation. This fact makes the 1957 production total of 21,380 less impressive than the 1958 total of 37,892, which was accrued in only nine months on the line at the new plant in Wixom.
But the two-seater wasn’t forgotten by the time 1962 came along, far from it. Values of 1955-57 models had stayed strong, and a lot of Ford employees still held a torch for their lost “baby.” Therefore, when someone brought up the idea that the Budd Company in Philadelphia, who had originally built the bodies for the two-seater, might still have had the original dies, Iacocca was intrigued enough that he explored the possibility. Not only did Budd respond in the affirmative, but they were also excited to build an updated T-Bird for 1962 and beyond; after all, that would have been a fairly lucrative gig.
Here’s how the prototype was built. Budd carefully cut the body off a unibody Falcon and removed the body from the frame of a 1957 Thunderbird.
The body was then modified to update it for a more rounded, less finned 1960s design ethos. The fenders were rounded, the headlight nacelles replaced, and the fins shorn.
As I’ll point out later, however, the Falcon’s 109.5-inch wheelbase was 7.5 inches longer than the 1957 Thunderbird’s, and that was mostly added behind the door.
The modified body was then attached to the already modified Falcon platform and its longer wheelbase, and voila! In an ingenious way, Budd was able to transform a body-on-frame car to a unibody car with minimal expense and maximum platform sharing.
The savings were everywhere. Even though the car was now mounted on a Falcon platform, the original ’57 dashboard was used.
And it was lifted almost with few alterations aside from a non-ribbed dash pad. Because of all this platform-sharing, Budd estimated that it could sell XT-Bird body to Ford for somewhere between $350 and $400. Being that the Falcon platform was nearly unchanged and the body was ready to be stamped, production could begin far sooner than a car that was designed from scratch.
You may have noticed a couple changes Budd made to the body, including more modern vent windows and frames, and more obviously, a ridiculous rear “seat” meant for children or incidentals. Why bother?
The Henry Ford Museum owns the XT-Bird today, and although they don’t get into specific details about the powertrain, the fact sheet on their website claims that it has a 170-cubic-inch Falcon six with a supercharger, which is backed by a three-speed manual. If it truly is supercharged, I’d imagine it uses a Paxton centrifugal blower, such as the type used on Studebakers in the early 1960s. Of course, this is speculative, but what else would work on a Falcon inline six? If the engine used the single-barrel carburetor, the horsepower rating would be increased by something like 25-30 over the stock 170’s 101, maybe enough for 1962, but it would have been considered woefully underpowered by 1965. We could assume that Ford would have given the ‘Bird the chassis upgrades the Mustang received, but would the car have even made it that far?
I don’t think it would have. The two-seat T-Bird was already a classic in 1962, but it was clearly of a different time. And the fins made the car.
Without them, the rear styling of the XT-Bird looked distinctly underwhelming, like the T-Bird/Falcon mishmash it was. Lee Iacocca apparently gave the proposal some serious thought before rightly turning it down. It just wasn’t going to capture the imagination in the same way that the eventual Mustang did, and even if it did, would sales be any more impressive than the fifteen or twenty-odd thousand a year Ford sold back in the little bird’s heyday? Certainly not, regardless of Budd’s optimistic attitude.
Thus, we are left with this one interesting prototype that shows what could have, but shouldn’t have, been. Even the chopped front fenders make the car look kind of mopey, which is one of the reasons I never cared much for the retro two-seater Ford peddled in the 2000s: They needed to fill out the box, and the drooping nose and drooping tail did it no favors. The original two-seater was proud, with its nose up in the wind and its tail up there for all to see. That wasn’t the case here; it just didn’t fit the styling structure of the 1960s very well. Additionally, the extended wheelbase behind the doors didn’t help the car’s proportions at all.
So Ford did the right thing in pushing forward with a “new” car; the Mustang’s success proved Iacocca’s hunch correct, at least in the short-term, and anyone who likes Mustangs can thank him for giving the thumbs-down to the XT-Bird.
Related CC Reading
Automotive History: The Short Life And Personal Times Of The 1955-1957 Thunderbird (by Don Andreina)
Curbside Classic: 1957 Ford Thunderbird – The Most Perfectly Styled American Car Of The 1950s? (by JP Cavanaugh)
Re the ‘ridiculous rear “seat”’, it may have been added not as a functional “seat” but because the scallop reduced the extent of the rearward flat surface created by the platform’s longer wheelbase. Such things did occasionally appear however, Lamborghini offering one as a (rarely-ordered) option on the 350 GT (pictured).
Wow! I have never seen that until now, and it is probably the best thing I’ll see today. No wonder it was rarely ordered; it looks hilarious, but that’s not exactly the look you’re going for in your new Lamborghini.
At least Lamborghini bolted their “third seat” to the structure. For the Austin-Healey Sprite (the 1958-1961 “bugeye” or “frogeye” depending on one’s side of the Atlantic), one part-number in the Donald Healey Motor Company catalogue was the “Child Seat”. Unlike modern child seats, this one was held in place only by the pressure the four steel prongs exerted on the transmission tunnel on which it sat and while that meant it was quick and easy to fit and remove, were one’s Sprite suddenly to come to a halt (ie crashing into something), child and (depending on velocity at point of impact) seat would be subject to Newton’s second law of motion.
Pros: Looks comfortable for a child; finished in leathercloth with contrasting piping to match interior trim; can be installed or removed literally in seconds; location permits child to use feet to play with gear shifter, keeping them amused on long trips.
Cons: Unsecured installation means in the event of an accident, depending on speed of impact, it would function like an ejector seat and, were the roadster’s roof at the time not erected, trajectory of seat and child would be either (1) into or (2) over windscreen; location permits child to use feet to play with gear shifter, possibly knocking car out of gear or selecting incorrect gear.
Clearly, the UK’s latter day reputation as a latter-day hotbed of H&S (health & Safety) legislation and enforcement was unknown in 1960. Although it never appeared in any Austin, BMC or British Leyland catalogue, the seat apparently can be “fitted” to any subsequent Sprite or MG Midget (the latter in production until 1979). Hopefully no longer used for its intended purpose, the rarity and shock value (to twenty-first century eyes) make it a prized option in the Sprite community.
The only way I could see how it would’ve gone forward is as a stopgap model, if the numbers penciled out for a total run of about 25,000 units over two years until the Mustang was ready.
I agree, but the problem with that would be that if it were a flop, that would have severely jeopardized the Mustang. Henry Ford II was famously reticent about the whole project after the Edsel (and probably Continental Mark II) deal.
The rear seat was functional as a thinly upholstered package tray. At least that is how we used similarly tight setup on the wife’s 1970s vintage Fiat 124.
Agree. I had a 1972 350 SL and the rear “parcel compartment” was fine for transporting one happy dog and one indifferent cat. I subsequently fitted a pair of the factory optional rear seats (from a wrecked 450 SL) and used them only once as seats (two delighted six-year old twin sisters who had not before been in a convertible) but found the padding made it easier to use the space for boxes and stuff. The R107’s rear seats were sort of OK for children but some of the ones I’ve seen in coupés and convertibles have been little more than decorative and there just to sustain, however implausibly, a “2+2” claim.
Thanks for all this today. I vaguely knew about the Budd project, but never had seen the line drawings of the Falcon-underpinnings contribution, or so many photos of the prototype itself.
That’s an interesting “Ford Family of Fine Cars” ad still showing the ’57 Thunderbird (whatever its date)—-if I’d ever seen it, I never picked up on that detail. Great!
You’re welcome, George. I’ve seen the XT-Bird on display a couple times at car shows at Greenfield Village in Dearborn, and seeing the nice ’57 a month or so ago gave me a reason to write about it.
Thank goodness this car never went pass the prototype phase. The proportions are awful and it looks more like a hacked up Falcon. The 1957 T-Bird is still a beautiful car and by god I wouldn’t mind having one today. Wonderful memories of our neighbor, Penny, driving me to school at age six in her new pink 1957 T-Bird w/white upholstery. This article briefly mentions the last Retro Birds so I have to jump in and add my two-cents. I am a T-Bird nut and grew up with family owned Birds, 1960 convertible, 1963 hardtop, 1966 Town Landau, and my current 1966 Convertible. I was thrilled when I first heard Ford announced a Retro Bird, and sure I considered ordering. However a number of issues doomed the Retro bird. Styling: Ford just missed the mark of the styling essence of the 1957 Birds, but later they really nailed it with the Retro Mustangs capturing essence of the the 1967-68 Mustangs. Next issue was the initial powerplant, not enough based on the MSRP. Let’s talk MSRP. First was delay in getting the cars to the dealerships. People who pre-ordered the Retro Bird, cancelled orders because of the long delay. Second: Dealerships got greedy, jacking up prices way above MSRP, and the MSRP was already above what Ford had initially announced. Bottom line I think what doomed the Retro Bird was its inflated dealer pricing, long delays to produce it, and the styling did not hit the mark. These same issues might have doomed this prototype T-Bird back in 1960.
Thanks for the detailed study of this truly horrible looking mis-mash. Even the beige paint job can’t hide the many design flaws. Listening to the people who have an eye for proportion, style, good design, and understand what people desire (and sell) will give you the first gen Mustang, production folks will offer you a tasteless egg white omelet on Wonder bread like this.
You’re welcome, Cang. I love seeing the car in public because of its historical value, but I’d much rather looks at a ’57 Thunderbird. Little details can make a big difference.
I’ll be the dissenter here and say that I actually kind of like the front end. It looks quite European to me. It’s a totally different thing than the 1957 Thunderbird, but it works for me. The back end doesn’t do as much for me as I feel that the tail lights absent the fins just look kind of fat. They should have done more with those than simply chopping off the fins…although I guess that would raised costs excessively for the project.
I do love the idea that this was produced by Budd…a company that I’ll always more associate with gleaming stainless steel railroad and subway cars (although I know they did much with cars and even airplanes).
Aaron, great job on gathering the images and even the video on this rare (kinda) bird.
Thanks Jeff…I honestly don’t know that much about the Budd company. Maybe that’s a topic for one of us!
I was familiar with the Budd project, but I had no idea the prototype still survived.
Both the headlight and taillight “tunnels” seem out of proportion to the body, which doesn’t look so good. Unfortunately, I assume that altering them to better fit the size and scale of the donor platform would have involved enough tooling changes to defeat the object of the exercise.
The oddest part to me is how much those Falcon taillights make the rear end look like a Falcon. It’s uncanny.
I like the front; it reminds me of a 1956 Chrysler/DeSoto. Not perfect but they had to distinguish it from the 1957 or be considered dated. Had it gone to production, it might have been fine-tuned a bit. The back is hideous. I don’t really miss the fins but without them the lights protrude too far and it looks goggle-eyed. Using falcon taillights highlights that this is a patched together effort. And the rear bumper sticks out like it was designed in 1975.
The “occasional seat is poorly executed. It needs to be full-width. Several contemporary sports cars had full-width seats/package trays and this apparently was an attempt to be different. We don’t have a side view but I suspect the extra length in back threw off the proportions. Especially in light of the long hood/short deck fashion of the time that the Mustang highlighted. If you’re going to chop off the fins at the rear, you also have to eliminate the character line along the top of the body. That they didn’t only makes the taillights look worse.
I don’t think we had a Falcon convertible until 1963. Throw some real rear seats in the extended rear area and this could have been an attractive and sportier alternative to what we got.
I also noticed the bumper “shelf,” Don. Maybe Ford used this car as the prototype for its 1974 bumper designs. 🙂
It’s interesting that all the things that look off to me about it are off with the 02-05 retro Tbirds too, the nerfed lights and fins and awkwardly long wheelbase make it look like the designers of it had a Budd on the wall for inspiration rather than an actual 55-57