Those birds in the background are some of the very first Boeing 747s. The one in the background is RA002, the second one built. This was shot in the fall of 1969 at Boeing Field, when the 747-100 program was still in progress. Pan Am initiated commercial 474 flights on January 21, 1971.
Body-colored wheelcovers were unusual at the time.
I’m trying to think of something else nice to say about Barbra’s looks, but….
Mercedes had body colored wheelcovers for years already.
Mercedes were still unusual in the US in 1970.
Cadillac had them in ’62.
I remember seeing this ad in the National Geographic.
As a kid, I was all excited about the future wide body jets. Boeing was first out the door with the B747, Douglas come next with the DC-10, and Lockheed with the Tristar. America know no boundary!
Who would have imagined all this excitement would hit a brick wall in the fall of 1973.
I remember this from National Geographic too. My parents had a collection of National Geographic magazines that I enjoyed looking through as a kid — this was one of my favorite ads. That was probably in the early 1980s, so this ad would have been only about dozen years old, but these Thunderbirds seemed downright ancient to me then.
Same! I loved cards and airplanes and this ad really captured by imagination! It’s hard to imagine that we once shared such boundless optimism.
Me too. Living 6K miles away from the US, most of my “information” about the US came from the articles, the ads, and the movies. I was 8 in 73…
The pedestrian friendly front end is one remarkable design piece.
The unforgettable Bunkie Beak
It’s a nice ad that mostly lets the image speak for itself. So many current ads in any form these days are so confusing and disappointing. If you struggle to figure out what the ad is for, it fails.
Of course, there’s always a risk of associating your product with another product. I recall the Aerostar ad that used the space shuttle profile “Age of Aquarius/Aerostar” and shortly after the Challenger disintegrated. Ads disappeared overnight.
https://apnews.com/article/4c8e02f598cf8154c267be124b373a2f
Reminds me of the Mad Man episode “Flight 1” were an AA flight crashes into Jamaica Bay. The agency wanted all its Mohawk ads pulled immediately to avoid any association with the crash.
Mad Men also did an episode about an ad for hair spray that featured two couples riding in an open convertible in late 1963.
Yep….Peggy was typing copy for the commercial while watching the funeral on TV. IIRC, they went ahead with the commercial. 🚗🚗
When I was 12 or 13 I started papering the inside of my bedroom door with car ads I had cut out of magazines. This was one of them.
I started thinking about this car the other day when the 1965 Chevy was featured. Ever the contrarian, I started pondering how the 65 Chevy was not really the start of a new styling trend but a final gasp of an old one that went back to the 30s. The real trend line was the continuation and development of the formal look that had been a Ford thing. The big hits in personal luxury would become the Mark III, the Grand Prix and the Monte Carlo, each of which did formal styling in its own way. Cars like this Thunderbird and the Buick Riviera followed the 65 Chevy’s direction, but found themselves generally unloved, both then and now (while the big Chevrolet dialed in the formality until the 1969-70 model was far more formal than the 65 had ever thought of being.
I personally love the over-the-top styling on these, and think that beak is just as cool as I thought it was when I was 11 years old. But I think I have to admit that there wasn’t anything futuristic about it – it was an ode to the past (and GM’s past, at that). Bunkie Knudsen certainly put an imprint on Ford styling during his short tenure.
The hood on that T-Bird looks like 50% of the cars length. I know it’s partly the angle. But they hood was huge. This is where T-Birds went wrong for me.
When I was a teenager my older cousin replaced her 64 Corvair Monza convertible with a 68 or 69 4 door Thunderbird. I loved the Corvair, but not so much the Thunderbird. One summer day I ended up helping her wash and wax it. You are right, the hood is huge. It took me all afternoon to wax it. I think the hood alone was larger than the complete Monza.
Yeah, um, eyes above the shoulders please Mr. Pilot.
I don’t know if Boeing 747’s were assigned -100 configuration identifiers until the other variants came along, like the -400. I would have guessed that they were simply 747’s at the time.
A great shot to be sure.
There were 393 747-200s and 81 747-300s built prior to the major redesign that became the 747-400. Some 747-300 orders were converted to -400.
Don’t forget the odd-looking 747SP whose shortened fuselage design made the extended upper deck of 747-300 and 747-400 possible without much of investment. There’s the latest generation, 747-8i and 747-8f, too.
The 747-100 designation existed from the start because Boeing used the suffix’s last two digits to denote the customer airline. American Airlines was -x23…hence its first (and only new construction) 747s were 747-123. AA’s 727-200s were 727-223, its 767-300s are 767-323. 737 suffixes are alphanumeric; numbers-only were limited to 99 and ran out long ago.
Pan American World Airways last flight was thirty years and ten days ago. It was a nonrevenue flight bringing employees back to their home base in Miami. It wasn’t one of the big overwater birds that had made Pan Am’s reputation, but a Boeing 727-200. Still, it was the Last Clipper.
I remember driving past BWI on the way home from work one day in 2007 and being shocked to see a 727-200 done up in Pan Am’s livery sitting there on the tarmac. This left me scratching my head. I thought maybe I was just seeing things.
I later found out that there was a small airline called Boston-Maine Airways that apparently somehow got the rights to use the “Clipper” name, and painted its planes as such.
Somehow this business venture didn’t really take off (and yes, the pun was intended), but when I later saw the Pan Am livery on a box car being towed by a CSX engine near the Harbor Tunnel, I thought to myself, “My, how the mighty have fallen.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston-Maine_Airways
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_Am_Systems
As to the Bunkie Beak Birds? – I’ll be a contrarian here. I love ’em. A Thunderbird with a beak. What’s not to love?
As some others have said, I remember this ad as well from Natty Geo. One of my favorites, especially as a 9 or 10 year old aviation geek.
There are several small aircraft out there with Pan Am Airlines tribute liveries.
The 727 is my favorite of all the Boeing airliners. It just looks sleek and fast with all the engines back at the tail and that clean wing. It could back that up with a top speed of Mach .9 too
The 727 was always my favorite as well for the reasons you cite here.
My last ride on a 727 was on an American Airlines 727-200 that was filling in for a 757 with “Maintenance Issues”, or so we were told. It was 9/24/2001, and security issues, etc. were crazy for obvious reasons. When the old girl was pulled into the gate, we were already 2 hours late for our departure. This pilot went out of his way to get us down to MIA (from BWI) to meet our connecting flight to Aruba. Sadly that was not to be, but I remember those engines screaming from the back of the plane as he was “balls to the wall” the whole way. We made it to Florida in record time, leaving me to wonder if we had broken the sound barrier!
The 727 was a great performing aircraft, and from what I understand, pilots loved it. In another flight that I took many years ago as a kid, we were on a flight to Minnesota that was stopping at O’Hare. As we were on short final into Chicago, another plane pulled out in front of us. The pilot dumped the flaps, pulled up the gear, and pushed the throttles all the way forward for an epic go-around. The climb rate was incredible. My Mom was freaking out, but being a kid, I was like, “Can we do it again?!?!”.
I have fond memories on flying on the 727.
My first flight ever, the one that moved me from Montreal to Vancouver, was in a 727, to Toronto for the first leg of the trip.
The scream of the three engines in the back was totally exciting for an 11 year old boy. My mom was terrified.
The second leg was on an almost empty 747, which was even more exciting. The best part was I could order and many sodas as I wanted, while watching a movie!
Pan Am (Railways), formerly Guilford Rail System (they bought the Pan Am name and logo in a bankruptcy auction) may soon be no more, again. It’s acquisition and merger into CSX is currently under review by the Surface Transportation Board. If the merger is approved, the Pan Am livery and “basketball” will be supplanted by the CSX scheme and initials.
While not at the top of most Thunderbird collector lists, I can’t complain about the styling on this car, I find it a considerable improvement over the ’67-’69 Thunderbird, probably my least favorite of all the ‘Birds.
Worth celebrating, this is the last truly unique Thunderbird body until the early 2000s retro ‘Bird.
I do recall both the front and rear of this car being quite fragile, the rear bumper is very slight, tightly integrated, and full width plastic tail light lenses are the next line of protection. The front has obvious vulnerabilities.
I was about to join you in calling the 67-69 as my least favorite, but the 72-76 is one I like even less. If we are stopping there, because the 80-83 is the absolute worst.
LOL. I apparently dialed the ’80-’83 out of my mind. Sin of omission or the blessing of ignorance?
LOL! I apparently erased the ’80-’83 from my mind. Sin of omission, or the blessing of ignorance?
I actually have a bit of the thing for Big Bird, the 1976 in particular, patented Ford Twin I Beam bumpers and all!
I’m right there with you, I don’t really like the front end much but it’s more the boxiness of it, not the beak. The rest of the car is a superb improvement from the 67-69s which went way too hard in the direction of formal and this new “chop top”fastback bodystyle was a welcome return to more sporty styling, even if it was a behemoth. To me these are the last of the glamorous identifiable Tbirds for a long time. Soon after they just became discount Mark IVs and later just a fancier Torino or Fairmont. The aero 83-97 era were a substantial return to form, but almost this 70-71 coupe form really. These were undoubtedly the sleekest non convertible Tbirds made up to this point
“I do recall both the front and rear of this car being quite fragile, the rear bumper is very slight, tightly integrated, and full width plastic tail light lenses are the next line of protection. The front has obvious vulnerabilities.”
Hence, the big 5-mph bumpers later on.
The second one built was registered N747PA, and had…ahem…an interesting life…
It was scrapped after being a restaurant IIRC
This reminds me that Boeing is ending 747 production next year 🙁
They were the hot airliner of the 1970s but they’re all cargo planes now. I wish I’d gotten to fly in one.
There’s still time, there are still about half a dozen major airlines flying the 747 in passenger service, mostly newer versions, and while none are US-based some do fly it here including on code-share flights with US carriers. You just have to fly internationally and see other parts of the world to ride in it.
When I was living in Asia from 1992-2004 it was the heyday of the 747-400. Twice I got the top deck bulkhead seat, immediately behind the flight deck.
My first long haul flight was in 1991, a Canadian Airlines International flight. We had emergency row seats and we even got a tour of the cockpit.
The cute French-Canadian flight attendant flirted with my the whole trip. My girlfriend was livid.
That ticket cost me C$1450, or about C$2500 in today’s moeny. I went to Manila in 2019 for C$650.
Lufthansa and Air China continue to fly both 747-400 and 747-8i as the passenger service now. So does Korean Air with its 747-8i.
I missed the chance to fly 747SP, which would complete my bucket list of flying every generation of 747 (-100, -200, -300, -400, and -8), when I lived in Dallas. American Airlines and Braniff International had a few of 747SP for a while.
I flew the Asiana combi from Seattle to Seoul a few times and it seemed more cramped than the regular 400.
I flew in a 747SP from Vancouver to Tokyo on JAL, around 1994 or so. It was like a normal 747 but with the middle/rear section missing.
I have been on all 747 models except the 8, but purely by happenstance.
My first commercial airline flight was in August 1970. 747, San Francisco to Honolulu, second flight was from Honolulu to Los Angeles, another 747. Never flew on one again. I did get a very up close look at the 747’s many years later. Northwest Airlines home base was at Minneapolis and I had several friends that worked for the Red Tail. I got to walk around and thru a 747 that was getting a major check, interior completely stripped out. The most impressive item for me was standing on a mezzanine below the tail of the plane. The horizontal stabilizers and rudder are absolutely huge. Another odd Northwest Airlines item, My cousin was a pilot for NWA, he once flew a 747 cargo flight to Korea carrying live cattle.
I’m going to miss the 747. Never flew in it till 1990 when I started to fly international from SFO to Narita before a connection through to the Philippines or Thailand as a courier for half price. A really inexpensive way to Asia at the time making three trips per year till 2003. All in all 88 total flying legs on the 747 between 1990-2008 using Northwest, JAL, and last EVA. Going back next year means a different plane out of SFO for me. Call it superstitious but I like 4 engines over the Pacific.
The Boeing 747 has been called the Queen of the Skies for good reason. She looks especially elegant in the original Pan Am livery. Such a magnificent machine.
The Pan Am name and logo seem to be currently owned by a railroad, formerly known as the Boston and Maine. It’s based (I believe) in Springfield, MA and therefore I see Pan Am locomotives and various freight cars in my area all the time. It’s somewhat disconcerting as I of course associate Pan Am with the airline.
http://www.panamrailways.com/
My first airplane flight was on a 747 about 2 years after that ad (TWA, not Pan Am). Although I did fly a Pan Am 747 once several years later.
I’ve yet to hop a Pan Am freight train. 😉
Thanks Jeff! I learnt something new. My oldest memory of Pan Am is seeing a brochure for “Pan Am’s New York” .In an airport terminal the size of a small apartment in Goroka, New Guinea. Circa 1970
I remember these 747’s, in the early 1970’s I was lucky enough to cross America in them many times .
Twice I was allowed to go up into first class when the aircraft was empty, a spiral staircase inside an airplane ! .
Wow .
Good times .
I remember Mohawk Airlines too .
Those painted wheel covers were very common at the time, I never liked them but it they helped sell the cars…..
-Nate
Those painted wheel trims turned up in Australia with the Ford LTD. Quite a few trims- and the odd wheel ended up here.
I like the fastback on these models. I saw one several years ago on a used car lot, It was that lime green color with a textured green vinyl top. It looked like a long, low, mean, green, ‘gator. I would like to see a mash up using this body with the ’67 Vacuum cleaner front end. Speaking of the Mark Bird, get one with the lipstick trim package.