By 1989 I had been driving my first car (the ’75 Monte Carlo) for three years and was getting a little tired of its pre-fuel injection performance that had resulted in a couple near-misses in traffic when it stalled. Its enormous appetite for fuel was a problem, too: 15 mpg was about the best I could get out of it. Thanks to microprocessors, fuel economy regulations, and customer demand the cars of the late ‘80s had become much easier to get along with than my ‘70s carbureted barge and I wanted to take advantage of that. It was definitely time to move on.
As a college student living at home to save money my access to new car funds was a bit…limited. I did, however, have access to a supply of guilt to get my parents to help with my next car purchase. They were growing a bit tired of helping pay for gas for the Monte to get back and forth to school and, truth be known, my dad was well aware of the Monte’s performance challenges. Luckily for me, my dad came up with a great scheme: if I could achieve a perfect 4.0 GPA for the first year of mechanical engineering school he would make a major contribution to a new car for me. Because the first year of engineering school was specifically designed to “weed out” the students who weren’t fully committed or prepared for engineering, I strongly suspect that he never expected me to achieve that goal and he wouldn’t have to pay out. However, he very much underestimated the motivation of a new car to a car guy.
Now that I had the commitment for a new car and the over-confidence of youth in my ability to achieve the required GPA, I began my car shopping in earnest. I pored over brochures and new car buying guides and configured out all kinds of cars (remember, this was well before online internet configurators and inventory searches, so I had to depend on pencil and paper and Consumer Guide books). My dad had made the mistake of not telling me what budget I should use, but I picked a sub $20k price out of the air. This was about $5k more than the average new car transaction price at the time, or just shy of $40k in today’s money.
I had quite a list: I thought briefly about the Crown Victoria/Grand Marquis but my parents both quickly dismissed that as an “old man’s car” (translation: no way were they going to pay good money for a car neither of them would want to drive). As a Generation X college student, music was also very important to me so many of the cars I had on my list were the few 1989 cars that came with OEM CD players. This included such stellar examples of the breed as the J-car Pontiac Sunbird and cars with price tags way above my budget like the Lincoln Town Car.
Several cars quickly rose to the top of my list, though. The first-generation Acura Integra was a finalist for many months because of its reasonable price and availability of an accessory CD player. However, I had to eliminate this car as the only Acura dealer at the time was over 40 miles away in Cleveland. Repair and maintenance would be an all-day affair, difficult even for a college student to handle. The fact that the Integra was chiefly Civic-based and could be serviced at a Honda dealer never occurred to us, unfortunately.
First-generation Acura Integra. Fun, practical, but without a local dealer it was tough to make the case.
The other cars were more in line with my family’s purchasing habits, both being Fords (a preferred brand at the time). Ford had introduced the Taurus several years ago and its cutting edge “jellybean” design had time to grow on my parents, and they were the owners of a jellybean-like Lincoln Mark VII at the time anyway. My focus was on the new-for-1989 Taurus SHO with its 220-hp Yamaha V6 and stealth styling (only the SHO name pressed into the body cladding really gave it away). My dad and I test drove one and he wasn’t impressed, although my memory is hazy on why. Perhaps just because it had four doors.
The MN12 Thunderbird, new for 1989, was the one that really caught my eye. The main failings of this car, cost and weight, are well-known and well-documented on the internet (Ford management had harshly criticized the MN12 program manager and team for missing the cost and weight targets, even though the added weight and cost allowed for features like independent rear suspension that differentiated the car from rivals.) I was totally unaware of that – I just thought the car looked great and wanted one. I went back and forth optioning up all three models (base, LX, and SC) and even test drove a base-model Cougar LS with the 3.8 liter V6 (which did nothing to make me want the car less or talk about it any less).
Come the end of freshman year and my hard work paid off with the required 4.0 GPA – a combination of hard work, good luck, and the optimism of youth. With a resigned sigh, my dad asked me what I’d decided on, and I was quick with the answer: a dark blue Thunderbird SC with the manual transmission and the high-end CD stereo. So off to the dealer we went. Needless to say, I was not the best companion for this shopping trip as I’d have sold a kidney to get this car.
The first dealer had the car I wanted but was not willing to deal (this was only a few months after the February ’89 on-sale date for the SC) so we walked away. Luckily the second dealer we visited had one very close to what I wanted: dark blue, manual transmission, option packages with keyless entry, automatic headlights, power seats, and sunroof. No CD player, though – but compromises have to be made and I had all my 80’s mixtapes from the Monte anyway. After extensive negotiations and much impatient pacing in the halls by me, the car came home with us.
The SC not long after we bought it. In this light the “Twilight Blue” color seems to be almost black.
Unfortunately, I’d not yet learned to drive stick, so my ability to drive my new car depended on education from others. The SC wasn’t the best car for someone to learn to drive a manual transmission: the clutch was hydraulic but was quite heavy, and the transmission was a Mazda-derived 5-speed that was originally designed, if memory serves, for pickup trucks. On the plus side, 315 foot-pounds of torque do hide a multitude of awkward clutch engagements. I was not the only one to note the clunky manual transmission: 1989 was the only year in which the manual outsold the automatic, and by the last year of production (1995) the ratio was 10:1 in favor of automatics.
My main memories of that Thunderbird involved how fast it was. It was not particularly quick right off the line because of its weight (3600+ pounds) but acceleration at mid-range speeds (30-80 mph) was epic for the time. The car was entirely capable of pegging its 120-mph speedometer but I’d never admit to finding that out personally, of course.
Note the Monte Carlo still in the background
I did learn some valuable lessons about car control and how quickly things go south when you reach the car’s limits. The car inspired a lot of confidence in me with its adjustable two-way shocks, anti-lock four-wheel disc brakes, and powerful engine. One morning on the way to college the car gave me its warning that its limits weren’t infinite. It was pre-dawn, probably 6 am or so, and I was alone on a four-lane suburban road. At a light, I came across a current model Pontiac Trans Am and for some reason I decided to drop the hammer hard when the light turned. I was a bit surprised to see the Trans Am take me up on the implicit offer and he pulled away from the light at full throttle.
Things were going well in the SC until we reached a point where the road made a hard 90-degree left turn. I reached the bend at a velocity well north of the speed at which the car could take it, and the SC told me in no uncertain terms that we weren’t going to make it. The rear wheels went light and I learned quickly about oversteer. The car began a series of 360 degree spins across this four-lane road and continued to spin for several hundred feet despite my stomping the ABS every time the car was pointed in the direction I had been traveling. The car finally came to rest pointed the way I had been traveling but in the right-hand lane of the other side of the road. Once the large cloud of tire smoke swept past me, I got back onto the correct side of the road and went on my way, quite embarrassed at my error. On the plus side, I had the presence of mind to push in the clutch so I hadn’t stalled the car, so there’s that.
The SC was my main car when my college girlfriend (now wife) began dating. On my first informal date with her, I took the SC to her parents’ house at night to pick her up. As the house was out in the country a bit, it was very dark and the driveway was narrow. The SC’s torque kept me from getting stuck when I overshot the driveway into the yard, but the inadvertent turfing wasn’t appreciated. She stayed with me, though – guess she forgave me eventually.
Despite my love of this car and its ability to keep me out of trouble, when the opportunity arose for me to get another new vehicle I jumped at the chance (which we will talk about in the next COAL). Eventually my dad sold the SC to a co-worker who put another 120,000 miles on it – my abuse of the clutch while learning stick hadn’t done that much damage, apparently. The Thunderbird SC will make another appearance in my COAL history much later…
Another great COAL installment. I remember how much excitement surrounded this new T-Bird at the time–even with the kvetching in the press about the weight, it was still clear that FoMoCo had served up a great product. The Twilight Blue you picked was the perfect color to showcase the styling–this ‘Bird really was a looker. Also, had to laugh at the thought of you turfing your future in-law’s lawn, on a first date, in a beautiful new Turbo Thunderbird. They must have been talking about that one for a long time!
A long time is right – they still bring it up occasionally!
Terrific story, thank you. This is the first tale of street racing that I can recall in a COAL. Quite the vivid and terrifying description.
Lovely car, too. The story of Ford missing their targets for this car were widely published at the time, but there were benefits in being more than just a fancy Mustang. I think part of the problem for Ford was the T bird eclipsed the Lincoln for features and performance, at least until the MkVIII arrived.
These were very popular in Northeast Ohio back in the day (partially because they were assembled in Lorain). However, the Mercury Cougar always seemed to outsell the Thunderbird around here, and I could never figure out why, with its formal roofline. I always thought the Thunderbird was much better looking.
I’m thinking that might have been a regional thing (perhaps based on the strength of the local L-M dealers), because I’m fairly certain that the T-Bird outsold the Cougar in most of the rest of the country.
I feel the same way, but it’s a matter of taste, and the formal roof lines where still very popular in other makes and models. It signified prestige or something.
MN12 Cougars also vastly outnumbered the Thunderbirds in the Twin Cities where I grew up. A best friend owned two of the Cougars, back to back (pearl white ’94 to an evergreen ’97), so we always noticed them wherever we went.
I’m a Cougar guy personally, the 89-90 XR7s were the same package as the SC but without the body kit – which in my opinion makes the already inherent problem with rocker rust even worse – and I find the front and rear end designs simply more interesting to look at. The roofline is cool to me because it reminds me more of the early 60s Thunderbird style rooflines, more so than it does the GM formal roofs of the 80s, which none except the 79 E bodies had paired with proper thick C pillars.
I hear a lot of people say that the XR7 had the same package as the SC Tbird, but yet I have never seen a Cougar with the supercharged 3.8 V6. The XR7s Ive seen were all N/A 3.8s or 4.6 V8s. No supercharged V6s
They’re pretty rare, 4,780 were made in 89 and 4,156 in 1990.
The XR7 package in 89-92 was very different from the XR7 in 93-97. In effort to reduce costs the LS(the standard package for 89-92) was essentially renamed XR7, and given a few more standard features, while the previous XR7 as a performance package was dropped. Same thing was done to the Thunderbird, in 1992 there was a base, Sport, LX and SC, and in 93 the SC remained but everything else was consolidated into LX
Your question about the sales ratio between the MN12 T-Bird and Cougar intrigued me, so I looked up the historical sales data:
T-Bird Cougar
1989 114,868 97,312
1990 113,957 81,420
1991 82,816 62,433
1992 77,789 49,254
1993 133,109 81,450
1994 126,256 75,792
1995 115,165 60,201
1996 86,549 39,749
1997 73,814 35,267
Total 924,323 582,878
The total sales were actually closer than I would have thought. The high water mark for Cougar was 1989, when its sales were only 15% lower than Thunderbird Sales. The low point for Cougar was 1996, when it was 54% lower than the T-Bird. Overall for the production run of MN12 T-Bird/Cougar, Cat sales were 37% lower than Bird sales.
Oops, I had this laid out my better when I wrote the comment, but for some reason my formatting didn’t stay in place once I pressed the “Post Comment” button. I tried the “edit” button to fix it, but when that came up it looked exactly like my original formatting which was very clear. So I can’t fix it… Sorry that it’s hard to read. First column is the year, middle column is T-Bird sales, last column is Cougar sales.
The only way is to add dashes or underscores or periods I think.
Thanks for the tip, I’ll try that next time.
Could be worse. We could be using Disqus.
Based on my experiences in the Akron-Canton area, I think part of the reason the Cougars were more popular is that you could still get a half-vinyl roof on the Cougar and not on the T-bird. 1989 was closer to the Seventies than you’d want to admit.
What a nice car, and with a 4.0 GPA in the freshmen year I think it was well deserved. How was your pulse when you did those pirouettes?
I always liked the MN12 Thunderbird. I even have a coffee table book on the T bird history. And I consider adopting one ….
Through the roof, as you might expect. I think I did well on that exam, though.
Getting the equivalent of a 4.0 (Adelphi used a 3.0 grade basis in the early 1960s) would not have been possible for me regardless of the offered motivation, so kudos to you for your book smarts. In Engineering no less.
But it seems your “real” education leapfrogged as you were doing those 360s during that street race.
There’s book smarts and there’s street smarts. Literally street smarts. Kind of like what doesn’t kill you makes you smarter.
I liked that era of T-Birds and was always happy to get a 5.0 version from the LA Airport Avis back in the day.
Thank you for an enjoyable Saturday morning read.
Beautiful car… especially in that color. I always liked those SC wheels. From MY1983 to MY1997, I exclusively drove T-Birds, and would still be driving one if Ford (or any manufacturer for that matter) hadn’t given up on personal luxury coupes. But the market has spoken, sadly.
One regret is I never got to drive one of these. I’ve had 5.0’s, a 4.6, a few 3.8’s and even a Turbo Coupe, but never got to drive an SC. I had heard that they were a huge improvement over the old Fox body Turbo Coupe, but never got to try one out.
By the time the Thunderbird was done, I traded my ’97 in on a Grand Prix GTP Coupe, so in a way, I did get to finally experience a 3.8L SC engine, but sadly, with FWD (although it was a great car). Being FWD, they couldn’t boost that 3800 Series II engine nearly as well as the RWD T-Bird. The Grand Prix GTP only had 240 HP with 280 lb/ft… not 300+ like your car.
An MN-12 Thunderbird is a great choice for a first adulty type car. The Super Coupe suspension continued into ’96 and came as part of some sports option than included a mid-year addition of a spoiler (was there anything Ford didn’t hang a spoiler on during the mid- to late-90s?). The handling was great but the ride on uneven pavement could shake your kidneys loose.
Great job on getting a 4.0 your first year. Calculus II and its trigonometric integration was a bear and annihilated this guy’s GPA.
Great story and great looking SC! I used to have a ’91 SC up until last year, and these are incredible cars. The power, style and comfort is great. The torque is ridiculous in these…….I have no official stats, but in terms of cubic inches to torque, these have to be on a short list of production engines of some of the best numbers of all time in that category. I had replaced my M90 with a better flowing 94-95 one, did a pulley swap and a few other modifications, and the car was ridiculously fast.
Unfortunately, the fate that most of these cars suffered are the same one that plagued mine, and they become extremely difficult to keep on the road, especially as rust starts to creep into problematic areas (behind the side cladding, and in the sunroof drainage area right in front of the rear wheels). Once you start getting that, as well as power items starting to not work, they’re doomed, because even the electronic suspension and things like that, become very expensive to repair. The car’s initial positive–its complexity, especially with the electronics–became its main problem. And also, if you need to do any engine work, it’s a nightmare. A spark plug change is well known to take 5-6 hours and involves going under the car, and perhaps “only” 3-4 if you’re more acquainted with some easier ways of doing it. I found that four plugs (passenger’s side, plus a driver’s side one closest to the firewall) was the easiest way, but even that involved taking off the upper intercooler tube, as well as taking off the air intake tube. The driver’s side inevitably involves feeling around for the spark plug hole, even when you’re coming from below the car.
My particular problem was a nasty gremlin in the electronics, where the car wouldn’t fire over. I had replaced the DIS, ECU, crank sensor and a bunch of other things, to no avail. My theory is that before the rise of TIVCT and the current popularity of turbocharging, that these cars had always had the benefit of being one of the relatively few forced induction cars that provided easy ways to achieve power (ie: simple pulley swaps rather than needing to change the cam, as well as simple blower swaps), and that the initial buy in was cheap (ie: decent SC’s could be found for $2000-$4000), but once modern engines became more efficient, especially with creating power, it pretty much killed off all but the most dedicated of diehards with the cars that were/ are willing to put up with the frustrations of these cars. It’s a shame, but it’s the hard reality of why you just don’t see these otherwise terrific cars on the road anymore.
The JBL Audio Premium system, for example, is yet another nightmare. The working examples are very rare, and compared to modern systems, it is archaic. The wiring for them is insane–it goes from the stereo head, back to the trunk with an amp, and then wires the entire system from there. Someone had taken the stereo out before I had got my car, which wasn’t the problem…….the problem is that the wiring back from the amp in the trunk has a *different set of wire colors*!! My guess is that JBL had their own standard set of wire colors, and then Ford had theirs. So you essentially have to take the speaker covers off and unscrew the speakers, check the positive and negative wiring for each speaker, and then go back into the trunk and splice those wires in from there. Otherwise, you’d have to re-wire the whole bloody system from the front stereo head, if you wanted a clean slate.
The other thing that I wasn’t so pleased about, was the insurance cost. For what it is, the insurance (at least around here) is high, and I’m assuming that it’s because it is a sporty two door, and in SC trim. I’m not sure if the base 3.8 is more expensive or not. For example, I knew a guy that had an ’84 Hurst Olds with the same amount of merits on his licence, and it was about $58 to insure each month (they list it as a Calais model), compared to the $86 a month for my SC.
Thank you for all the information. Your recollections are quite the resource.
That stereo must have bern a Ford thing. FWIW my ’93 Grand Marquis had the premium sound system with the identical set up . I spent quite some time in the trunk tracing a dozen oddly-colored wires so I could install a new head unit, as the original one was missing.
No prob! SCCOA was/ is an amazing treasure trove of helpful people, with lots of information. The site also has articles and things like that.
My 1994 Ford Probe had that radio set up with the external JBL Amp. It was located behind the panel on the passenger side of the rear seat. This meant taking a lot of crap apart to get at it. The original radio had no amp built in so it need this external one to produce sound. The trouble was that if you added an aftermarket radio then the amp in the radio conflicted with the JBL one and caused sound to be distorted. and since it was connected to the speakers meant that you had to bypass it(unhooking it would give you no sound)
The nice thing however was that I bought my radio from Crutchfield.com and they not only gave you the harness you wired to the radio to plug into the factory wiring(no cutting of the factory harness needed) but a Amp bypass from Metra. You unplugged both harnesses from the amp and plugged them into the bypass and no more amp issue.
The spark plugs are definitely a challenge – the brochure made a big deal out of the platinum-tipped plugs that would last 60k miles without mentioning why they did that. I have an 89 SC and 89 XR7 now (COAL fodder for months from now, in fact) and having the plugs replaced on the SC cost me $900. They did the valve cover gaskets at the same time since they were already disassembling the top of the engine anyway. The XR7 got new plugs when I had the power steering pump replaced (which also requires taking the top of the engine apart as the pump is sandwiched between the inlet and outlet feeds of the intercooler).
I was fortunate on my current SC and XR7 to find a guy on the Internet who could rebuild the JBL stereos and make them work – they both now work great and the CD player has been rebuilt to play home-recorded CDs (which weren’t even really available when these were first built). These cassette stereos (which were built by Alpine if memory serves) all went south at some point because the capacitors on the circuit boards used a liquid electrolyte that eventually leaked out and ruined other components.
In 1997, I found a 1994 TBird SC, 5 speed, with 18,000 miles on it. I bought it, and sold my 1988 Monte Carlo SS. I’ve still got it. There was a power increase in 94, due to an improved supercharger and larger fuel injectors. Ford purposely restricted the supercharger intake and the exhaust. A new exhaust, intake, raised supercharger top, and 10% supercharger pulleys really make this car come alive! The Mazda trans is a handful in city traffic. But, it’s wonderful in the Rocky mountains. I’ve been sideways twice in corners. Scary! I’ve got around 50,000 miles on it now.
Here’s an engine pic.
This shows the restriction in the stock supercharger top.
The raised supercharger top, in theory, seems like a great idea. Visually, it has a way better outlet. In actuality, most people that have bought one, said that they found that it made no difference. Perhaps if the lower intake manifold was of a better design and if the heads flowed better, it would make a difference.
The lower intake manifold is severely compromised (I did some flow testing, and there’s little flow in the upper half of the port–if you look at the manifold from the outside, it’s sunk in, and that hampers flow). The engines have no problem making torque–especially with a pulley swap–but there’s only so much that you can raise the psi before the M90 generates enough heat that the engine starts pulling lots of timing, where it starts to hurt power.
Ford had to make several compromises with the supercharger system, due to space restrictions in the engine bay with a very low hood. It’s too bad, because as good as the system was, they could have really made it much better with a higher hood. They were onto something really good, and considering that the basic architecture of the engine was continued on until 2004 (ie: my ’99 Mustang shares the same coil pack and oil filter and some other parts), Ford could have really continued to refine and develop the supercharged 3.8 setup. It was probably just too expensive, and still probably didn’t have the prestige of a bigger V8.
I read the same thing about the raised top on the SCCOA forum. Apparently, it doesn’t improve 1/4 mile times anyway. I went with Bill Evanoff’s recommendations, from Supercoupe Performance. I’m in Colorado, and the mods really improved the way it pulls up the big hills in the mountains. Fortunately, mine is rust free, and I don’t have the sunroof or the JBL stereo. I had a B&M Ripper shifter installed. It shortened the throw, but it’s still high effort. I’ve got an excellent shop to maintain it for me. Even the Ford dealers don’t want to work on these.
94s got a much improved interior. The seats are really nice. I’ve kept mine covered.
From the drivers seat it was improved (instruments being the only carryover) but the original 89 interior seemed more airy and spacious everywhere else, with better attention to detail. From the passenger seat my left knee hits the dash and my right knee constantly cycles the locks because of the idiotic switch placement. And I own a 94, btw, I love it! But I have a friend with both early model and late models that I have ridden in as a passenger in and I always prefer the 92 to the 95.
I’m with you Matt; the refresh interior looks great, but feels cheap . The ’94 my friend had was a sunroof non auto-A/C car with off white cat logo embossed seats in “leather” (I’m not sure it was factory TBH?). Nothing felt substantial. The ’97 she had lost the sunroof, added the electronic A/C, and was split leather/cloth in pale grey. That car’s overall quality was nicer, but it wasn’t anything to write home about. The door panel and dash material in both were very hollow, in my opinion. The less I say about the brittle vent plastic, the better.
That 94 sounds identical to mine, Pearl white, moonroof, non-auto A/C grey interior with white 50/50 seats with the embossed cat head. Those seats were factory, they’re just not listed in the brochures. I think it was part of a feature car promotion, like the Fox Mustangs that were being released earlier.
I think the door/dash materials themselves are ok, not great, but soft enough and padded, not the hard molded plastic like I now see in a lot of modern cars. I agree that they are kind of hollow though, and wholeheartedly agree about the vents, same as SN95 era Mustangs. I’ve stocked up on good ones just in case.
Ever notice the resemblance to a 6 series BMW coupe? I worked on many BMW 6 Coupes, when the T-bird came out I noticed the similar look, but thought to myself “Ford got the styling right” I had a 6 coupe for a very short time, too many problems, but a good friends SC coupe felt great and looked killer, black on black, with 1/4 inch whitewalls, also had an automatic, but it worked well
Car & Driver did a comparison of the SC, BMW, and Lexus coupes with manual transmissions. The SC was on par with the BMW’s performance. But the handling was not as refined.
There was more than a few car aficionados that, at the time, felt that the SC/ Thunderbird was too compromised to really achieve its goal of rivalling the world’s best cars in the segment. The same thing was levelled at the previous Aerobird generation, and the Turbo Coupes…..plenty to love and enough to set it apart from other similar cars, yet not refined enough to really threaten the European market that they wished to secure more market share in. The interiors were heavily criticized for their cheap, compromised nature.
It was at this time, in 1989 perhaps, that Ford really should have returned the T-Bird to a 2 seat coupe that fully returned its status as a personal luxury coupe. Anthony Kuchta was on the right track, but I think that he was set up for failure, because he wasn’t really allowed to charge a price point that the Thunderbird needed to restore its original reputation to. The goal had long been shifting units, which meant lowering the price so that enough people could afford it, but then you get locked into always having to cut corners, and that won’t cut it if you want a world beating car. And then the prestige/ status of the brand got lowered.
And by that, I mean that whatever the Corvette had, the Thunderbird needed to match it or up the stakes. It’s interesting that as Ford wanted to improve the low sales of the 55-57 T-Birds, that as they sold more, they got *less* prestigious. GM–as wrong as they’ve got many things over the years–had the right idea by sticking with the initially maligned Corvette, and then improving on its weaknesses (weak engine/ tranny) and upping the power and prestige to keep it a halo/ aspirational car that is still a niche market to this day, but one that has managed to keep its branding and reputation intact, even through the weaker years/ generations.
When Ford decided to align the T-Bird with a junior Lincoln aura in the late 60’s, I personally think that they severely messed up. They lost the sporty quality, turned it into a barge, and really, I’m surprised that it lasted as long as it did. I suppose that they didn’t want the T-Bird to compete with the Mustang, but on the other hand, was making the T-Bird compete with both the Cougar AND the Mark series a great idea? Not in my mind.
Nice SC, man! I’ve heard theories that Ford purposely restricted the SC (as well as the Turbo Coupes), but here’s my analysis: the T-Bird was about smooth, quiet power, which meant restricting things. Someone had removed the cats on my SC before I had got it (as well as that nasty 90 degree elbow on the driver’s side) and the car was pretty loud already with the stock mufflers. Then things like the intake silencer were meant to eliminate supercharger whine.
As I’ve mentioned, the true bottleneck in the system (and no real “conspiracy” theory here, as the hood is very low and Ford was just trying to fit everything below that low hood line….the 5.0’s intake runners had to be shortened to fit into the engine bay) is the lower intake manifold. It truly is terrible for airflow. It builds a lot of torque due to the restriction, but there’s not much to be gained above 5000 rpms with the engines as a result.
I would have edited the above comment, but it won’t let me anymore. The goal was also *reliable* power. Ford could have upped the power, but as we’ve seen with the SC’s, the head gaskets are notorious for blowing, and somewhere in between people not reading the “premium fuel only” right on the gauges, not properly changing their coolant, as well as the extreme heat generated by the M90, people realized that a supercharged system is not going to be the “set and forget” system that appeals to them in their next car. In many ways, it reminds me of the Olds Turbo Jetfire……people were used to the way that they treated their past engines, and that was the death knell of it. If, for example, someone routinely just put regular fuel in their SC, the knock sensor will pull some timing, but you’re still always running the risk of detonation. I was running a custom double intercooler, and the under hood engine temps were still pretty extreme.
Like you said, “too much” is what Ford spent developing this MN12 program for the Ford Thunderbird and Mercury Cougar (and its FN10-based offshoot, which underpinned the Lincoln Mark VIII), at a time when the personal luxury coupe segment was shrinking to record lows. It’s said that Ford was benchmarking BMW, and indeed the Thunderbird looks like the 6-Series of that era from the sides. But, at the end of the day, you had extremely competent, well-engineered cars that bested their cross-town rivals, in particular the eighth-generation (1995-1999) Buick Riviera that debuted toward the end of the MN12 program’s tenure on the market. Never mind FWD, the Riviera was a gorgeous design that was hampered by GM’s rampant cost-cutting at the time (cheap materials, thin paint and under-gauged wiring, large panel gaps, etc).
“the Riviera was a gorgeous design that was hampered by GM’s rampant cost-cutting at the time (cheap materials, thin paint and under-gauged wiring, large panel gaps, etc).”
Seems most OEMs fell into that category at the time.
I was in love, love, love with the SC when it came out, but was in a steady relationship with a house and a couple of old cars in the garage, so there was just no room for the car payment that an SC would have required without major lifestyle adjustments (which I was unwilling to make).
The thing I remember about this generation of Thunderbird was how let down I was by the interior. It looked like a throwback to the Cuda/Challenger of the early 70s which was also an impressive and beautiful car with a miserably cheap interior. Of course, when a car is so over-budget in its development, something’s got to give.
The multiple 360 spins would have been an eye-opener for sure. What luck – being a passenger in an out of control super-sized fidget spinner, well let’s just say that there are a lot of things that can go bad there. Yet none of them did, so yay you!
Agree! The later models had a revised, much better interior (and the 4.6 V8 engine).
I was also in love with these cars when they came out, but like you, stuck in a relationship with a mortgage, two car payments and a new baby girl. I was already upside down in the cars, there was no way in Hell I was going to get even further upside down, especially with a baby…
In the “Something totally unexpected” category I had a ’59 Skyliner retractable. Someone before me had put a huge continental kit on as well as stainless fender skirts. The prior owner said “You shouldn’t put the top down on wet pavement” I’d had several other Skyliners with no problem. Then a short but intense first rain of the season followed by a gorgeous moonlit sky. Put the top down. Going home, my well known route, a corner always taken around 35-40 mph. Suddenly the Ford snapped around violently, accomplishing TWO 360’s on the wet pavement. Thankfully there was plenty of room. Stopped sort of sideways, I raised the top. I realized then with the heavy Continental kit and the roof behind the tires for the most part there was no balance to the handling. It was the slowest speed to experience a spin. If I’d been at highway speed I could have ended up in the next county. The kit came off.
The impression I get from everything I read regarding the controversial development and cost overruns is that the focus during development was almost entirely on the SC package and the base V6 and LX were afterthoughts, essentially decontented from the SC to meet a price point, and it shows, especially in the earliest years. The SC did in fact hit all it’s targets, weight was never the issue with it, but the 3600lb curb weight – which really isn’t bad for a RWD car of this size, as evidenced today – basically killed the economy targets of the standard 3.8. The SC gets close to the same economy and the 5.0 and 4.6s that came in 91 and 94 respectively get the same real world mileage as the V6, maybe even more in the right conditions.
I’ve 360ed my Cougar before, I was lucky that no one was on the road when it happened, and nobody was there to witness it, but it wasn’t fun. These cars are very stable in oversteer for the most part due to their length, but once you get to the limit where nothing you do will stop it it gets really scary.
Very nice story, and I sure can identify with picking out one’s first new car.
Ironically, my first brand-new, ordered-from-the-factory-purchased new vehicle was a 1976 ¾ ton C-20 bare-bones pickup from the good folks at Johnny Londoff Chevrolet, straight from the St. Louis factory only a few miles away from my parents’ house.
I’ll only repeat what I ordered: Red w/white roof, 292 six cyl. 4 speed (1st gear granny), Custom Deluxe (lowest trim), heavy duty shocks & sway bars, rear step bumper, full gauges, that’s it. No power anything. I later bought a bed cap same height as the roof. Slept in it several times, too.
Fast? Um, no. Life in the slow lane, and 13.5 mpg no matter city, highway, hypermiling, nor getting on it (sure!) made any difference. Of course, all my buddies and me were regular “Jeremiah Johnsons” and a touch of Euell Gibbons back then – at least on several weekends a year, hunting, fishing & hiking & living in a small shack in the woods. We really wanted to believe that, too! Not. Lots of fun just the same.
Kept that truck two years to the day, shortly after marrying my first real girlfriend, in which we are about to celebrate 40 years of marriage in three weeks.
I suppose my dream car was already in the past – the car I had in the USAF.
Nuff said…
I had my own incident where I spun out of control and ended up with nothing worse than embarrassment. I was driving my ’68 el Camino (250 – 3 on the tree) on a rain slick interstate with balding tires. I was trying to make it to the end of the college semester and then buy them from a trusted shop back home rather than get tires from a place I wouldn’t see again after that year ended. Well, I hydroplaned in a rut and started spinning – right down an off ramp at 55 mph. I finally stopped facing the wrong way off to the side in the dirt. I didn’t have the presence of mind to push in the clutch, I was basically along for the ride the whole time and stalled the truck. After a moment to collect my senses, I started the engine and went back to my dorm. The next clear day I cut classes and went home and met my father and we picked out tires and then I drove back.
Love that SC! I couldn’t imagine having one off the showroom floor.
What’s really a shame is how Ford killed the AWD program for these. Originally a Ford/Porsche program and eventually handed off to Dana. There’s one survivor out of the rumored six development mules. The SCCoA currently owns this one.
Yeah, that would have been a great idea with the AWD one! Unfortunately, the lone survivor is in very, very poor shape. If memory serves me correct, it has Porsche rims on it.
Yeah, they look like the rims from a 928.
I have always liked this generation of T-Bird ever since they first came out. Being a “car guy,” and especially a performance car guy, I’ve always known that the SC model was the one to get. Most certainly would have loved to have gotten a new one with a manual transmission. Great story!
A buddy had a 90 SC and I remember how stupid fast it was. We were both young and dumb in those days and like you said, a little slow off the line but once you got it to go WOW!
Thx for the pleasant memories!
I’m in the minority, but I wasn’t a huge fan of the styling of this generation Thunderbird/Cougar. Less original and unique than the 1983 design. And strangely proportioned, as it looked unusually wide. If you removed the Thunderbird/Ford branding from the exterior, I would have guessed it as an 80s Oldsmobile. As the exterior has enough of that GM generic quality common to that era. Like a big brother to the Beretta.
These Thunderbird’s are now just very old cars that are nothing at all special. Back in the day these V6 super charged T-birds were fairly impressive (much better than the horrible, crude 2.3 turbo that preceded them), but they fell mighty short to their foreign competition especially in quality and reliability. As forgettable as these 89-97 T-birds are nowadays, they still look monumentally better than the poorly conceived, grotesque 2002-05 “retro birds”.
I liked these as a kid… I used to think they were basically Taurus coupes (the 92-95 was one of my favorite cars at the time.)
It seemed like the better this T-bird became under the skin (revised interior, 4.6 V8 engine, ride & handling tweaks); the more glocked up and tackier the exterior became.
I was in love with the Cougar more so that the T-bird. The Thunderbird looked like a melted copy of the BMW 635 CSi, where the Cougar looked like what a well developed Maserati Biturbo should have become. There’s something about the proportions of the early MN-12 XR-7s that look just right. The monochrome body treatment, the low key wheels and the general understatement of the car really spoke to me.
Unfortunately, the whole revival of a performance XR-7 didn’t work with the public. I think that Mercury had been a retiree’s car for so long that no one considered them a performance car of any kind. Of course, this revival was trying to happen during the “fat” era of Japanese automobiles here in the US. Why spend your money on a Cougar when you could get a Lexus SC300/400 during the mid 90’s? In relative terms you weren’t paying that much more, but the newly minted prestige label said a lot more about you.
After 1991-92, it seems they lost the thread and all manner of cheapening and gaudy brougham-ing was applied to the car. Just do a quick Google images search on the MN-12 Cougar and you’ll see what I mean. Sadly, when I saw late MN-12 Cougars, this is all I saw. Cheap crap attached to what was formerly a rather attractive car.
I really believe that when they decided to sell the Euro-Cougar in North America (in the 2000’s) Ford really should have used the Capri name again. In one respect, it would have actually been a homage to the original Capri, a Euro Ford brought to North America. Secondly, it wasn’t that long after they had retired the Cougar name, of which they lost all control of the image and status. Who could see one of then-plentiful plastic brougham Cougars and think this angular hatchback was related to it?
Nope, if we got back in the wayback machine and set the dial to 1989 and I had to buy a Ford product, the inaugural MN-12 Cougar XR-7 it is.
In the later Cougar’s defense, the tacked on broughamy ad ons – I’m assuming you mean the coach tops and “special editions” – weren’t factory creations, they were conversions done by a few dealers. The XR7 package soldiered on through 91-92 but with the 5.0 HO/auto standard in place of the 3.8 SC and standard 5 speed, but the rest of the SC chassis upgrades carried over, and (IMO) the revised front end was an improvement. 93 and beyond were neutered, but there was a sport option group (157a) for 1996 and 1997 that used the SC springs and stiffer shocks AND the 16″ wheels used on the 89-91 XR7s. Unfortunately the front end styling on the 96 kills them for me, as they clearly tried saving money by sharing hoods with the ovoided Tbird.
As a bit of trivia, Cougars XR7s produced for the Mexican market remained supercharged all the way through 1995.
MD: Agree on the notchy slow shifter mechanism. An automotive “Boner Killer” for me.
I rented this generation T-bird several times, for extended out of town business transportation (and personal pleasure). More than once driving the T-bird was the only enjoyable part of these trips.
I found the last few years’ models, with the 4.6 V8 engine and 4 speed automatic overdrive transmission, to be the “best of the bunch”.
A most “Real World” peppy & pleasant car. The engine, transmission & suspension all seemed to be in harmony with each other.
The revised interiors and dashboard was a comfy cocoon of leather, power equipment and climate control A/C. Alas, the exterior became more clunky as the model years progressed; but once inside that faded away.
This is a great COAL entry. Thanks for sharing. When these came out, I really liked them. Granted, i was all of 12 years old at the time. When it came time for a car for me, it was high on my dream list of cars to get but I knew taht it was waaaaaay out of my budget, even as a used car.
When I was in college, one of the guys in my dorm had a 93 LX with the 3.8L and the new wraparound interior. He let me drive it a couple of times. I enjoyed how the car felt, the size of it was perfect (I tend to like larger cars).
I never got to drive an SC. But, it’s on my bucket list of cars to drive someday.
My mom had a 1990 model fully loaded, it was a pretty Champagne color with black leather interior, all options. She kept it until 1999 and sold it to the neighbors (who still have it!), her next car was a black 1999 Camaro SS.
Mom passed in 2009 but I have the plate from that TBird- its a CA Plate “JDYBIRD” (My moms name was Judy) hanging in my garage.
Wow. I’ve always loved this generation of T-bird, specifically these early pre-facelift cars. (The later ones had a vastly better interior, but they got the styling right from the jump.) And to have a brand-new one as a college student? Major jealousy. I’m 37 and I’ve still only bought one brand new car. Fantastic choice, I may have only been 9 years old in ’89 but I was a devoted car magazine reader even then and I remember these being BIG news at the time. I had a foldout poster of one on my wall, even!