(originally posted 6/11/2011) In 1992, Ross Perot mounted a 3rd party run for president. He chose as his running mate Admiral James Stockdale. The Admiral had a distinguished record, but chose to introduce himself to the American public in a debate by asking: “Who am I? Why am I here?” The Admiral got through the debate and the campaign without really answering those questions. What has Admiral Stockdale got to do with the 67-68 Thunderbird? Like the Admiral, the Ford Thunderbird came to us with a very impressive history. And the 67 model asked the very same questions. And, like the Admiral, the 67 T-Bird never really came up with the answers.
I never understood this car. I mean, just what was it, exactly? Even though I was 8 years old when the 67 Bird came out, I knew what the car was NOT. Sure, it had that wrap-around back seat and sequential turn signals, but the car was NOT a Thunderbird. A Thunderbird, you see, had a certain flair, dash, savoir faire. Even though this car made the cut for the original lineup of Hot Wheels cars in 1967, I was not fooled. This car just lacked that certain something that made a Thunderbird.
If you had told someone in 1950 that someday it would be socially acceptable to be driving a Ford to the country club or in the more exclusive suburbs, you would have been laughed at. The Thunderbird was the car that began Ford’s move up the social ladder. After the initial 2 seaters, the Thunderbird really hit its stride with the first 4 seater in 1958. This car and all that came after it for most of the next decade made it perfectly natural for high-income buyers to park a Ford in the garage.
This Thunderbird, however, was something different. Maybe it was just 1967. 1967 wasn’t so much a year, as a transition between other years, other eras even. It wasn’t Rat Pack yet it wasn’t Woodstock. It wasn’t Bryll Cream, but it wasn’t a blow-dry either. Neither Jack Kennedy nor Richard Nixon. Not bucket seats and floor shifts nor fat side moldings and opera windows. Well, you get the idea. So, in a way, this Thunderbird and 1967 were made for each other. But while 1967 eventually ended late in December, this Thunderbird had to stick around for a few more years.
Maybe the Thunderbird was doomed because Ford’s product planners were finishing up on the car that would doom it. The Thunderbird had never really been meant for Fairlane customers or Galaxie customers. The Thunderbird was aimed at Lincoln buyers. T-Birds shared garages with a lot of Continentals back then, or were bought by those who could afford a Lincoln but wanted something more sporting. But many of those buyers would desert the Bird for the Continental Mark III when it hit Lincoln showrooms in 1968, making the Thunderbird something it had never been before – the Ford luxury coupe that you bought if you couldn’t afford the Mark III. It cannot be coincidence that T-Bird sales dropped off substantially in 1968.
Maybe it was the competition. For years, Thunderbird had the market for personal luxury coupes virtually to itself. Studebaker threw its final two darts at the T-Bird but missed with both. Then came the Buick Riviera. And the Pontiac Grand Prix. Followed by the Oldsmobile Toronado. And the Eldorado. None of these was like the Thunderbird, exactly. But each, in its own way, turned more towards luxury than sport (as was the GM way in that era). But Suddenly, the Thunderbird couldn’t just be the Thunderbird any more. Were Ford’s planners and designers reacting by suddenly tacking towards the GM vision of personal luxury? Whatever happened, the magic seemed gone, or at least greatly diminished, when this car hit the showrooms.
Maybe it was just the car. The 1960s was an unusually good decade for automotive styling. This Thunderbird was not part of it. The more I look at this car, I have to conclude that it was perhaps the least attractive Ford since the 58 Fairlane. But the 58’s problems can be blamed on a botched facelift. This car suffered from its ungainly looks in its original conception. Ford styling had gone from strength to strength as the 60s began to look to the 70s. The 64-66 Thunderbird was a styling triumph. Even the 70-71 had a sleek, flowy kind of thing going on that was attractive in its way. It was like Ford performing Bill Mitchell’s greatest hits. But not the 67. The styling is just off. Like a great idea at 1:30 on a Sunday morning that doesn’t look quite so great in daylight. Somewhere around this time, Stan Kenton’s progressive jazz orchestra did a collaboration album with Tex Ritter, the country star. This Thunderbird’s style is kind of like that. If I were forced to categorize this car’s styling, it would have to be filed under “miscellaneous.”
There is just something wrong with the proportions of this car. Particularly from the side, it shows us those proportions that became Ford hallmarks of the mid 70s – lots of front and rear overhang which made the car look as if the wheelbase was about 12 inches too short. So maybe, this car was the opening salvo of the Great Brougham Wars of the 70s. Whatever the styling problem was, you know that something has gone horribly wrong with your personal luxury coupe when the 4 door mutation is actually better looking.
We have to address the 4 door thing. When I found this car, I was a little disappointed that it was not the 4 door. After all, the Thunderbird sedan is really the only memorable part of this forgettable generation of Birds. But again, what was it? Incredibly, dealers were given materials to convince sales prospects how superior the 67 4 door Bird’s styling was to competitors like the Buick Electra and the Olds 98 Luxury Sedan. No, Really. Did you know that the 68 Thunderbird 4 door even came with a bench seat? What’s up with that?
I have labored over this piece through several sittings, unhappy with the resulting series of scattered and disjointed thoughts that don’t seem to come together into anything resembling coherence. But maybe this result is what naturally comes from thinking or writing about the 67-68 Thunderbird. Because after days of thinking about it, I still don’t know exactly what it was or why it was here. I refuse to believe that I am alone.
A great comparison to Admiral Stockdale! The Thunderbird is one of the great American tragedies.
You hit the nail squarely on the head: Something was just “not right” with the ’67 redesign.
If you read the press coverage at the time of the launch, Ford’s PR folks claimed the lack of a convertible was due to an inability to produce a topless version for the new unibody. However, the Thunderbird had been built on such a platform since ’58, so that statement makes about as much sense as…having a four-door version.
The ’67-’68 Thunderbirds reverted to body-on-frame. Like GM’s big cars of the time, you could call it semi-unitized, with a welded, fairly rigid body structure, but it had a separate perimeter frame. (So did the Mark III, which used the longer frame of the four-door T-Bird, not unlike the ’69 Grand Prix.) I suspect the real reason for the demise of the convertible was slow sales. Total Flair Bird convertible sales were like 21,000 units for three years, and by 1966, it was down to about 5,000 units. The four-door didn’t sell in huge numbers, but it did better than that.
Oops, my mistake.
The other day I was reading the October 1966 edition of Popular Science. I just went back to it and, sure enough, there on page 105 it reads, “T-Bird’s new design caused Ford to discontinue the convertible model. There was not enough time to produce the reinforced frame needed for an open car.”
That’ll teach me to quote things from memory!
Thats what I thought when I first glanced at this article, the Wixom-built, baby Lincoln, unibody Thunderbird was gone.
The trasition from personal coupe to personal barge is this car it has no sporting qualities at all even the 2door is a bloated looking thing end of the line.for the chunder bird the fake landau trim is to blame
Bryce, I think you are a real “chunderhead”. You obviously don’t know anything about Thunderbirds_first of all ‘ol JP puts a beat up forlorn looking 68 landau in his depiction of an example of a terrible design as if to prove his point.I and a good many other enthusiasts especially like the clean ’67 design(2dr).It has all the design elements of the late ’60s-long hood/ short deck,hidden headlamps,sequential signals take a look at an original or restored example one of these days. As for the “fake landau trim”what do you call what Tbirds had from ’62 on in their lineup? As far as size difference 114.7″ wheebase compared to 113.2”?Wow huge difference!
I agree that these cars weren’t really a Thunderbird, but ugly? The 2-door is kinda gangly, but the 4-door scratches my gangster itch. It is like a Continental that either a pimp or a flamboyant mob boss cooked up. You want a landau top? THAT is a landau top, ladies and gents.
And obviously anything with rear-hinged rear suicide doors is cool. I could see Leno doing one of these cars up with a very modified Mustang 5.0 Coyote engine kinda like he did that Toronado with the Corvette engine.
Maybe the ’67 T-Bird was just too cool for its own good.
I got to drive a 68 4 door ‘bird. yeah, theres something about the 4 door that just seems right.
The one I got to be familiar with was navy blue with a black top.
To look good, these absolutely have to be painted black–that has the ‘slimming’ effect that Ford must have been going for with the pointy overhangs and pinched greenhouse.
The single biggest indicator that the T-bird had lost its way was the four-door option. The first generation’s mandatory two seats and doors had made a strong statement–this is an individualist’s car. The 1967 said, ‘We’re not sure who this car is for anymore, so let’s broaden the net and hope for the best’.
“We’re not sure who this car is for anymore, so let’s broaden the net and hope for the best’”
Bingo! Couldn’t have said it better myself.
I don’t think it’s ugly either. Just too big.
The 1958-60 Thunderbirds are absolutely hideous/grotesque, like the Lincolns of the same era.
I owed a 67 for a while back in the late 90’s. Previous owner had painted it a bright red. I would agree that these are not ugly cars. But I can see why some found them disappointing. It was bloated. The interior was nice, though.
This car came out right in the transition from the era of when “sporty” was still the key design influence to the Brougham Epoch when it was all about classically-inspired luxury. It fell right in the canyon between those two era. There was simply no real inspiration at work here, unlike the Mark III, which really was the model of everything to come.
I had the same response as a kid: “what are they trying to say with this?” From this time forward, the Mark III was the only thing Ford knew what to do, in endless permutations.
You have no idea how tempted I was to refer to the Brougham Epoch. But I had to force my fingers to other keys because if you have not copyrighted that term, you should.
For anyone writing at CC, it’s fair game, seriously.
The Brougham Epoch:
began: 1967 Thunderbird, ended: 1996 Fleetwood Brougham. ???
Close, but off by two years:
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/curbside-classics-american/curbside-classic-1965-ford-ltd-revolutionary-it-singlehandedly-launched-the-great-brougham-epoch/
Yeah right niedermeyer-Im sure as a kid you were probably a student of fine motorcar design and you threw up all over the sidewalk when you saw a brand new ’67 coming your way!
Well, I nearly threw up the first time I saw one. My mother loved the styling, which only cemented my negative opinion of the car.
I have to say that I think GMs Personal Coupe efforts were far more sporty in intention than any post 2 seat Thunderbird, whether it was the B-Body Specialty versions (Grand Prix, Starfire or the original Wildcat) or the original Riv and Toronado. The B Body cars were all at least 2 seconds faster to 60 than the Thunderbird and even Oldsmobile marketed the Starfire as a “Sports” car (laughably). All of them either carried the highest power version of their brands V8 or had them optional. The Grand Prix lost the ball becoming more Brougham-y with those fender skirts between 65-68, but the Starfire (and it’s decontented Jetstar 1 twin) played the sporty card til the Toronado took over in 1966. Even the sporty elegant Riv boasted a “Gran Sport” package for 1965-66.
I’d say in the face of the flair birds continuing marketing dominance the GM personal coupes followed the Thunderbird into Broughamville (except for the Grand Prix) and perhaps reluctantly (The Broughamization of the Toronado seems at cross purposes with it’s original mission).
But back to the BlunderBird here, This was just the first time the Bird lost it’s way. But I can’t think of which is worse, one of these (why did they keep a 113 inch Wheelbase and then hang that much car on it?) or a 1980 Thunderbird with the 255 V8. But there’s one detail I like about both: The big blobby full width tail lights.
Sporty performance was never really a big part of the personal luxury ethos. The occasional efforts at a semi-serious luxury performance car (like the Wildcat you mention, the Riviera Gran Sport, the hotter Grand Prixes, or the Monte Carlo SS454) didn’t usually sell that well. To paraphrase Car Life magazine, personal luxury cars were not so much sports cars as cars for sports — well-heeled customers who wanted more dash and style than a standard sedan. Most cared very little for 0-60 times or ETs, and if something was too overtly sporty in feel — as with the suspension tuning of the first Toronado or the first E-body Eldorado — customers tended to complain.
Younger Baby Boomer customers who actually liked sporty cars generally couldn’t afford something like a Toronado or Grand Prix, and in the rare event they had that kind of wherewithal, a performance-minded young buyer was probably more likely to go for a Sting Ray or a Hemi Mopar. The Boomers never really warmed to these cars; the point that the Baby Boom generation started getting into the age and income bracket that had been the core audience of cars like the Thunderbird and Mark III was also the point where sales of cars like this really went south.
Beyond the fact that buyers in this segment seemed to really like the bloat and bling, I think Ford had a big advantage in terms of brand identity. Buick, for instance, had been using the name “Riviera” to identify all of its pillarless hardtops since 1949, so as a nameplate, it was rather diluted. Oldsmobile had used the Starfire name for a Ninety-Eight sub-series in the fifties, and both the Starfire and Grand Prix were obviously re-trimmed B-body hardtops, not specialty cars.
The ’67 Thunderbird design is apparently the combination of two different designs. Dave Ash did the front end, while Bill Boyer (who ran the Thunderbird studio) developed the rear, and they sort of met in the middle — I think that’s why it doesn’t look especially unified.
Bill Boyer said later that by the mid-sixties, the T-Bird studio was fishing for a new idiom. The 1961-1963 Bullet Birds had not quite sold as well as the 1958-1960 Square Birds, and so the 1964 Flair Bird had returned to some of the Square Bird’s themes, especially in the front. The Flair Bird had been successful, even with the Riviera and Grand Prix to contend with, but they couldn’t continue that direction indefinitely — personal luxury cars are a very fashion-driven market.
I don’t know the time frame for the styling development of the ’67 T-Bird, but much of the work was probably done in 1962-1963, and I think production approval was probably no later than mid-1964. At that point, the Riviera and Grand Prix were on sale and doing fairly well — the ’63 Grand Prix outsold the ’63 Thunderbird — and Ford stylists were probably aware that an Oldsmobile personal coupe was in the works. The GM designs had a very different aesthetic than the Thunderbird, and they were less ostentatious. I suspect there was concern that the Thunderbird was going to end up looking a little old hat.
The Mark III had its effect, also, I think more than conventional wisdom might expect. There was probably a $2,500 spread between a loaded T-Bird and a loaded Mark III, but I imagine a lot of typical Thunderbird buyers were quite capable of making that leap.
What I find strange is that in every other FoMoCo line, the transition from, say, 1965 to 1971 was so seamless and natural. You could see the evolution every year. The designers knew where they were going and were taking us there one step at a time. Not so with this car.
And one good look at the profile tells me that a convertible would not have helped.
Well, the 1963-1965 Riviera and the 1966 Toronado also had little evolutionary relationship with contemporary Buicks and Oldsmobiles — both were pretty much clean-sheet concepts. (Not surprising, given that the Riviera began as a proposal for Cadillac and the Toronado design was not really intended as a production car.)
When the T-Bird was competing mostly with heavily decorated versions of standard bodies, the Thunderbird studio could develop their own evolution, but I suspect the Riviera may have thrown the designers for a loop. Careful evolution is all well and good for mass-market cars, where you have to be careful not to alienate your existing customers, but in a heavily fashion-driven market, a couple of radical new ideas can leave you looking old-fashioned in a hurry.
On the other hand, customers aren’t always receptive to radical new ideas. The first-generation Toronado really took it on the chin for that; considered as part of the Olds line, it was a bit of a mutant, both stylistically and mechanically. It was well received by critics, but it was not a great seller, and Olds ended up progressively watering it down (and making it more like the Eldorado, which was much more successful). The Toronado is more favorably remembered, but its sales suggest that its contemporary audience was even less fond of it than they were of the Glamour Birds.
And one good look at the profile tells me that a convertible would not have helped.
Sadly, I must concur. I usually bemoan the fact that most popular personal luxury coupes didn’t have a convertible version but, in the case of the ’67-’68 Thunderbird, it wouldn’t have mattered.
About the only good thing to say about the styling of these Thunderbirds is that you have to credit Ford for trying something truly distinctive (what is now known as ‘out-of-the-box’). Unfortunately, most times, it doesn’t pay off as well as sticking with mundane, traditional design cues.
I’ve long thought the proportions on these cars were wonky, and the styling was a clash of different memes. The front end tries to be sporting…in an awkwardly blunt, slot-loading way. And those landau bars? Leave them on a hearse, please.
I could sort of understand the side profile, but the huge, blank, gaping maw on the front just kills the car for me. It looks like AMC borrowed the same nose for the ’71 Javelin, but at least the AMC appears to have better proportions.
Miscelanious sums things up quite nicely. The 67-71 cars always looked like a concept car that accidentally made it to production to me. Its like it just wasn’t quite finished.
Those overhangs! What was with Ford and having 3′ of sheetmetal fore and aft of the wheels? They put it over the top on the 76-79 cars.
Lovely. Yet pathetic.
You may have guessed…what love I have left from my infatuation with Kaiser-Jeep, I have for the late-’60s-early-’70s Fords. The Galaxie of 1968 was that Formative Car, along with the Wagoneer also parked in the driveway…oh, how I wished it had the hidden headlights of the LTD!
And the Thunderbird was part and parcel of that. Right down to the hidden headlights.
The Thunderbird, to my child’s eye, was never a sports or sporty car. The original 1950s two-seaters were unknown to me…what I knew were the bloated 1959; the less-bloated, more rational 1964s. And then the 1968s…given the template, heavy, long hood, short deck, huge C-pillar…as Age-Of-Brougham cars went, the hidden-headlight, forward-scoop-intake T-Birds were a nice example.
It didn’t hurt that in 1977, a friend inherited a grandfather’s example. It hurt more that inside a year, he did to it what kids do to cars: beat it beyond repair, including a rear-end impact that bent the frame. He still drove it; but its status as anything but a junker was over..
Anyway…as an adult, I see the superficiality of the Iacocoa Era; of the excesses of the Age Of Brougham; but childhood fixation on what is “right” is hard to shake.
The 1960s are dead. Long live the 1960s!
Is there anyone besides me that feels that childish, mindless exhilaration when given a styling layout that features HIDDEN HEADLIGHTS?
Sure, I know they’re useless. Buck-Rogers, A costly frivolity. But…to HIDE those four sealed-beam units that all cars of my kid-hood had…that was…CLEVER!! It was like…a custom car that wasn’t supposed to be on the road. Like a high-technology unit that only had headlights when it needed them. WOW!
I’m channeling my nine-year-old self, obviously.
Ford killed hidden-headlights, IMHO, with their excesses. The 1969-70 LTDs not only didn’t need them; they looked silly with them. That great wall of a grille just BEGGED for something to break it up…
…but before the Nixon Era…was the Thunderbird. And the 1968 LTD. Including the 1968 Country Squire…with HIDDEN HEADLIGHTS.
The ne plus ultra of that was the 1968 Toronado. The headlights were hidden behind the twin grilles, which retracted to reveal…a second set of grilles with the lights mounted on them. With the W34 (cold air intake) system, there was even a vacuum switch that would automatically open the outer grilles if the radiator temperature exceeded a certain threshold, so that they wouldn’t cause overheating. Even the Thunderbird couldn’t match that one!
I had a ’69 Riviera with the wildcat 430, which also had the hidden headlights that year. Awesome high speed freeway cruising car, surprisingly good handling for such a behemoth. I called her “The Road Warrior”. The original metallic green paint had oxidized and flaked to the point it really looked like something out of a Mad Max movie. This was around ’87 or ’88, when nearly everyone in LA (where I lived then) drove dramatically smaller cars. Getting on the freeway with the Road Warrior was like parting the Red Sea — people saw that hulking monster coming quickly from behind and they really MOVED OVER, lol.
I loved driving that car in LA…
Oh, and I had a ’67 (and a ’70) T-Bird too, in fact the ’67 was the Riv’s replacement car. Very surprised to see all the contempt here for the styling, I always considered it an extremely good looking car. I put a set of chrome Keystone Klassics on mine, with whitewalls and the original maroon paint it looked fantastic, and people complemented me everywhere I went with it.
Funny, the Riv I had looked a wreck but was a blast to drive, while the Tbird looked great but was a drag to drive in a hurry. Sadly, it was purely a boulevard cruiser, and mine was an original “Q code” car with the 428, too. Tons of power, you just couldn’t do much with it.
Neither of the pics I posted were my cars, BTW, just similar ones found via google. 🙂
When I was a kid, hidden headlights, to me, were the epitome of cool and either sportiness (Corvette) or luxury (Mark III, IV) or both. In my mind, Lincolns were just a little bit better than Cadillacs because the Caddys didn’t even have hidden headlights. (My grandma’s ’75 Marquis even had them, with that goofy crest and padding like the vinyl top, IIRC.) Of course, I hadn’t considered that the hidden headlights added extra complication and expense, and could eventually stop functioning, leaving the car with an inelegant eyes-wide-open look, or with one headlight door open and one closed, which was even worse. I also hadn’t considered that Ford had just gone berserk with them and applied them just about everywhere.
A neighbor of ours had one of these T-Birds in the early to mid ’70s, and always kept it well-maintained. I especially liked the taillight treatment (aside from the hidden headlights). He was the one neighbor of ours who my mom described to me as a “confirmed bachelor”; of course, only much later did the probable underlying meaning of that phrase occur to me. And I guess you could say this generation T-Bird does have sort of a campiness to it. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Back to the hidden-headlight topic: I remember flipping through the owner’s manual for my parents’ ’68 Impala, and seeing instructions for operating the optional hidden headlights, which of course ours didn’t have, but apparently this was a possibility on some cars at the time. But in 40+ years I may have seen one or two examples of full-size Chevys with hidden headlights. Anyone ever own one like that, or know anyone who did?
I’d seen exactly TWO 1968 Caprices with hidden headlights. First one I saw, I thought it was a custom. Second one I saw, was in the dealer’s lot (the local Miracle Mile was near my childhood home).
They were an option but one almost nobody chose. And I understand why…compared with full-size Chevrolets in years before and since, the 1968 grille was singularly unattractive.
’69 Chevys were available with hidden lamps too. They looked great and seemed to find a few more takers than the ’68s.
While we’re on the subject, how many cars can you think of that looked natural and “finished” with their hidden lights open? There’s the ’66-67 Chargers, the ’68 Tornado mentioned above…
Responding to an old post with a more modern twist, the 81 to 83 Chrysler Imperial.
67 & 68 Eldorado had hidden headlights as standard.
Hidden headlights do it for me too.
There’s a commonality between the ’67 T-Bird grille and the ’68 LTD’s – that great untrammeled stretch of black egg-crate. Maybe since the T-Bird was slipping down the corporate ladder to becoming the personal luxury Ford, that was the idea. But they really did a poor job with this design overall.
i was six when these came out and even then i new something wasn’t right. the previous gen t-bird had been so cool: synchronized tail lights and convertible. then this thing arrives as a four door with a vinyl roof that even has a fake s shaped bar to mimic the mechanism of the convertible. and the cutout for the rear doors goes through the vinyl roof! my beloved synchronized tail lights were gone!
why, oh why, didn’t they just restyle the previous model with the new slab sides and the cool front end with the flip up lights.
T-Birds had sequential TS thru the end of 1971.
damn! you’re right.
Hey “safe as”-Boy, you really dont know anything about Tbirds! Did the ’62 thru’66 Tbirds have a fake S bar?Hmmm…Did the ’67 thru ’71 Tbirds have sequential or “synchronized”( as you called them)taillights?Hmmm…
You also get at “Seriously Dude” award Milk Boy…the first “S” bars as you call them (they’re Landau bars Dude) appeared in 1962!!! Go look it up! The previous generation T-Birds were way off the mark compared to their GM competition. Even the Grand Prix based on the Pontiac B-Body coupe had way better lines and style than the ’64-’66 T-Birds. The ’63-’65 Riviera killed the Bird! Look at hte ’67 and SEE Ford’s retort to the original Riviera. You guys don’t get it! Wow….
Even though Iwas only 18 when it was introduced, Ican still remember my initial reaction upon seeing it for the first time. Istill have PTS when Isee one now. Thanks for nothing for the horrific flasback.
With the exception of the 1967-71 sedans (you gotta love anything with suicide doors), the first of 17 years of bad T-Birds. From these Ford lurched first to the gargantuan 1972-76 Mark IV Birds, then to the horribly decontented 1977-79 Torino Birds, then the 1980-82 Box Birds, the stodgiest sheetmetal draped over a Fox platform. It’s amazing that the model survived such intensive mistreatment.
“Box birds”. There’s some serious cognitive dissonance going on there. A flying box? Hmmm….
One of Collectible Automobile’s writers called that generation “Squeakbricks”. No thunder left. All the style of a brick.
It is interesting to see younger posters talking about sports sedans in relation to ’60s cars. These cars were nothing about “sport.” At the time, a smooth as possible ride was considered the goal to shoot for. Same for driving style; drivers were trained to drive as smoothly as possible to maximize passenger comfort. Excellent brakes were not considered important because hard stopping was frowned upon. As we have discussed on other Classics, frames were even made to flex to make the ride softer and more compliant.
Fast forward to my Acura TL. This car is, ahem, rather firm. You feel every pebble on the road. Drivers such as myself love this on the rare occasion we can unleash such a car’s potential. But how often is this? I get to really drive my TL to its potential like once a year. Thus, perhaps the smooth rides of the ’60s were really worth something since most of the time comfort trumps sharpness.
A ’60s car as firm as an Acura TL would not have sold as single unit in 1968. It was not what the market wanted and especially not what people buying T-Birds wanted. These tend to be older buyers in their 50’s or even 60’s. They started driving Model A Fords and worked their way up to the T-Bird. For many their next car was a hearse.
Interesting how times have changed!
The other major thing that contributed to ’60’s ‘merican cars soft ride and sloppy handling were the tall profile, low pressure, rayon cord bias ply tires.
“Excellent brakes were not considered important because hard stopping was frowned upon.”
I remember older people back then hated power brakes, and were afraid of the lurching. Their solution was to just drive 20 mph under the limit. That’s why disk brakes took years to catch on.
Well boys, I gotta say I’m really surprised to see so many people don’t like this car. I really had no idea. It’s like when I discovered there is a huge number of people who can’t stand Billy Joel. I’m not insanely in love with Joel’s music (or this Thunderbird) but I don’t understand the strong negative reactions.
I am a Lincoln fan, and the Mark III is pretty sweet, but if you offered me a choice between a mint Mark III or a mint suicide door Thunderbird, I’d take the ‘Bird every time.
People who don’t like boats that don’t attempt to disguise their pedigree will never like this car. That’s just how it is. People will be turned off immediately by the overhang, by its ridiculously thick C-pillar… etc etc etc. Ditto for the Marks IV and V, purebred, 100% boats complete with ridiculous nosedive and lopo engines.
By comparison, the Mark III is a much leaner muscular car with decent pickup. So, this Bird really is a love-hate thing, no in between. Just like the IV and the V.
I personally like it (no surprise there). But, that being said, I also find it to lack certain pizzaz… for me, I gotta have a Lincoln if I go back that far, but the III lacks that certain something in my book, so I’d probably adopt a IV or a V for a Weekend Only pet if I had the funds to bring it back.
“It’s like when I discovered there is a huge number of people who can’t stand Billy Joel.”
Oh Gosh, that me laugh so hard…
😀
Just to clarify: I do like some Billy Joel, but IMO he can also be extraordinarily obnoxious. Barry Manilow is like that for me too.
When he’s good he’s awesome, but when he’s bad it’s just cringeworthy.
Maybe Billy is a car guy, as the following seems to fit this CC:
What’s the matter with the car I’m driving?
Can’t you tell that it’s out of style?
Should I get a set of white wall tires?
Are you gonna cruise the miracle mile?
Nowadays you can’t be too sentimental
Your best bet’s a true baby blue Continental
Hot funk, cool punk, even if it’s old junk
It’s still rock and roll to me.
Apparently Billy is a boat and motorcycle guy. 🙂
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Joel#Other_ventures
Stan Kenton, Tex Ritter, Billy Joel and Barry Manilow all within one post. Are we inclusive people or what? 🙂
I find the Stan Kenton metaphor quite accurate. Stan was on top of his artistic game in 1955, ’56 and ’57 playing and recording charts by Bill Russo and Bill Holman as well as the great “Cuban Fire LP by Johnny Richards. By 1967 he was recording mainly Muzak-like dreck like the above mentioned Tex Ritter album as well as covers of pop tunes like “Sunny” and tunes from “Hair.” Fortunately he spent his last years playing mostly straight ahead jazz (but forced to stay continuously on the road to make a living).
Yes, Kenton had one of the most musically interesting bands ever. And one of the least predictable. It seems like everything he ever recorded was wildly different from anything he did 3 years before or after. I guess jazzmen can have ADHD too. 🙂 I agree with you on Cuban Fire – a true classic!
I actually thought Billy Joel was a Citroen 2CV guy after he crashed his a couple of years back.
I know that these are nowhere near the collectible that the ’66 & earlier is, and will never be as highly regarde, sought after, or valuable. Guess what? I like them anyway.
I had a 67 version aound 10 years ago that I purchased from a friend for pretty good price and sold it a few years later at a profit!. It seems to me the interior of the 67 was much more like the previous versions whereas this one seems to have gone more standard Ford fare. Vacuum door locks! Had at least three of the coffee can vacuum canisters under the hood. It was ok but the 61-63’s are my favorites.
http://automotivemileposts.com/tbird1968crtest.html
Great old Consumer Reports test.
They weren’t exactly crazy about it either.
Now you know why I’m a fan of GM. Aside from a very few models, Ford was an also-ran compared to GM’s offerings – and they were getting seriously bloated, too!
I remember reading over and over how critics panned the front and rear overhangs on ALL cars, plus the small-ness of the tires and how the bodies were ‘way too wide for the actual track of the vehicles – not only this one.
To me, the only redeeming quality the old cars have for me is – of course – the pillarless hardtops – and the opening windows on 2-dr. sedans and coupes, plus real chrome and polished aluminum trim.
I never could understand the 4-door ‘Birds, I mean, what were they thinking? Trying to masquerade it as a two door made it worse!
No, this thing is all-ugly, yesterday and today. I’ll put my ’04 Impala on a pedestal above this, and it is a somewhat quirky design, too.
My experience of Ford products of the 1960s mirrors your opinion, Zack. I cannot think of a single Ford product from the 60’s that I have driven that could even compare to a GM product of the same time. With the exception of the Vega (and the Pinto was awful, too), this carried through to the 1970s.
To be honest, Canuck, the only Fords I did like were the 1965 & 66 Galaxie 500, 1967 & 68 Mustang and the 1968 & 69 Torinos. Still would never take them over a Chevy! I looked at them in the showrooms and in a direct comparison to a comparable Chevy, just not quite there. Ditto for Chrysler.
@Zackman: my first car was a 1969 Torino GT with 390 & 4 speed. The head mechanic at my father’s trucking job owned the car originally. He rebuilt the motor at 75K miles (they’re just getting broken in nowadays!), bored it out .030 and a hotter cam. He sold it to my older brother (who erroneously thought the 4 speed would get good gas mileage!), who in turn sold it to me. I got the car in the fall of 1980 right as I went off to university, and as gasoline went up. I only drove it for two years and sparingly at that, but man what a ride.
Until I bought a 1972 Olds 442… 😉
Guys, guys. I cannot let this one go. Sure, the big C bodies were nice cars and were better than what Ford was doing (though the Continental was pretty nice), and the Pontiac Olds Buick triumverate generally outclassed Mercury. But Chevrolet? Pleeeese.
Was there any reason to drive a full sized car with a 2 speed automatic after, say, 1960? Every 60s Galaxie I ever drove was tighter structurally than the corresponding big Chevy. From 65 on, the Galaxies were smoother and quieter. Neither was such a great handler (that’s why there were Plymouths) but I always preferred driving Galaxies to Impalas. I will say that the Impalas were more rust resistant (but nobody knew this when they were new) and were often better looking. Engines? The Ford 289 was every bit the equal of the 283 and the big 390 was mighty pleasant. (I will give you the 327 over the 352, though).
So, particularly with 1965 on, my vote would be Galaxie over Impala. Truth be told, I would have picked a Plymouth Fury III over either, but that is another topic.
Can’t really argue with you on that one, JP, as our mechanic, who was also a neighbor, drove Chryslers exclusively. They all were quite nice andseemed to give him good service – his cars were nice, not the stereotypical mechanic who drives a derelict ’cause he’s too busy fixing everyone elses!
On the Fords – well, they did seem quieter. A gal I knew in California for too short of a time drove around in a ’65 Galaxie 500 that was pretty sweet. Would I have taken a Ford over a Chevy in those days? Not a stinkin’ chance! Today, I’m not quite as prejudiced, but still pine for the ideal Impala!
Zackman, it’s funny to me how a given person feels happy and comfortable with one car and not with another. I grew up with a yen for Fords and developed a case of Mopar-love in my teens. You grew up a Chebby guy. In the 90s I spent 8 years in big GM cars – an 84 98 Regency coupe and an 89 Cad Brougham (basically same car, different hood ornament). They were very nice cars, and I could see where someone would really love them. But I never felt at home in them. I always kind of felt like they belonged to an older aunt or something. When I replaced the Cad with a Crown Vic, The world just felt right again. Wierd. Even now, I am driving my mom’s 06 Lacrosse to give it some exercise while she recovers from a knee replacement. The car is very nice and has only 15k miles on it. It’s a nice place to visit (so-so, actually) but I wouldn’t want to live there. I much prefer my 99 Town & Country with 206K.
So while I personally kind of wonder if the term “ideal Impala” isn’t some kind of oxymoron, it is a car that clearly makes you feel at home. Which is a good thing.
JP:
Here’s where I come from: Up until I turned 14, we were a Chrysler family. I grew up in my dad’s 1950 Plymouth. When that car had to go 10 years later, he picked up a 1953 Dodge, then two years later, picked up a 1955 Dodge. That finally broke too often, then when I turned 14 in 1965, he brought home a beautiful 1960 Impala sports sedan. I learned to drive in that car (no PS, PB, A/C but was a 283 powerglide) and it had one very important feature: A radio that worked! Later he bought the 1966 Impala detailed elsewhere. I had my 1964 Impala SS convertible in the service, and that, to me, was the “perfect” Impala and the car I wish I could own again. My current Impala is, to me, a great car, but if I get another, I want one decked-out a little more. I suppose it all comes down to what you spent the most time in when you were a kid – those impressions stay with you – whether it be a GM, Ford, Chrysler or something else! For the record, I still am a Chrysler fan, too!
I don’t mind the exterior styling, which has an unusual “wedge” profile — but the interior began the T-Bird’s descent into overstuffed generic. It’s too bad that Ford ditched the classic T-Bird front end, but perhaps they figured that the Mustang should henceforth champion the “beak” look — and that the T-Bird should have hidden headlights if the Cougar and Mark III did.
One reason why the T-Bird shifted directions was to make room for the Mustang and Cougar. The Cougar in particular was viewed as a downsized T-Bird, with an unusual emphasis on luxury-oriented features for a pony car.
Meanwhile, Ford seemed to have second thoughts about abandoning the “mid-sized” luxury sedan market that the 1961-63 Continental had pioneered. By 1966 the Continental had grown back to full size just as sales for smaller cars were booming. In a vague sense the 1967 T-Bird four-door is an update on the 1961 Continental.
The glitzy nature of the T-Bird four door illustrates how radically Ford’s styling sensibility had shifted since the early 1960s. Clean styling was replaced with heavy-handed gimmicks such as the landau bars hiding the rear-door cutouts.
That said, I think that the late-60s T-Birds display a great deal more design creativity than their successors in the 1970s.
True, it’s not Woodstock. It’s the psychodelic period that everyone at that time seemingly went through. Not Rubber Soul, nor Abbey Road is this. This is Revolver. And I like it. 😀
Of course, I also like my Marks IV and V more than i do III and VI, soooo… you get the idea!
Try Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band (1967) and the “White” album (1968). I preferred Canned Heat’s “Boogie with Canned Heat” and “Living the Blues” from the same period. Maybe a little Jefferson Airplane and Lemon Pipers thown in for good measure!
Check out Their Satanic Majesty’s Request,the Stones answer to Sgt Pepper.Written off as a dud at the time it’s a whole lot better than made out.I first heard it in 1973 and really enjoyed it
It’s got some good tracks, She’s a Rainbow and 2000 Light Years From Home, but gimme Exile any day of the week.
Beggars Banquet was my favourite
Another gem, Gem. Let’s drink to the salt of the earth.
I’ll throw another wrench in the works and say I like “Sticky Fingers” best. 🙂
I do, however, love the song “No Expectations” from “BB.”
I would like to be given a 4 door Thunderbird, perhaps a Mint Green 69 with White Viynl Roof & Interior… Is Leather Possible Originally? To buy one, I’d fear I was making a mistake, But I sure would love to be given a pail of FMC suicide Door models, I’d Also Like a 1965 Lincoln Continental convertible, laded to the gills please.
I can remember when these came out, They Were Like a Reply to Cougar one-upping the Mustang. The Thunderbird was like a more deluxe version of the original Cougar, out that same fall. I was 7, yet I knew It wasn’t as rich looking as the 66 had been. The Interior was seriously downgraded & made more mainstream, akin to full size Ford models. (Much like what would Ironically happen again in 1977) Though that was more obvious to the buying public it seems. This car actually seems more alike my Mother’s 73 Thunderbird, than it does resemble the 66 from one short year earlier.
I Can remember I use to fantasize my Bike to be a 69 Diamond Green w/white roof T Bird.
They did seem inferior to GMs offerings, but I liked tjhe Cosmetic uptick of the styling.
The 67 Tbird to my eyes looked the same coming or going relatively. The Headlight look no doubt inspired the LTD headlamps of 68 & beyond.
I have always associated this car with cynical greed.Not with the owners , but with the suits at Ford that took a clean design in the original ‘Bird and 10 years later came up with…This.
The corporate accounting department probably had some “Animal Farm” moment when they started braying “2 doors good, 4 doors better!” after watching the original double its sales by adding seats out back.
It seems that every bad styling cliche ever invented was glued on to this car. From the faux landau irons to the mock classic (vinyl) roof,this car just screams bad taste. I truly believe that this is where Ford lost the script for Thunderbird and it became a bloated parody of the clean,classic machine that it had been just a few years before. After this iteration,T-Birds got progressively bigger and unwieldy until they finally regained some sense of sanity with the ’83 “aero” ‘Bird. But by then it was wayyyyy late to win back the kind of drivers that remembered the T-Birds as bloated disco wagons.
Greed just killed this car.
I too am blown away by the negativity. I consider this bird the last of the desirable ones and don’t think it’s styling or proportions are way off given the times. Reminds me of when I was a tour guide in college at a historic home in the French Quarter. We had pretty extensive training on the history of the home and its occupants over the years. Invariably though, someone on the tour would ask you a question that you didn’t know the answer to. Our stock answer was “it was the style of the period.”
However, the next gen 72-76 jumped the proverbial shark big time…
At the very least, this one was…original. Original in that it wasn’t an obvious badge-engineered POS. Granted, it was a long way removed from the original…but when you think about it, the original was a long-way removed from a Triumph or MG, also. Bloat was the order of the day in the Iacocoa era (both the cars and the man – Lido was getting a fat face in those years, IIRC). The Mustang gained, the Fairlane took steroids, and the Pinto was born a fat baby.
But this generation of T-Bird…was its own car. It had a family resemblence, in drivetrain and style…but it stood alone.
As compared to the “improved” model of a few years later – that no nearsighted owner could tell from a Torino, on which it was based, or an Elite, an almost-clone.
Another friend’s father had one of THOSE, too…while in our family we had a 1973 Torino. First time in, I was AMAZED that the dash was IDENTICAL! Only difference was the steering wheel and padding (cheaper in the newer Thunderbird) and of course lots of vinyl wood-grain applique to communicate “rich.”
The story of the Thunderbird, over the years, is the story of one misstep after another…finally leading to that dead-ended roadster of a couple of years ago. Sad…but as a paradigm of modern Ford’s troubles, it’ll do.
When I think about the design / mission falure of these cars the #1 culprit that comes to mind is the launch of the Cougar. It moved into the sporty – luxury orbit that the bird had enjoyed. Sorta forcing Ford to start piling on the faux luxury and shoot @ a different target
Great point, I think you’ve nailed the problem and I’m not sure I’ve heard it put this way before. Superficially, at least, the ’67 Cougar was a downmarket evolution of the ’66 T-Bird as much as it was an upmarket Mustang.
I count the 1967-69 Thunderbirds as a guilty pleasure. Ford needed something new after 1966, given the increasing competition and the need to stay ahead in this segment, but the company clearly couldn’t figure out exactly what it wanted the Thunderbird to be. But it was still built with quality, and the four door is an interesting body style. Although it shows just how confused Ford was when the most interesting body style of a car known for popularizing the idea of a personal luxury coupe is a four-door sedan!
Still, I wouldn’t mind a 1969 “regular” coupe or sedan with the 429 V-8. Must be those sequential turn signals…
My Grandfather had a black 2 door 68 T-bird. It had the 428 engine. I remember many a trip to Florida in that car in the mid 70’s. The rear seat was the curved “bucket” back seat that was actually quite comfortable.
My grandmother did say the car was sportier than the Caddy it replaced, so marketing did it’s job. Personally I liked the front styling and preferred the round gauges to the old setup used in years prior. The only problem it really had was a small leak in the front glass at the top that defied efforts to fix it. In downpours a small amount of water always made it through.
Years later my grandfather remarked it was his favorite car, except for gas mileage, and the one he hated to sell the most, but 100K miles was a lot for a 68 and it was replaced with a 75 Grand Torinio. Huge mistake there.
It’s kind of an odd thing this Thunderbird. It seems to signal a time where Ford is in transition and it’s not immediately obvious where the line is going. Too much like Cougar, too much like Lincolns. Not really the T-bird of old. Neither fish nor fowl.
Much like today’s Ford lineup. The Ford of today has killed Mercury, and is strangling Lincoln with cars like the new (new) Taurus. It really should have been a Mercury or Lincoln only. It seems too much overlap between Ford and Lincoln, until Lincoln gets some new blood…
In our working class neighborhood, you were doing OK with a Mercury or an Oldsmobile, a Caddy was top of the heap. The Thunderbird wasn’t really part of the equation. The generation of drivers who cut their teeth on Model T’s (like my father) and the baby boomers (like my older brothers) didn’t “get” this car. It’s a wonder to me that it sold as well as it did. Neither fish nor fowl.
I have a 1967 Thunderbird 2-door hardtop. Not the Landau! The two look really different from each other. I love my hardtop as it has a definite sporting flair. People even get it mixed up as a ’68-’69 Dodge Charger because of the hidden headlights. What happens with this car is when the vinyl Landau roof is put on the coupes, it does change the proportions. Other hardtop coupes of the era were never that radically changed with the slab of vinyl put on the top. They would look slightly different from their non-vinyl topped versions. But the 67-68 T-Bird 2-doors totally change proportions with the Landau roof. The proportions of my hardtop coupe ‘Look Right”. So right in fact when taken to car shows nobody remembers that you couldn’t buy one without the vinyl top. The hardtop did not have the Landau Irons but rather a horizontal “floating” Bird emblem on the sail panel. But, the roof flowed nicely into the back trunk area. On the Landau’s this comes off more squarish and doesn’t follow the body’s curves. If you look at my car, you instantly see 1963 Riviera all over the place! Seriously! From the proportions, the roof linke and the interior SCREAMS Riviera right down to the flat angled floor console. But it all gets lost with the Vinyl Topped Landaus sadly. IMO the 64-66 Flair Birds look like Old Man’s cars (fender skirts? Really?). The ’67-68 had the potential to be really sporty sexy couples. And you are right, the Landau roof comes off way better on the 4-door. As far as driving the 66 compared to the 67, the 67 wins hands down. It handles better, rides better, you have a better seating position. Probably why they all got driven into the ground. You can see my ’67 here:
http://automotivemileposts.com/paint1967tbird.html
Tell me mine doesn’t look totally different than this one on CC? It’s a whole different car with the painted roof!
My older brother bought a brand new ’67 in Brittany Blue with no vinyl top. I agree they look much better without. I also agree it was a fine looking car. I do remember when he was showing it off he commented that he liked the flair birds better. His wife was trapped in it once when the power door locks would not release. She drove directly to the dealer for a fix. I also liked how the rear windows retracted into the C pillar. Overall a decent car for ’67 but a letdown compared to earlier era and the beginning of the end for the Tbird.
Although I was a young kid at the time, I cannot recall a single adult in the world I inhabited who considered the 67 TBird an upgrade or improvement on the ones that had come before. My father made a good income and was very style conscious. Had he made his jump to self employment in 1965, I have little doubt that he would have driven a TBird. But when he actually did it in 1970, it was a Mark III. Maybe the Thunderbird’s problem is that by 1967, it had accomplished its mission, which was to get Ford into the personal luxury market. Once there, the upgraded Mark III took it from there. The TBird would be a car in search of a market ever after.
BTW, your brother’s car sounds like as attractive a 67 Bird as ever there was.
Brittany Blue with a blue leather interior. I would not call the car ugly at all, it just didn’t have the presence of the earlier cars. The color stuck with me so much that i bought an 05 Mustang GT in Windveil Blue.
Always loved that Ford Brittany Blue. My 67 Galaxie was Lime Gold, a color I detested at the time. Brittany Blue would have been in my top 3 color choices for my Galaxie.
The 1968 model is my favourite T-Bird. I am probably bias because I am a
1968 model myself. I would seriously consider a 4 door. I love suicide doors 🙂
Wow, I guess I disagree with most everyone here- including Mr. Cavanaugh the author! I have owned a 1967 Thunderbird hardtop coupe (sans vinyl top) since I was in high school in 1978. It was a very nice near mint car and still is to this day! One thing none of you mentioned is that the 1967 Thunderbird- at least the 2-door Landaus and the 2-door hardtops, were a direct response to GM’s personal luxury coupes- namely the first generation Riviera! My dad worked for a Pontiac/Cadillac dealer so we were heavy GM’ers. The one Ford my dad liked over the years was the T-Bird. He traded my Bird in on a then new ’78 Caddy so that is how I got my Bird.
With that said, the moment I saw my ’67 Bird, I said “65 Riviera” with some muscle car charm thrown in! I never liked, and TBH still don’t like the ’64-’66 Flair Birds. Ford took a step backwards in styling compared to the ’63-’65 Riviera, ’63-’64 Grand Prix and the ’66 Toronado. The Flair Birds, with their fender skirts were certainly no sporty car! The Mustang filled that niche. However, the ’67-71 birds definitely were much more sporty! The fully radiused wheel wells, the Charger like grill with the hidden headlamps, and in the ’67’s, the full bucket seat interior with a center console that totally aped the ’63-’65 Riviera! How can you guys miss this stuff? Hello McFly!
I prefer mine without the vinyl landau roof, but the Flair Bird Landaus didn’t look any better. As far as size, did you know the ’67-69’s weighed LESS than their comprable Flair Bird counterparts? The coupes did anyway owed to the return of body-on-frame construction. Wheelbase was up a FRACTION over the Flairbirds.
So now that I have educated you all on the ’67-’69 Coupes, lets address the 4-door.
Totally different animal, yet, the ’67 Thunderbird 4-door was the progenetor of all of today’s sports SEDANs. Yeah, cars like the first gen Caddy STS, ’73-’75 Grand Am 4-door, and all of the import luxury/performance sedans of today owe their roots to the 4-door Bird! Why? Because it was the first concentrated effort to put some sportiness and pizazz into a more compact package! Yeah, I said compact! By 1967 standards anyway. Remember, the full sized Ford was yet another 3-4 inches longer wheelbase, and Lincolns and Caddy’s were a whopping 1-2 feet longer in wheelbase, wider and much heavier. Ever see buckets in a Sedan DeVille? Not! So Ford stretched the coupe, put in the very cool retro “suicide” rear hinged doors, and the Landau roof actually looks good on the 4-door! Buckets, big V-8 and a more manuervable package!
In 1968 compromises started to be made. One point that was made in this article which is true, is that Ford, with the Mark III started to cannabalize T-bird sales. The bench seat with the base alligator “Torino” level upholstery was a let down. But, buckets could be ordered and the vinyl upgraded or even leather added. The 429 def put this Bird in competition with the muscle cars of the era (read C/D’s match of a ’68 T-bird vs. a ’68 GTO)…and, these were awesome road cars! Every single one of them! Compared to the Flair Birds with their overweight unit bodies, and spongy suspensions, the ‘Glamour Birds run circles around them!
The Riviera and Grand Prix probably held true to their form more- especially when the GP was downsized in ’69 to the specialty A-Body Platform (became known as the G-Body)…The Toronado started going the luxury route as did its sibling the ’67 Eldorado. although all of these late 60’s personal cars retained a sporty flair their early 70’s counterparts lost among opera windows and padded vinyl half tops!
In closing, if you have never owned or driven one of these Birds, you literally do no know what you are talking about! I have owned a ’65 Riv, and a ’69 and a ’70 Grand Prix…and I still have my ’67 Bird. Hmmm…figure that one out! The only reason these cars have an identiy crisis of sorts is that the ’58-’66 T-Bird crowd never forgave Ford for dropping the convertible. The ’67-’69 Thunderbirds were a much more focused, executed package combining the sportiness of then-current muscle cars with great comfort and luxury before the T-Bird bloated into the SuperFly Pimp-Mobiles of the 70’s.
John Ryan
VTCI Technical Editor
1967-71 Thunderbirds
We are happy that you are reading and contributing. This is the great thing about old cars – there is something for everyone. As for your T-Bird, it looks like you have a really nice one there.
The funny thing about these is that I did not expect to be so negative on the car when I sat down at the keyboard. I never liked them as much as the 58-66 versions, but if they were cool enough for the inaugural class of Hot Wheels, who was I to nitpick. But as I sat there and looked longer and harder at the pictures, with some some 30 years distance from when these were relatively common, well, you see what happened.
I have never driven one of these, but have driven an number of other FoMoCo products of this era, including a Mark III. Ford did a very good job of giving its customers a quiet, comfortable car that had a solid, substantial feel to it. I am sure I would enjoy driving one of these too. Still, I just cannot warm up to these. But that’s OK, because there are others who will step into the void, as you have yourself.
We certainly appreciate you stopping in to spend some time, and you have written a very impassioned defense of your car. I am sure that there are a lot of others who will agree with you. And I understand where you are coming from, as I continue to maintain that the 1960s Plymouth Furys were demonstrably superior in every way to contemporary Chevrolets, but were just misunderstood and under-appreciated. And anyway, aren’t all of those websites that gush over every car just boring? At least here, you will know how we feel, whether you agree or not. So, welcome to the discussion. You are welcome to contact Tom Klockau about submitting a “My Curbside Classic” piece on your bird. I would look forward to a well-written counterpoint.
Thank you for your post. It is very well written. It explains, more than i could ever, the benefits of the 67 T-Bird and the logic behind it. I, too, also understood what Ford was doing with the front end as Dodge Charger was very similar.
The whole car design looks like a jet airplane, from the nose to the tail lights. Personally, i think the 67 model captured it best.
I am also a past 67 T-Bird owner, and i can vouch for the performance. It was a great car.
A 1967 2 door hard top Landau – 428 CID posi-track T-Bird, was the fine example that i owned from 1999 to 2003.
Thanks John! I knew I liked these, always have. Having owned a 64 Thunderbird and a 71 Mark III……. one of these seems a natural to own some day.
You really hit the nail on the head with “the ’58-’66 T-Bird crowd never forgave Ford for dropping the convertible” comment. Cache and collectibility suffered because of this. But I also think it’s time to personally re-evaluate the car.
I couldn’t find the C/D Thunderbird/GTO article, do you have a link?
I guess the 4-door T-bird was ahead of its time, if it arrived a bit later like around 1972 or 1973, against the Pontiac Grand Am, we could wonder if things could be different? Also ironic to see a 4-door Grand Prix coming way much later in 1990.
Also, is it my imagination but to my eyes, the 1967-71 T-bird roofline and door designs seem to predict a bit of the 1972-76 Torino/Montago design?
@John Ryan — Well said!! I actually had no idea that these cars existed. A few months ago I happened to see one driving down the road that looked nearly identical to yours, same color, hardtop, except it did have wider (yet period correct) rims and white letter tires, big chrome dual exhaust, and definitely sounded like the owner had done some work to the engine. It was GORGEOUS, like a Mustang but with more style. I never do this, but I actually chased the guy down in traffic to find out what kind of car it was… shocked to hear “67 T-bird” as the answer. I think they are beautiful, I think the hardtop works much better than the Landau look, and even though I know this its a sacrilege to old car fans, slightly larger wheels really help with the proportions.
I have been considering buying a classic Mustang, and recently have been looking at a few for sale. I keep being disappointed with the interior fit and finish, the “feel” of an old car just isn’t really working for me. Reading this article has made me consider looking for one of these T-birds instead. Maybe the mix of a little more luxurious car but still a late 60’s muscle car feel might fit me better.
I have been considering buying a classic Mustang, and recently have been looking at a few for sale. I keep being disappointed with the interior fit and finish, the “feel” of an old car just isn’t really working for me.
wrt interior fit and finish, that’s the way they were made. Some of the chrome trim on the back seat backrest in my dad’s 64 Galaxy XL didn’t fit, by about a quarter inch. A coworker had a friend with a Boss 302. As usual with Fords, the interior trim was held together with a ton of phillips head sheet metal screws. and the screws had been put in with a hammer, because you could see the dents in the trim around the screws. In a Motor Trend test of a Boss 302, they mentioned the car looks best at night, because in daylight you could see the shoddy assembly, like the screws holding the spoiler that were already backing out. The plastic dash sections of my Aunt’s 70 Ambassador didn’t fit by a country mile.
As for driving feel, the 70 Ambassador had decent steering feel (thanks Saginaw Steering Gear). Ford power steering was terrible, slow (4 turns lock to lock) and totally numb. Ford shocks were miserable from new. Took a premium HD aftermarket shock to calm the wallow.
The typical Consumer Reports road test back then would find 20-30 assembly flaws in a car, from things that don’t work, to things that don’t fit and things that fell off.
Just as bad in the 50s. There is a 56 Packard Executive in a museum near Kalamazoo, which looks great, from about 10 feet. Get closer and you can see the appaling fit of body panels and trim. Found a test on line of a 53 Hudson Jet, new car, only 1,000 miles on it, and the tester found rust already starting in the doors. The Jet’s trunk leaked, the water accumulated in the spare tire well, which was already severely rusted.
We are spoiled by the build quality of cars today.
Thanks Tim! I think the ’58-’66 T-Bird crowd tends to be older. Most “Glamour Bird” enthusiasts tend to be younger and more into a sportier looking/performing car. And they aren’t afraid to even do some “modifications to their cars” for either personal styling or perfomance reasons. You rarely see ’58’s -’66’s customized. I don’t have a link to the ’68 T-Bird vs. GTO article. I do have a hard copy though. The GTO is barely a tick quicker which says a lot for the 429 Bird. Mine has the venerable 390. However, it was balanced and blueprinted and dynoed so she goes pretty well now! Looks stock though 😉 To show you the other side of my taste for something different, my other collector car is a 1975 Pontiac Grand Am! It’s a pretty awesome car actually! I’ll have to see if CC has a thread on those going and post a pic!
I know that the plate on the red t-bird featured says Ohio but is it still there in Ohio?
This car was found in Indianapolis maybe 2 years ago. It had been parked in front of a muffler and brake shop for awhile, but then disappeared. I have not seen it since.
I have a ’67 tudor landau that I absolutely love. My son and I were looking for a project a few years ago and we stumbled across this car. It is a blast to drive, because very few people know what it is. It’s always fun to catch people rubber-necking to try to see the script on the rear quarter.
We have nicknamed the car Rodney because it gets no respect. I love it.
I have to say, this is one of those cars, like the Jaguar S-Type, whose appearance is heavily affected by the color choice. These seemed to come off better with darker body colors, like yours, and somehow the white vinyl top helps with the overall proportions.
One weird thing both your picture and the profile shot in the post highlight is for all the contortions of the front end, it’s not that visible in profile. And the hidden headlights integrated into the grille worked against a consistent T-Bird theme of a distinct grille, something they rectified in the ’70-’71s.
I still remember the first time I saw one of these – and it was a 4 door. I must have been about 6, so around 1971, and I was fascinated by how the vinyl covered quarter panel split at the landau bar – something Lee Iaccoca and Don DeLarossa would revisit time and again at Chrysler.
There was a cool 1969 2 door Apollo version offered by Abercrombie & Fitch, in its original quise as a sporting goods retailer.
*’67, not ’69 on the Apollo version.
These cars are actually pretty attractive from any angle that does not include the front. The grill always looked like a “too drunk, fix later!” placeholder that somehow no one ever got back to fixing.
This reminds me of those makeover shows where the makeover is worse.The previous T birds were great lookers but this one wasn’t by any stretch of the imagination.Possibly the worst looking Ford of the 60s.It’s not like they couldn’t come up with great looking cars,the early Mustang,Cougar and fastback Torino/Cyclone are some of the best looking cars of all time
I totally agree with you and with JPC’s article. Back in the day I wasn’t totally happy with the styling changes for the 66: egg-crate grille, fussier wheel covers, view-obliterating Town Coupe styling that eliminated the rear quarter windows, and full-width taillights (never been a fan of those). But the 67 was a huge disappointment. As you note, the 67 Cougar was a great looking car, with much better styling than the 67 Bird.
I really didn’t care much for any T-Bird again until the Aero-Birds of the 80’s, and although their body was attractive, the interiors were austere compared to the glamorous 61-66 models. For me, Thunderbird was never Thunderbird again and it ultimately became a rental car, before the brief revival of the two-seater. I agree with others that the Lincoln Mark series took over the T-Bird’s role for Ford. My Dad had a 65 T-Bird in the 60’s and later bought a new 78 Mark V.
Danny Ocean’s gang hit the screens in 1960. The Rat Pack was in full swing in 1967. It is tres chic to wryly damn these cars with faint praise. On the ground, at the time, they hit most everyone’s aspirational buttons. You know, the Korea vets, with their first big bonus checks from 15 years of moving up the ladder. The car “He” drove to work while leaving Mom the Ranch Wagon. The personal luxury segment wasn’t covered by everybody for no reason. Perhaps the Thunderbird lacked continuity, but they were mostly moneymakers for everyone – builder to dealer. It is only with the benefit of 45 years of hindsight that this looks so marginal. I catch myself thinking the same thing looking in the mirror every morning. It is a rare thing that appreciates with time.
Seems the end of the Flair Bird generation (and the presence of the LTD) signaled the end of the T-Bird’s original mission. The 1967-68 T-Bird represented Ford’s flagship awaiting new orders.
Maybe some of the styling critics are missing the point. It’s a spaceship.
Remember what was going on when this series was designed? We were watching wall to wall coverage of Gemini missions. “Star Trek” and “Lost In Space” were on the tube. Walter Cronkite had transitioned “The 20th Century” about history and current events to “The 21st Century” about developing technology in 67.
I like the 68 just fine. I once owned a 67
I would argue that the 61-63 T-bird was a spaceship. From every angle there are design cues that say “rocket” or “fighter jet”. Perhaps the ’67 is an alien spaceship.
I would argue that the 61-63 T-bird was a spaceship.
Yup, very Flash Gordon.
By 67, the idea of what a spaceship looked like had changed. When Gene Roddenberry was designing “Star Trek”, he decreed the ship would not have flames shooting out the back, like Flash’s ship did.
I’ll have to disagree with J. Punnamaker Cavanaugh in one regard: Where big cars are concerned, I generally prefer the 4-door version, but I can’t get past the trapezoidal patch of vinyl on the rear doors. That, combined with the fake landau arms, makes for an almost comical look. A 2-door with no vinyl top and landau-arm delete would be much preferred.
Oh, JP, you’re much to hard on this car. True, it’s worn out and missing a wheel cover, but hey! It’s red! It has a white vinyl roof! And….white interior!
True, the landau bars are not its best feature, but I like these cars, especially the jet-intake grille and hidden headlights!
From what I have read, these were excellent driver’s cars.
This Landau coupe from the ’68 brochure looks pretty nice to me.
The sedan had very Continental-esque tones, especially in black. Nice!
I love the 4-doors in all black! Best color combo as it pulls the entire package together. The lighter body/darker top and vice versa tend to make it look chopped up.
My favourite year of this generation T-Bird was 1971, with the pointy “Beak” grill. I’d like to see Ford bring back the Thunderbird, as most of us would. Here is a concept I made, based on the 2014 Ford Taurus. I know it’s rough, but this is just a sketch idea. I shortened the wheelbase, widened the C-pillar for the prerequisite T-bird logo, and attached a hood ornament. Note the coach lamp! If I had better graphic software, I would have added white-wall tires as well.
I took your original and stretched the doors for better proportions and slimmed down the C-pillar slightly.
Results? Mixed IMHO. The Taurus is such a blocky form to begin with. No matter, they could come up with a car as beautiful as a bowl of tits and it wouldn’t sell.
The coupe market is dead except at the very top of the market. They’d have better luck selling a T-Bird pickup in this day and age (not that I think they should commit such sacrilege). I can hear the jingle now, performed by AC-DC. “Thundertruck”
Stretched is definitely better. I think the modern stubby coupe look has just about run it’s course.
To me these just don’t seem to fit with the image cultivated with the 55 – 66 birds. Some purists might exclude the 58 – 66 but I think they still represented ‘cool’ automobiles. To my (8 year old enthusiast) eyes the 67 just looked like a big, dressed up Ford. I didn’t get it and I still don’t. Were it an LTD I would say O.K., fair enough if that’s your thing. But a Thunderbird?
Looks like I better post another pic of my ’67 Tudor Hardtop SANS the Landau Roof. I do think the vinyl top messes up the proportions AND I will reiterate that if you look at the profile of my car, you can clearly see Ford going for the 1963-1965 Riviera profile. Nobody ever seems to catch that. They even aped Riviera console except I never did figure out why oh why did they keep the shift lever on the column- isn’t that the reason for a console? Anyways, rip on these all you want. But IMO without the Landau roof- the true lines of these cars really ‘pop’. But don’t diss all of them because of that. Ford was responding to 2 things- the Mustang’s evolution taking over the sporty spot, and the GM Riviera, Toronado and eventually Eldorado and the ’69 Grand Prix with this generation of T-Birds. There- ya’ll got learned!
I agree that it looks better w/o the vinyl roof. I also think you are correct that the
Riviera lines inspired at least some of the styling of this generation Bird. Still, it has absurd overhang, especially in the back, destroying the short deck/long hood theme. The C pillars are still too big. The front, no matter what one thinks of it, simply doesn’t integrate with the rest of the car.
Sorry to “dis” your car. If you like, well, that’s what’s important.
I do agree the body and roof style of your car is the best of the bunch. I like the color, but I think black would be great looking on this car. The 4 door I don’t care for at all. I agree you should be proud your T bird. As far as being good enough for Prince, well…
Very nice bird – what color is it? Mine is “Z” code Sauterne Gold.
Here is another great example (not mine) of a hardtop with the sporty mag wheels. I really like the charcoal grey color on this one:
Also, if the Glamour Bird was good enough for Prince, it’s good enough for me!
I agree with John that the lack of padded top and landau bars make this bodystyle much more cohesive.
I think the loss of the convertible, regardless of how little they were selling by 1966, killed the the Thunderbird in the hearts and minds of many, including myself(and I am not really drawn to ragtops generally). The vert option was a key trait to the Thunderbird and up to 1966 the hardtop birds still had that retractable roof look to them. It was fake and aspirational but it did look convincing enough. The vinyl top and landau bars didn’t fool anyone since there was no no convertible built since the 30s had a top that looked like that with the top up, not to mention there was no Thunderbird convertible for a frame of reference for anyone.
“f you had told someone in 1950 that someday it would be socially acceptable to be driving a Ford to the country club or in the more exclusive suburbs, you would have been laughed at. The Thunderbird was the car that began Ford’s move up the social ladder. ”
Yes, and it’s a relatively early indicator of the model name becoming more important than the “brand”. Or maybe the model name becoming the brand. It was acceptable to drive a T-Bird to the country club, but not so a Fairlane.
I see this as the car Cannon drove at a time when his PI business was not quite as successful.
Music has been mentioned, but this car is not Rubber Soul, nor is it the White Album. It’s not psychedelic, and definitely not Jefferson Airplane. Most of the people buying and driving this as a new car were listening to Bert Kaempfert. Maybe Herb Alpert. (I like Bert, now that I’m older and have learned there’s more to music than the top 40, but I still don’t like this generation of T-Bird)
They weren`t listening to Motown-IMHO great music either.Bert Kaemfert, 101 Strings, Mantovani, Andy Williams, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin,Brazil `66, and Herb Albert-for sure.
,
The write up is dead-on. The ’67 Bird is recognizable as a T-Bird, and has some good elements, but the package is quite wrong.
Ford repeated T-Bird history in 1980. Recognizable, some good elements, but the package was again quite wrong.
Dave, comparing the 1967-71 Thunderbirds to the 1980-82 gets you a “Seriously Dude” award? That’s pretty laughable! Wow…why not go and compare it to a Yugo dude! I think the 61-63 Birds were cool but the ’64-66 were def old men’s cars with the skirts and the weird fussy styling- and what was with that front end on those? A 1963-65 Riviera and 1963-66 Grand Prix blew the styling away on Those T-Birds. Ford finally got it back together in ’67 Guy! Wow….Seriously Dude!
Seriously, John, knock off the stupid “Serious Dude” comments, or I will have to seriously delete all of your comments. We get that your hopelessly in love with your ’67 T Bird, which does NOT look like a ’63 Riviera, but to each their own. So please respect other folks’ opinions and comments. Your commenting etiquette is not up to CC standards.
Never got why all through the 60s, the T-birds never had a floor shift. No matter how good or bad the model, always that too-wide SHIFTLESS console. It was screaming for a shift lever.
the T-birds never had a floor shift
Yup. My 67 Bird had a column shift, but my Dad’s 64 Galaxie XL had a floor shift, so it’s not like Ford couldn’t figure out how to put a floorshift in a car.
I’m not a fan of these cards, yet I have a soft spot for them, especially the 4-doors.
Probably because they were so daffy, with a wedge of C-pillar – traced by the fake Landau bar! – cut out to facilitate entry.
I think that’s one of the problems with this car – they essentially used the 4-door roof for both models, leading to barn-door-like C-pillars on the coupes.
The model to have though is the limited edition ’67 Thunderbird Apollo, a blue 2-door Landau with sunroof, real wood trimmed interior and fold-down wood writing tables, among other amenities. 5 were built for display in the (old) Abercrombie & Fitch sporting goods stores; apparently, 4 survive.
Put me down as one who loves these cars. IMHO the only American car other then the Corvette that looks like it was designed for hidden headlights. All others from that era were “oh look, we took the standard model and covered the lights”. It’s a very sleek design compared to it’s fussy predecessors.
The regular hardtop model is tolerable. But the four door and the brougham look clunky piece-together units. The trimming and moldings look like someone got the parts from a second hand store. A hease scroll on the side, really?? Nothing fits, doesn’t flow at all.
BTW, the example and pic that Mr. Cavanaugh posted to start this whole diatribe on the Glamour Birds is really not a nice representation. Yeah, let’s go and find the most oxidized, bad color combo (red and black?) wheel cover missing ’68 we can find and post that so people can rip on this car. That’s why I thought the offset would be to post some pics of my ’67 HARDTOP that is in VERY NICE condition with the sporty mag style factory wheel covers to show these cars DO look very sporty and nice. You also get a “Seriously Dude” award LOL!
There’s plenty of sites to drool over trailer queens; part of the fun of CC is to find a beater and talk it up or down depending on your point of view. Mr. Cavanaugh’s POV is well-credentialled and well-substantiated even if he does at times hand out a modicum of tough love. You’ve got a nice example yourself but the model is not everyone’s cup of tea. Seriously mate.
John, Use the words “Seriously Dude” once more, and you’re seriously evicted. Get a grip; we’re grown ups here and can show any car we feel like, and express our opinions on them.
I really liked the 2 door T-Bird’s of this era but never cared for the 4 door’s, I never understood why the T-Bird wanted to make a 4 door version of the T-Bird although I would gladly own those over the 1972-76 giant and 1980-82 boxy T-Bird’s any day.
I was only becoming “car aware” in the late ’60’s maybe 7 or 8 years old. The neighborhood had interesting cars all over the place, even French ones. But I absolutely adored the respective Thunderbirds the two neighbors down the street had. One, a red ’62 convertible and the other a ’65. The convertible would come out in the spring and word would go out among us kids that Mr. M was going to put the top down. What a show!
On a perpendicular street there was one of these 67 or maybe 68’s in a 4 door. I liked it and thought it was cool. Until I realized it was a Thunderbird. Then I hated it. It must have represented the demise of all that was good, in my 8 year old mind.
If I ignore the nameplate and take the car as a stand alone Ford product, I really like it.
As a Thunderbird, I still don’t. I guess I got traumatized by the strangest things. 😉
As a owner of a 1968 2 door power window ac 429 I’m surprised how many people dislike this car. I have owned mine for 8 years now and only drive it around the block a few times a year but I like this car so much that I’m going to be putting my 1967 Bonneville convertible up for sale to put the money into my bird. Wen I’m done it will not be stock I’m going to loose the vinyl top adding a shaker hood and custom interior. The Bird is green with black top and bucket seats for now. I’m still not sure of the exterior color yet but this will be a slow process so I have time to figure that out.
I`m a T Bird fan, I like them all up to `66. The `67s,68s, 69, are the worst of the bunch, especially with that mouth organ grille. Also, its kinda ironic.The T Bird, one of the cars that started the bucket seat and console trend had a split bench seat standard in `68. Seems that Ford had no “better idea” for this Bird.A car that lost its way and never got its groove back. Some car guys refer to them as “Turd Birds”.
I was born in ’61 and had the original ’67 Hot Wheels T-Bird in aqua green. As a car-obsessed kid I was infatuated with that grill and hidden headlights, and have been ever since. Now that the kids are out of the house I’m seriously wanting one, maybe ’69 fordor.
67 tbird is an awesome car. one of a kind look.
I had a 1967 4 door ( suicides ) and it was a Landau with an Opera Seat in the rear. my grandfather acquired the car in 1985 in Miami in a business deal. Apparently it
was 1 of 10 made for executives and one being the original owner of Tamarac Executive Airport. The rear opera seat was curved with small fold out trays ( airline like ) on each armrest area, and a center console also similar like the one in the picture posted here. In the knee area of the back seat ( in center ) was an ice bucket built in and a wine bottle holder with 4 champaigne flutes engraved with FMC/E
I’ll round up a couple pictures from my storage unit. Ohhh the seats were a silk like blue with glittery gold appointments …..
has anyone ever seen or heard of this model ?
My grandmother had a triple black landau that she sold when I was only 8 years old – but it left an indelible mark on my memory. At some point she had to park it for good because the frame rusted away – but my brother and I were allowed to play in it because to us, it was “The Batmobile!” Eventually she sold it to some scrappers and regretted selling it to the day she died.
A couple years ago I stumbled onto this one out of the blue and bought it with every intention of bringing it back to life. It has come along way but will never be a $50,000 show car, nor do I want it to be. Just a Friday night cruiser, and something different other than all the Mustangs, Challengers, Camaros, 57 Chevy’s, etc… you always see at car shows.
One thing no one else has pointed out – is that while I agree these were the opening salvo of the 70’s brougham cars, the ’67 also foreshadowed the 71-73 Mustang. Notice the body lines as they come up from the front fenders to the sliding rear window – along with he gaping front mouth. Not exact, but the DNA is there.
For fellow 67-68 Tbird owners looking for sheet metal –
My rear quarters were rusted away and as you know, repro parts and metal are pretty much non-existent. I ended up taking mine to Kustom Metal in Fulton, IL. You may know the owner Ben from the “American Pickers” TV show. Ben did a great job and did all the fabrication by hand.
Hope to get her painted sometime early next year. Work in progress…
Wow, so much negativity towards one of the coolest most beautiful cars of it’s era, IMHO. First time I’ve ever encountered some of these kind of attitudes towards this era Thunderbird so much in one place, other than a GM car show. Like walking into the diner where the old men are all Chevy or Chrysler fans, and you drove up in your Ford. Lol. And somebody comparing it to that garish overstyled Riviera as if it were more tastefully styled than the Bird? To each their own….
Gentleman, you are indeed right that everyone is entitled to their opinion….but if you make so many critical remarks about cars that you may not appreciate, but just as many others do….you may get remarks back. And just as pointed as the ones you made. Expect it. Just saying. Paragraph long rants about everything “wrong” with the Bird, and how they didn’t know what they were doing when they made them, etc… may rub people that like them the wrong way. Threatening to delete dissenting responding comments, as such, says to a newcomer here: “Everyone is entitled to their opinion. As long as it’s the same as ours.” Just saying…. 🙂
There never was, and there never will be a song with the lyrics:
“Fun, fun, fun, till her daddy took the ’67 T-Bird away.”
There never was, and there never will be a song with the lyrics:
“And she’ll have fun, fun, fun, till her daddy takes the 1967 T-Bird away.”
Only in recent years did I understand that the 1968 Thunderbird has a much cheaper-looking dashboard than the ’67. You can see some aspects of the difference above, in the photo of the ’68 dash followed by the ad for the all-new (’67) four-door, which also shows the dash in a small photo.
I wanted to buy a 67 2dr my boss owned. Baby blue, white top, white interior and a 428 under the hood. Loved that car, he had several of the 4dr models but was not interested. Ended up buying a 68 Cougar with the 428.
I agree the T-Bird did not age well. I don’t know why but it reminds me of the Millennium Falcon, hang on Chewy we’re going into hyper-drive!
That gaping maw of a grill, I think the 68 Charger is the only one that pulled it off successfully. Kind of the same look as the 69-70 Shelby’s and the 71-73 Mustangs at least the Mustangs broke up the look by having the headlights visible.
Nothing worse than the sad look of a half-open or closed headlight door. Only thing worse is the dead fish eye look of the 928 Porsche, doesn’t look good open, closed or any other variation.
Wow reading through these comments is like a bad family thanksgiving! I’m intrigued by the concept of of the article so I thought I would share one bit of anecdotal evidence:
My grandparents were country club folks in Los Angeles and my grandmother had two new thunderbirds (1958 and 1964), but by the time this one came around, she had moved on to LTDs (1966, 1968 and 1970) and eventually to a 1975 Granada Ghia. My grandfather drove a series of Lincoln Continental company cars at the same time, so they fit the mold described above of a thunderbird/Lincoln garage.
So my thought is that (as Paul has shown), the LTD really was the new thing! And maybe the stacked headlights on the LTD were more current looking as well. Incidentally, my dad’s cousin bought the 1966 from my grandmother and he used to refer to it as the 7 litre Ford but I’m unsure if it was an LTD with the 428 or an actual 7-Litre model.
The fifth and eighth generation Thunderbirds were parodies of the fourth and seventh generations. This is why they failed.
In both cases, the Thunderbird needed a new design, but there wasn’t any new ideas to put into the new generations. Why have a Thunderbird when Ford already has the LTD and the Mustang? Ford wanted to keep their TBird, but couldn’t decide what it needed to be in that new era. It was a natural procession to see the TBird become the Ford Mark IV in 1972 for the Thunderbird sixth generation.
But for the fifth generation, Thunderbird was a parody of itself from the fourth generation. Ford wanted to spur sales and profits, so they created a cheaper version of the fourth, and added a sedan. The half-hearted design failed.
The eighth generation failed as well.
Great article, and considering that it was originally posted in 2011, which was way before I started coming here, I feel compelled to weigh in here. First, you nailed the reasons why it had been so polarizing.
What I will add is that the Mustang had most likely stolen a good portion of the T-Bird’s thunder…..at least the sporty theme of it, anyways. The Mustang was sometimes referred to as “the poor man’s T-Bird”, so by the time that it started mutating a bit more into a luxury territory in 1967 than before–coupled with the Cougar being the more luxurious version of the Mustang–those factors started stealing sales away from the T-Bird. By that time, the Falcon’s sporting intentions had dwindled (Futura, etc) and even it had a “T-Bird on a budget” thing with the round jet fighter taillights and things like that.
Factor in the bloat of the LTD and like you mention, the Mark III’s excellence at that time, as well as the scene being crowded with competition (Riviera, Eldorado, Toronado, etc), and it was a recipe for failure at some point. The Cougar sort of fared the same fate–stripped of the sporty intentions, it was just another brougham in amongst a long list of them.
The only thing that most likely could have saved it, was to become a 2 seater again, and in many respects, I feel that Ford should have done that. It didn’t need to be as macho as Corvette; just something that brought an international flair and excitement to it. They probably needed to be more European at a time where there needed to be more engineering competition with the engineers overseas. But world class intentions would have helped. Overhead cam, independent suspension, attention/ focus towards lighter materials and advances into fuel injection would have helped.
Either that, and/ or move Thunderbird to its own brand. Two more doors weren’t needed, nor were more plush interiors. The best way to do that is to add by subtraction: bring back the halo, aspirational sporty two seater by taking away the two seats and the bloat.
They would have sold less of them, but would have been able to charge more, and they needed more exclusivity. It would have been a hard sell to the bean counters, but it would have likely been the best way to find out if Thunderbird could actually survive in the long run. That being said, I’m impressed at Thunderbird’s longevity despite the mediocrity and cost cutting, and the Aero birds of the 80’s styling still hold up to this day. I owned a ’91 Super Coupe, and it was a great car……but the compromises were definitely still there.
Hmm…my take on the car pretty much goes back to my first recollection of that car.( I was born in 1965 and had one of those hot wheels) The front and the rear of the car are original, and good. The front looks designed for hideaways, not tacked on, and the “inset” is at least interesting. The rear IS futuristic. Both could be featured in a Syd Mead painting. But the side view, with white wall and ornate wheel covers lets one done, and the vinyl roof and LANDAU bar…why, WHY? That metallic gray one without the landau, without the vinyl, and some good wheels…not a bad looking ride…..
There’s a good point about the ‘Bird becoming a step down on the ladder from a Mark, on a continuum of Ford PLCs that by 1975 started with the Mustang II Ghia notchback.
The hardtop coupe, as the most common, was a car I mostly saw as a child born in ’74 as a rusty, disreputable beater in full size with the Hot Wheels entering my collection as a ten-cent yard sale item with pre-chipped paint and pre-bent axles.
I always felt the four-door should’ve been brought back for ’77 when it would’ve been plug-and-play, and particularly kept in the line after 1983 by which time sport sedans were the new “It” Cars and PLCs were starting their long slide to oblivion.
In its time, this 1968 T-bird must have seemed like it had two left feet. Awkward, with a vacuum attachment looking frontage. Who bought these? Brewery salesmen who drove them around town to buy rounds at local bars? Aging marketing types who wanted to show off their career successes at the country club? In comparison to the 1966, my benchmark for the brand, this car had become too big, and lost its way. The ’66 was svelte, stylish, rightsized, and personable. Not to mention handsome. That forward sweeping grille, those beautiful three phase taillights.
Now put a 1974 Bird in line with the 68 and the 66, and see how far the marque had fallen. Had a few too many twinkies over the years, and gained a few pounds of heft I see.
This is still better than a lot of other cars.
It is only a fail as a Thunderbird, as compared to other Thunderbirds before and since. Yet – it is still a Thunderbird!
It sits low, has a very over the top landau roof treatment, hidden headlights, electric everything except the engine, and the high cost.
Who are you? You are a former soon-to-be organ donor, as your passing seemed imminent. You were near death and there was a long waiting list for your particularly strong type 429 heart. You are a Rip Van Winkle of sorts.
Your heart was likely to live on as an all-out performance heart, or possibly even as a workaday truck’s heart.
Your heart was unlikely to have gone to a recipient similar to yourself, because failure of the type 429 heart when in the posh easy living of passenger car life was almost unheard of.
As to why you are here, it is mainly because time has moved on and demand for your particular type 429 heart has slowed. Also, you have managed to preserve your health remarkably well. Your same ailments, unchanged now at some 40+ years on, don’t seem so serious. As one of the dwindling number of survivors of your bygone era, there is now a slow but sure interest building in keeping the last of your kind around as long as possible.
It is too easy to criticize the 67-69 vintage, just as a Monday morning quarterback criticizes his team’s Sunday effort. For me, I appreciate the front, rear, and interior styling as either “evolutionary Thunderbird” or as adapting to emerging technology and automotive fashion. This vintage, however, fails me in the No Man’s Land greenhouse, wherein the A-pillar is too stiff and the C-pillar is to generic. The exposed windshield wipers date it badly. Oops, it must be Monday.
Regarding the exposed wipers: I don’t think any Ford product had hidden wipers up through 1969; only their priciest 1970 models had them: the Mark III, facelifted (beak) Thunderbird, and new-design Lincoln Continental.
As for the greenhouse: I remember seeing a futuristic Ford coupe at the NY World’s Fair a few years earlier that featured much the same design, with the vertical, short rear quarter windows and no vent windows. (And no landau bars on the C-pillar.) It was quite a leap from what was on the streets at that time. I can’t think of another car that went directly from flat glass with vent windows (in ’66) to curved glass without. (Of course back then I didn’t appreciate vent windows’ advantages, nor think about how omitting them lowered manufacturer cost.)
I agree about the stubby A-pillars. They don’t seem so bad when seen on the Mark III, maybe because the eye is distracted by the grill.
The one (only thing) thing that bugs me about this generation is the proportion of wheelbase to overhang. Thunderbirds had always been low, with a relatively long dash to front axle dimension, and relatively short front overhang. This one’s extra front overhang skewed the proportions, and changed the styling from dynamic to static – this despite the opened rear wheelwell. Shove the front wheels forward three of four inches, and I think you’d get those classic Thunderbird proportions back.
Here’s my ’67 four-door model. Saw one when new; never forgotten.
I have not been a fan of this model T Bird since it first appeared. However over the last few years I’ve started to warm up to it. All “Matt Helm/ Dean Martin references aside, even if the styling ain’t that good, at least the styling is at least unique. A week ago I saw a landau version of this car, in a very sad state being offered for sale on my local Craig’s List. For some reason at the angle it was photographed, I found it attractive. Man, I must be getting old!
I bought this ’68 in ’73 with 70K on the odometer, for $500. I drove it for about 15 years and parked it, hoping one of my boys would be interested in helping me restore it. Neither were, so I sold it in the late 90’s.
The large birds were blasphemy, and Ford should have given it another name.
I enjoyed the car. Hopefully somebody is still enjoying it.
(I have a new drive shaft if anyone is in the market)
Never been a Thunderbird guy, but love these, one of my favourite American cars period..
Make mine a 2 door without a vinyl roof.
Don’t really understand the general dislike of these, maybe that says more about me than I want to know..
It would seem that most people on this site do not like the styling of the 1967 Thunderbird. I beg to differ. While I love each generation that came before it (I own a 1960 and 1966, and want a 1963 and 1957), I also love the 1967 – maybe almost more than the others. The drive quality is light years ahead of the previous generation. It was also the last to have the full length console, opposing windshield wipers, and aluminum trimmed interior as well as the last year to have die cast metal instrument panel clusters. It did, however loss it’s fender skirts – a styling theme that was fading away after the introduction of the Toronado. They also lost their bright A pillar trim (although I fabricated those for my car). And also, it was the first year that they started to be cheapened in the interior with the use of plastics, but this also was the wave of the future. However, it still had the even larger wall to wall tail sequential tail lights, die cast grill with new hidden headlights, as well as a the tilt-away steering wheel (this time automated). But body on frame gave the car a much quieter interior. Mine is a Q Code with the 428, and it is fast and smooth like you would not believe.
Most of the time, when you do see one, they are in rather poor condition. Since they were never collected and were great road cars and driven into the ground – not many very nice one’s exist. But when you do see a very nice example, they will get your attention.
I forgot to mention that the 1967 was the last year to have console mounted power window switches – the next year and onward, they were mounted on the door like other cars. And the 1967 was the last year that the tilt-away steering wheel was standard equipment – the next year it was an option.
And I might add that while it is very well known that the 1967 Tbirds are much bigger and much heavier than the previous generation – that is false knowledge!!!
In reality, the 2 dr 1967 is a mere 1.5″ longer, BUT it is .1″ narrower and 300 lbs lighter!!!
1966 weight is 4,560 lbs. 1967 weight is 4,256 lbs.
1966 length is 205.4″. 1967 length is 206.9″
1966 lbs/HP is 13.2. 1967 lbs/HP is 12.3 (Q code)
Wow, that’s a really nice example in the picture that you’ve posted, Bill. Is that yours? The wire wheels are an awesome touch, and really make the car stand out. I’d rock that thing, for sure.
Which leads me to my next point–the stock hubcap selection for these was terrible. Many of the survivors still have them. The ones in the picture in the original article are probably the worst……they make a big car that needs some sleek lines look even bigger than it needs to be.
Yes Ryan S, it is mine. I normally do not like after market wire wheels on a vintage car, even Thunderbird wire wheels for 1955 through 1966 Thunderbirds. However, I saw one like mine with the wire wheels, and I changed my mine quickly for my 1967. I also had the white walls shaved to a little wider white wall, although not a true wide white wall (that would be all wrong), since the white wall does not go all the way to the wheel. I also used a special SEM vinyl paint to change the color of my perfect condition vinyl top from black to white, after seeing the one with wire wheels that had a white (parchment) top. It seems to really set off the black interior from the white car and just gave the car a more glamours look.
I have added bright polished formed aluminum A pillar trim, after I made the video. And I installed electric actuators for the headlight doors. And I installed super bright LEDs for the tail lights – they are very bright and really cool looking. NOTE: This could be the only car, or one of only a few, that had tail light bulbs that were hidden! You only see the indirect (reflected) light from the bulbs. As I understand it, Ford might have changed this in 1969-1971 due to the dim tail lights in the sun.
For you entertainment pleasure…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NB8J6bQU87w&t=1s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAserbdzbGg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DetrRVSfyfk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NaPnahF0N8
It has been 9 years since I wrote this, so I have had plenty of time to think. I will grant you this: I agree that the 67 is the one to have of that 3 year run for just the reasons you say. And yours definitely looks a lot nicer than the original forlorn subject I shot all those years ago. A really nice car that you are right to be proud of.
I also don’t doubt for a moment that it is a pleasant car to drive. I could see going with the 4 door version because I think the proportions come off better, and because it is uniquely cool with the suicide doors.
Ford made styling magic from 1958 through 1966, making a 4500 pound car on a 113 inch wheelbase look “right”. The 67-69 just missed, and in looking at your car I can’t point to any one thing, only lots of small things – front overhang and the overly square wheel opening shape being two of them. It’s far from an ugly car, but it just doesn’t come together the way everything else Ford was building in 1967 did.
Maybe the biggest problem is that by 1968 Ford was offering too many choices – you could have a luxury/sporty coupe, with wheelbases of 108 (Mustang), 111 (Cougar) 115 (Thunderbird) and 117 (Mark III). Once the Mark III hit, for the first time the new owner of a Thunderbird could have been thought of as having “settled” rather than getting “the good one”. Which was like the arrival of the hangman for an image car like the Bird. Perfect styling might have created a good niche, but this one did not hit that small target.
Looks like there are many points of view on this generation T’Bird. For me, the sedan i’s a great looking car, perhaps the front isn’t solved totally to my taste. But the suicide rear doors, with that C-pillar enclosing the rearmost of the door and surelly obscuring much of the view is a very nice design.