Someone’s having some fun with this Thunderbird, and good for them. Jacked up, big off-road tires and a light bar. What else is it good for? How about this:
Do Fun Shit! I’m all about it, especially this time of year. Summer is quickly running out. How about a bit of crazy shit?
I went kayaking down the Willamette River the other day, starting in Jasper, and I took a side channel through some former gravel pits that have been restored by the Nature Conservancy. They broke through the banks to create an inlet that supplies a constant flow though these former pits. I stopped here at exactly the place where we normally hike out to every evening after supper, and where I have my daily swim in the cold water. I took a swim here too, my first during the warmth of the midday. But it was not to be my only swim of the trip.
This is what it looks like in the evening, just before sunset. I swim from this spot to near the far end of the pond and back. The water, which constantly flows from the river, is about 60-62 degrees. Very refreshing. Beavers share the pond with me, and invariably there’s ospreys, eagles and kingfishers flying overhead. Owls and bats on the hike back to the car as it’s getting dark. It’s the high point of every summer day, if we’re not out on the road in the van.
The water is clear and fresh, coming out of the mountains. There’s a beaver lodge over there between the two smaller trees near the water’s edge.
Back to my kayaking trip: I headed out through the last pond and into the outflow channel, a small, briskly moving channel that unites with the river again a little ways down. I should have scouted it, but I didn’t. Sure enough, as I’m bopping down in the very fast moving narrow channel on the far side, suddenly there’s tree hanging right down, all the way to the water (yellow arrow). No way was I going to get through that. I either got knocked or I bailed,I can’t quite remember, it happened so fast. But there I was in the water. I had to instantly dive downstream and just barely grabbed my inflatable kayak (a Sevylor Tahiti I found laying at the curb 20 years ago and patched up) before it headed down the river by itself. I managed to stash it on top of some more branches in the water (red arrow), because I then had to get my paddle, which was stuck in the tree branches that wiped me out.
But the hydraulics of that little channel were too strong for me to make any progress up it directly. So I went to the middle, and made a leap from a little rock pile in the middle of the river, grabbing my paddle on the way. Fortunately, I grabbed it and not a branch before it swept me down again.
Reunited with kayak and paddle, I hopped in to finish this little escapade, and noticed that my right side main tube was quickly losing what little air was left in it. Within a few more minutes, it was totally flat. But the rest of trip had no more than some riffles, so I just hugged the left side and made it to the put-out a few more miles down the river.
So yes, Do Fun Shit!
It’s the perfect attitude for this car, one of the more unloved ones of the early ’80s. Jason Shafer’s tribute to the ’80 model is here, titled “Fabulous FUBAR Edition”. These box-Fox-Birds do seem to evoke expletives.
FWIW, the base version, with the two-door sedan style roof, is a lot more palatable than the Town Landau or Heritage versions, with their pretentious opera windows and the last hurrah for the “basket handle”.
This looks decidedly un-Thunderbirdish, but then this was the era when Ford dragged that name and the Cougar’s mighty low into the gutter.
Is that a hardware store tow hook in front and in back?
According to Carfax, this T-Bird is rocking the biggest of the three engines on tap that year, the 130 hp 302 V8. The standard engine was the…88 hp 200 CID Falcon six. Ouch! The feeblest Thunderbird ever? Why am I asking that? It’s all-too obviously the case. Optional was the 115hp 255 V8 as well as the 302 V8. 1981 will not go down as a stellar vintage in automotive propulsion, especially at Ford.
If that’s an aftermarket tach, it’s a bit unnecessary. Or highly so. Good luck getting it to rev to 4k.
This interior is what I would call a mixed bag. Fat seats in a barely-glorified Fairmont.
I’ve never resonated with a Thunderbird of this vintage more. It’s got just the right attitude. Do Fun Shit, but do it safely, please.
Doing fun shit is much better than partaking of the stupid variety – although some erroneously view the two as equivalent. They aren’t.
However, the stupid, not fun, variety seems to have permeated Ford at around this time. Although perhaps “dumb shit” might be more appropriate.
Agreed. Fun is definitely the order of the day right now, as time for doing fun things outside is sadly beginning to run out.
Paul: Thunderbird aside, your outdoor landscapes always make me want to move to the US northwest. Please stop. 😀
Yep, but don’t stop! What a full life Paul leads.
I have never said anything positive about one of these and see no reason to start now. I will only go so far as to say that this may be the least miserable one of these I have ever seen. I could see two ways to “Do Fun Shit” with this car – either swap in enough parts to turn it into a Mustang GT in disguise or sell it. The first might be more fun, the second is definitely easier.
Selling it would only be easier if you could find a buyer. Maybe donate it to charity?
Haha, an excellent point – selling one of these might not be easy at all.
Every bit as undesirable as the worst of GM’s malaismobiles.
Maybe the badges are worth more off the car than on it?
I’m going to second Jonathan’s sentiments above. CC has inspired a great deal of “Nature Envy” in me for the PNW. Perhaps in a few years, when I’m ready for semi-retirement. (I always use the “semi” prefix, as I’ll likely never be able to fully retire, and fortunately wouldn’t have the constitution to handle putting in Park anyway.)
20 years service from a curb-found inflatable kayak is very impressive. My last kayak was a Perception injection molded one, which I got only one season out of. I made the mistake of storing it in a lean-to type structure next to the house, but sub-freezing Vermont temperatures and a strong wind blew over and cracked it badly. I’ve thought about buying another one, but frankly I’m not keen on kayaking here in Florida. I’d rather not be featured in one of those “Florida Man vs. Alligator” stories.
The T-Bird? Seems like this guy found the best possible use for it, with the best possible attitude towards it.
Is it just me, or does this Thunderbird look like it has a black eye? (I’m avoiding the temptation to state that the 8th generation Thunderbird was a “black eye” to this model name, because I actually sort of like these.)
Beautiful photographs of the kayaking trek.
JP, the owner already put on the wheels of a late 80s-early 90s Mustang GT wheels on it. He probably threw in the engine, judging from the tach.
I may have posted my modified picture of a 1982 Thunderbird before, but anyway, here it is again if I did. I always liked the general look of the car, but felt that the proportions were off – mainly that the car was trying to look big while being small. Factors contributing to this were mainly the small tire size (wheel opening also to an extent), and slightly too tall greenhouse. While my attempt at correcting these design issues (in my minds eye), show an improvement – the designers working with clay models or 3D modeling, could have massaged the proportions better than I did.
Anyway, my version is more stylish and less cartoonist.
The top chop is a huge improvement, just what was needed, but I think I’d go back an inch in wheel diameter.
“Do fun shit”.
The owner must be a real class act.
I enjoyed the article but not the title.
I know, I know, if you don’t like it then don’t read it.
Your problem is obvious: you’re not doing enough fun shit!
And your petty judgment of the owner reinforces that. Get a life!
Well, not only did we also see a jacked up Ford passenger car yesterday on our visit to Oregon, we also went for a swim in the Willamette. Much further down river, in Milwaukie. Very pleasant, except for the noisy and wake-inducing jet skis and powerboats zooming back and forth. We also went for a fairly long suburban bike ride, and other than the lifted Crown Vic saw absolutely nothing of CC interest. That seemed very un-Oregon-like.
I just took a 5 minute run down to that Oregon institution, Fred Meyer, and saw an MGA, a ‘67 Firebird, and a ‘64 Fleetwood. Oregon has redeemed itself. No more jacked up Fords, though, thank god.
Great tie-in and adventure Paul! I wish I had your sense of adventure but your words make it real. I recently found an abandoned Sundolphin Aruba 10 on the banks of Raritan Bay here in NJ. Looked like it was dragged behind or fell off a vehicle at speed. Cockpit collar was severely scraped and cut through in one spot. A few bits of polypropylene seals used for tank trailers that were cut and discarded on the ground and my old Weller soldering gun sealed it right up! Took it out last night taking turns with my son on our local pond. What a treat.
I have accumulated no less than four of these Tahitis! Two bought cheap at garage sales, one given to me, and one found at the curb. When the kids were young, we used to take them all out like a little flotilla. Some us took them down the biggest rapids in the area, Martin’s Ferry on the McKenzie, a class III+.
I got them all out the other day, and patched a few slow leaks along with this new leak. Now I’m ready for another flotilla float.
How cool to swim with beavers! There’s a 27 acre park in the Bridgeport neighborhood of Chicago that was a former gravel quarry – amazing how something can be seamlessly reverted back to nature, of course that park is no where near as wild as parts of the Willamette Valley.
In my eyes this gen T-Bird seemed like it tried to hard to be like the first downsided Monte Carlo, but did look better than the two-tone Cougar XR7.
I’m amazed how wider much the body is on these are compared to a Fairmont or Mustang, as they clearly suffer Canadian Pontiac syndrome with the narrower tracks. These wheels on every other foxbody are nearly flush with the fenders.
That said I think it’s cool, these are my favorite factory wheels, there isn’t anything redeeming about these Thunderbirds, nobody wants them, so why not?
Who knew you could get the new Bronco’s Sasquatch package on a T-Bird. Somewhat appealing, certainly more so than if this was still stock…
Fairmont w/ the Thunderbird Decor Option
My stars, such language! 😵
(Fanning face with hands; looking flush)
Dear Sir, please refrain from such filthy filthy filthy words.
And fun is the devil’s domain. Refrain from such foul behaviour!
.
You darned kids with your Beatles albums and cigarettes in your sleeves, dancing your sinful jigs of glee. I declare, this country’s going to Hades in a handbasket.
Agree, a Fairmont w/ the Thunderbird Decor Option, why Ford, why?
On another note, I don’t know if 130 hp 302 was the worst for all 302’s but it sure is pretty pathetic. Sure makes you appreciate today’s stuff. Current Mustang 5 litre in the Bullit version sports 480 hp. I realize it isn’t the same engine, lots of new technology but damn, 480 hp! Better emissions, better fuel mileage, probably a lot more reliable and 480 horsepower. I would say in someways these are the best days except for COVID crap, the western wild fires and the 1-2 punch of a couple of hurricanes.
Do Fun Shit!
That was the 1981 Ford Thunderbird slogan, remember!