Blue, the colour suits you. Cool blue… It’s not a stretch to say I became an instant Eurythmics fan the first time I heard the electrifying, metronomic “Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)“. If I recall correctly, this was during the annual Ann Arbor Art Fair in the summer of ’83, while at an underground t-shirt shop with my family, in tow behind my older brother. Theirs seemed like an entirely new kind of music – hypnotic, alluring, and just this side of foreboding even without seeming at all untoward. I had no idea what I was listening to, but it was thrilling. Even if the most of the lyrics eluded my elementary school-aged mind, the melody of the chorus played on “repeat” in my mind during the ride back home to Flint, an eventful trek I’ve written about here before. That song is a masterpiece and remains one of my favorites.
It was only toward the late ’80s as a high school student that I had started playing catch-up by purchasing albums on cassette containing songs I had loved up to that point in my life, versus exclusively taping songs off the radio. This sometimes confounded my friends who would be subject to listening to whatever I threw into the tape deck of the family car when I was driving us somewhere. Of course I had current music that we all jammed to, but there were also “old” selections like English rock band Asia’s 1982 debut (“Why are you playing my dad’s music?”, my friend Jason once pointedly asked), Whammy! by the B-52s from ’83, and Eurythmics’ second, third, and fourth studio albums. Touch, their third which was also released in ’83, contains the duo’s second Billboard Hot 100 top-10 single, “Here Comes The Rain Again”, and a couple of other hits. Compared with their Sweet Dreams album, Touch is both sonically and lyrically just a bit darker and moodier.
It wasn’t just their hits I loved. Many of Eurythmics’ album tracks were just as strong, including the one after which I’ve subtitled this essay, though at the time, many of their lyrics were lost on my teenage comprehension skills. At the time, “Cool Blue” sounded simply like a woman lamenting about it being cold outside (Michigan winters are no joke, and they can seem to last forever), interspersed with her random feelings of dissatisfaction with some guy. Re-reading the lyrics as an adult, it becomes clear that the protagonist portrayed by vocalist Annie Lennox is dismayed by her man’s lack of attention to and/or desire for her, at least in the moment.
How will you stay this way forever?Blue again, it’s a lasting chillTo keep you cold as winter
Maybe he’s just depressed or just not into her for whatever reason. Who knows? I had recently been on a self-imposed hiatus (since broken) from purchasing new-to-me music, even from the thrift store, in an attempt to simply appreciate the vast library I already have. This lead to a recent re-spin of Touch, which then happened to coincide with this recent 2004 Thunderbird sighting downtown. Its exterior finish is very much a cool shade of blue, called Light Ice Blue Metallic by Ford. It differs significantly from the Desert Sky Blue offered on the the previous year’s model, which was a much brighter, pastel-like hue.
There was technically only one interior color offered for ’04, Black Ink, but our featured car also has the optional Light Sand Appearance Package with matching soft boot for the convertible top. The 17″, seven-spoke chrome wheels were standard on the Premium edition, with the standard-tier Deluxe getting 16-spoke painted aluminum wheels, which were also very handsome.
How could she fall for a boy like that?How could she fall for a boy like that?
The elephant in the room is that these cars were ultimately unsuccessful in the marketplace, lasting only between 2002 and ’05. That has been addressed elsewhere at Curbside, but as I had written about a different example I had spotted near the Indiana Dunes last summer, I am a fan. The question then, as it relates to “Cool Blue”, is this: just how quickly did the public’s ardor cool for the reborn, retro-themed roadster styled by a team headed by the venerated Jack Telnack? It actually didn’t take long. Four model years yielded only about 68,100 sales of what was widely considered to be a pricey car, with almost half of total production (31,400) occurring during its first year. Sales fell by over fifty percent for ’03, to just 14,700 units. Our featured ’04 is one of just under 12,800 built, with only another 9,300 units sold for ’05 before this ‘Bird was grounded.
An entry price of $35,495 for the non-hardtop model in ’04 translates to about $57,000 today. For that money, you got a Jaguar-designed, 4.0 liter engine with 280 horsepower, which had a noticeable upgrade in power from the 252-hp mill installed in the first-year ’02 models, owing to electronic throttle control and variable valve timing. Zero-to-sixty miles per hour was decent at 6.5 seconds, a tangible improvement over the seven-second time of the ’02 models. The only transmission available was a five-speed automatic.
How can I forget you?I’m never gonna give you up, up, I said…
For me, it all comes back to my initial, visceral reaction and genuine enthusiasm from the first time I had seen one of these cars. Granted, there were other heritage-styled vehicles on the market right after the turn of the millennium, like the Chrysler PT Cruiser, Plymouth Prowler, and Volkswagen New Beetle – the style of each of which I can find something to really like. It was the eleventh-generation Thunderbird, though, that had me mentally projecting myself back into some alt-world history where I was around and able to enjoy the novelty, power, and beauty of very first ’55 Thunderbird roadster. The last one probably cost too much for what it was, but just like my first experience of the groundbreaking sounds of Eurythmics left an indelible impression on me, it’s not that hard for me to remember my excitement for these ‘Birds, at a time when Ford had opted to offer something thrillingly different than what had come before.
Downtown, The Loop, Chicago, Illinois.
Tuesday, May 23, 2023.
Song lyrics by Annie Lennox and David A. Stewart. 2004 Ford Thunderbird print ad and album cover were sourced from the internet.
Would be nice to own as a weekend vehicle, especially if it comes with the corresponding hard shell top. Just don’t have the space for it, needs to be garage kept from the heavy winter elements. But lots of fun in the sun!!
As for Annie Lennox, I’ve got a few of her CDs. Thats why I holding on to my older car which has a CD player.
“Weekend vehicle” also seems to be my thought process for any two-seater. And it threw me for a loop the first time I rented a car that didn’t have a CD player!
Being the owner of this exact 2004 thunderbird with the cool blue color and the tan leather interior ,it’s always been a head turning unlike any other modern design,just like driving a classic car with all the modern conveniences
Those all sound like great reasons to me.
I also like these last generation T-birds on the outside, but Ford really blew it by going cheap on the inside. When Ford decides to develops a new T-bird to revive the styling theme of the beloved original T-birds, they really need to go whole hog and provide some retro-touches to the dashboard and trim inside where the owner spends most of his time. It might have also helped to offer an F-code option featuring a super-charged or otherwise hotted up engine option as was available on the original 55-57 T-birds, and while I personally hate them I’m guessing a continental kit option might also have been popular. Perhaps none of these changes would have shifted the sales outcome in a market rapidly moving towards trucks and CUVs, but it would have at least taken away the criticism so often thrown at US automakers in making half-assed new models.
Yeah, the Thunderbird was way-too-obviously a garden-variety Lincoln LS on the inside which, in and of itself, wasn’t that terrible, but it was nothing special, either.
The real thing that killed the retro-Bird was the outrageous price-gouging of Ford dealers. It was priced pretty high to begin with, but when nearly all dealers instantly added tens of thousands in ADMs, well, the overall rather mediocre car just never had a chance. It’s a perfect example of how dealership greed can kill a car.
If not for that, Ford might have sold enough Thunderbirds to offer a decent interior (and maybe an exterior refresh) to keep it going for at least another model cycle.
I like the question you posed – what if Ford had gone full-on retro on the interior? My thoughts is that they tried it on the SN-95 Mustang and while I loved it on that car, not everybody else did, from what I’ve read…
Hooded headlights, rear fins, raised hood scoop, and some bright trim would have been nice touches.
Excellent find and topics Joe. Great album, and a very talented and hugely influential musician duo. Groundbreaking artist, you could tell was very creative and talented, when she was with The Tourists. Lennox was a favourite female singer in 1983, along with Laura Branigan, Canada’s Luba, Irene Cara, Chrissie Hynde, and Ann Wilson of Heart. I occasionally listen to America’s Top 40 countdowns from that era, and Casey Kasem shared a number of Eurythmics/Annie Lennox tales at the time. One story related how they bought a castle to be used as a recording studio, that apparently was haunted.
I had a friend in high school, who was a huge music fan, and had a large album collection at the time. Both he and I, found the second British invasion in music, such a breath of fresh air. As Top 40 radio in the very early ’80s was becoming stagnated with ballad and adult contemporary artists. He still has many of those albums.
A great 1980s chart and yearly review channel at YT is https://www.youtube.com/@somerandomguy_music
You figure Ford would have learned from the ’96 Taurus, to be extra careful not to design another nose, that looked like a fish. Nope! I knew from the first renderings, the 2004 Thunderbird would get a mixed reception. Primarily because of its controversial nose and looks.
Off-topic, Annie is the star here. But I thought I’d give a small shout-out to Luba. Better time than any. She’s probably one of Canada’s greatest singing talents, that most Americans/Britons have never heard of. She was huge here in the ’80s, never charted in the US. As a music authority, I thought you might appreciate her work. Her first big Cdn. song from 1982.
Thank you for posting that link – I have never heard of Luna before, that I know of. She has terrific chops. I’ve been feeling early-’80s pop radio lately as I recently picked up an 18-track compilation of music from ’82. This track would have fit right in. I’m always curious as to why songs make a bigger dent (or any dent) in some markets and formats versus others, despite obvious appeal.
Unfortunately, Luba wasn’t promoted heavily in the US, until much later in her career. She won three successive Juno Awards, our equivalent to the Grammy Awards, as Canadian Female Vocalist of the Year. With multiple platinum albums. Reflecting her popularity here.
Big Eurythmics (and subsequently, Annie Lennox) fan here. Sweet Dreams was pretty much the soundtrack of my last year of college as that song seemed to be everywhere in 1983. I also really like the look of these last Thunderbirds.
I’ve mentioned in comments, and even while writing about my own fling – if 10 years counts as a fling – with retro-look cars (the new MINI), I think this Thunderbird is a very pretty car. It somehow seems to look modern there in your pictures, despite being 20 years old. Neat trick.
To you comment about the top, I’ve recently noticed companies that make a business storing the removable hard tops of cars. Maybe this has been around for years, but I hadn’t heard about it. There’s a business called “Hard Top Hotel” that utilizes the old mill that my office is in to store tops. I think that most of the business is for Jeep Wrangler tops, but I’m sure they’d store other makes as well. Now, why didn’t I think of that?
Jeff, I agree – I think it is still very pretty, even if it’s a polarizing design, as evidenced in the comments. The comments have also made me realize that some of these are already 20 years old. Just… wow.
Most of the time I react more to the car than to your musical reference, but this time it works the other way around. The Eurythmics’ Sweet Dreams was all over the radio in May of 1983 as I was finishing my first year of law school, which had been all about dropping into a group of new friends and new experiences. Although I never bought any of their albums, I loved their stuff – and still do.
The Thunderbird? I really like the color. I used to dislike these because I thought they did a poor job of capturing the essence of the original, but I have softened and allowed these cars into my neutral zone. But that is all the love I can muster for them. I think I would sooner take the 73 Corvette I wrote about a few weeks ago as a weekend cruiser over one of these. It would not be as comfortable, but I would not spend every moment in it wishing that the stylists had done a better job.
An improvement to your neutral zone is still a net increase! I like that you referenced the ’73 Corvette you had written about earlier as a comparison – another two-seater, although (I’d argue) with much more appeal in terms of mainstream taste in the case of the C3.
I can comment as a two time owner of the MY 2004 T-Bird.
The cars are quite satisfying to own. The V-8 has plenty of guts; my wife likes it on the freeway entrance ramps. The interior is just fine and it is clearly not modern in an irritating way. That means that there is no nav; the HVAC is easy to use; the sound system is simple and logical. Controls are where they should be. The bottom cushion of the seat is not long enough for long legged drivers for distance driving.
There can be creaks – especially when the hardtop is removed. Cross braces can be torqued up and that helps; it is not a hard job.
I have never had an issue with engine coils but that is a common problem. I have had electric gremlins which required removal of the front electronic control unit. A specialist rebuilt it (as the unit is not available from Ford). That removal/reinstallation job was hard work.
One set of tires aged out and were replaced. Though lots of tread remained, tire shops would not repair nail punctures.
The only usage complaint is that the trunk is very small and only weekend bags can be accommodated.
These are fine cars and are fun. If one finds a lower mileage car and has garage space it is an easy decision to buy.
It’s funny that the “new” Thunderbird is now as much as 21 years old and has some retro appeal itself as a car that came out before car interiors became dominated by screens and tech, with tasteful and functional physical controls and features that don’t call attention away from the driving experience.
Loved, loved reading this positive firsthand account of (repeat) ownership. This is the kind of thing that makes me happy to know about cars I like. And I feel like creaks are to be expected in any convertible, even really well-engineered ones. People who own and drive convertibles who don’t make any allowances for such things should reevaluate their choice of body style.
Annie Lenox on that album cover reminds me of David Bowie maybe in his Ziggy Stardust days. Wow, that color looks great on that car. I wasn’t a big fan of these cars when new, but nowadays I don’t see very many of them and in that color, it just pops! If it stays in that condition, it may become a valuable collectible.
Total Ziggy Stardust vibes. I think I remember also thinking so when I was putting this together.
I remember seeing these retro T-Birds around Los Angeles early in the mornings before they were announced, I talked to a few of the engineers driving them to test and photo shoots, I thought they’d be a big hit .
Still look nice to me .
Thanx for the various music links .
-Nate
I was only in my mid-20s when these came out, but I thought they would be a smash hit. I really thought so.
I’m in as a fan of the styling too, it works for me and for whoever bought them, so that’s all it needs to do. And they seemingly invariably are still in very good condition when you do see one.
Eurythmics were huge on MTV as well in their early days, MTV helped them as much as they helped MTV with well-crafted videos…Annie Lennox is fabulous, but Dave Stewart is a master as well.
Jim, I was going to say your first resentence sums it all up, but I agree with everything. The video for “Sweet Dreams” still makes the hairs on my arms stand up – it’s just that great, combined with the actual song.
Up until this point in time, Eurythmics music focused mostly on relationships. I was impressed with their followup to Here Comes the Rain Again with Sexcrime 1984. A powerful message, departing from their music thus far, and not as popular with the public. But a huge dance and club hit.
I remember reading Orwell’s 1984 while a high school senior around the time I rented this album from the Flint Public Library. I remember thinking it was “double-plus good”.
What made The Eurythmics succeed was Annie Lennox’s soul voice and style. This musical style is very minimal, so it needs a voice that was interesting and not predictable like a standard ballad singer. Or, the voice could be poor, but interesting, as with The Human League. Thanks to technologies, electronic pop wallpaper music was accessible to creatives. We see how The Tourists evolve from pop music into The Eurythimics’s electronica due to these new technologies. For the past 15 years, we’ve been stuck with Auto-Tune horror-pop and rap.
As to this generation of T-Bird, it could be looked at as if it was vehicular electronic wallpaper pop. It looked like the first generation Thunderbird was poured into a late 1990’s CAD-CAM AI program. Completely predictable – no surprises. Like that Eurythmic wallpaper sound, the Thuderbird is a soul-less replicant of the Original. What it lacked was Annie Lennox’s soul and interesting vocal stylings. There was simply nothing interesting about it. It wasn’t “new”. It wasn’t different. It wasn’t better than the original.
As a visual artist, I understand how art loses its magic. Those original paintings simply cannot be reproduced with the same level of magic. More than once I was requested to reproduce an art piece, which I do with precision. Yet, the copy simply doesn’t have the magic. In art, it is the unexpected and exceeded that gives it magic, and reproductions simply cannot capture that. This is how the last generation of Thunderbird’s ended the T-Bird legacy – as a pale duplicate.
I agree with pretty much everything you say here. Gary Numan produced brilliant early electronic music. But much of it, is cold as ice. It took a voice like Annie Lennox, to bring it to a much larger mainstream audience. And a female audience, as she sang from a modern woman’s perspective.
Your comments are sometimes ‘A’ bomb like, in their directness, and their boldness. But so often, you are correct. Always a great read.
This T-Bird design broke no new ground. As safe as they could play it. But that’s likely what their market research suggested they do. My goodness, a 10 year old LeBaron could still easily compete for looks, with this T-Bird.
What’s the point of pulling up a classic design, if you are not genuinely improving upon it? Rather, trying to exploit it. It can be baggage sometimes.
The ’77 and ’83 T-Birds breaking free with bold and clever new bodywork, was what made them a success!
This is Ford cautiously trying to harvest their past, to satisfy a market.
The image of the light blue/white interior Lebaron GTC speaks volumes on the reason the retro-Bird failed. Virtually identical in the target market demographic and visual impact, the Lebaron has so much more flair, personality and, most importantly, practicality with a useful rear seat. It would be an easy decision as to which one I’d choose.
The styling/design of the LeBaron is judged on its own merit. Doesn’t need/use the legend/mystique of another car, to help it sell.
Having to add these retro touches to a modern design, creates an incongruity in the design. So, often much easier to create something fresh and original, with less encumbrance. And more memorable… If the fresh design, is a great one.
Unless, you hit a home run, it’s tough to channel a legend, and not be immune from being considered a poseur.
Well said. If not for the retro touches that connected it to the original, the final edition T-Bird might have been different. But it would have been a bigger gamble, too, so Ford, in typical fashion, went with the safe bet for early, nostalgia sales, that then quickly petered out.
The Chevrolet Bel Air concept that came out around the same time is a good example of how Bob Lutz decided against a similar fate.
Unfortunately, GM ‘did’ put the SSR retro truck into production which was an even worse decision. The same styling Thunderbird faux pas applied to the SSR, as well.
The counterpoint I’d make is the second generation Lexus SC was basically the peer of these birds without any retro in their design and wasn’t particularly beloved by anyone either. I’ve long been a detractor of the retro Tbirds looks but I’d probably give it the edge. The Lebaron you posted was simply a good looking car, but I wouldn’t say the Sebring successor by the time these were out was particularly good looking, just kind of generic.
Retro is all about execution, it was done much more successfully(visually and commercially) on the S197 Mustang, Challenger and 5th Gen Camaro, in spite of having many modern cues mixed in. The Thunderbird suffers because the most distinct elements of the original like the headlights, taillights upright wraparound windshield were an affront to modern aerodynamic and unwritten stylistic standards, so you ended up with the only thing truly resembling the originals being it’s slab sides.
Totally agree. Using mid ’50s styling cues as a design basis, is far more of a challenge, than more recent muscle cars. Why, I would have made the association more subtle. It still needed to look like an attractive modern car, on its own merit. But it appeared Ford wanted to make the association very obvious. A modern watered-down caricature, like the 1986 Eldorado, etc.
” There was simply nothing interesting about it. It wasn’t “new”. It wasn’t different. It wasn’t better than the original”
I’d agree with all that except the last part. It wasn’t visually better than the original, but like all newer cars, it was certainly functionally better than the original. Power, handling, braking, efficiency, safety, etc, etc. The appeal of the new Thunderbird was to offer the same sort of personal luxury “sports” car as the 55-57 but with the advantages of a modern car. It was more function than art.
More function than art is exactly what I think makes it worse. Certain functional aspects just come with 45 years of engineering progress, they don’t effect styling, but trying to work in 1990s standards of ergonomics, efficiency, aerodynamics and space utilization into a fair weather model is a really pointless exercise and is exactly what made this a worse thunderbird, even if they did make it a better car
I think Ford got too caught up in trying to make these a “premium” luxury model, almost a hybrid in mission combining the 55-57s looks with the more Lincolnesque qualities of 60s Tbirds, but I think they could have done just as well sales wise basing it on the SN95 Mustang platform even Panther platform, and maybe had more design freedom in the budget to get the looks right. The Lebaron/Sebring convertible demographic were essentially exactly who these Tbirds appealed to, it didn’t need to be a Jaguar sports sedan under the skin. Same folly the MN12 predecessor had – BMW aspiring engineering in a car competing for sales against the W body Lumina coupe/Monte Carlo. Tbirds legacy is its image, not what lies beneath the skin.
At the time, I liked the design of the Solstice, quite a bit more.The styling, being the ‘art’.
Even if it appeared inspired by Porsche and Italian designs, it had its own unique look. Perhaps, if Ford made more subtle associations to the ’55 T-Bird,. Not so blatant, while creating an individual, distinctive, and modern look.
Plus, the ’55 T-Bird and its allure, was waaaay before my time.
I agree. Ford was so preoccupied with cloning the original itself they didn’t think to channel the inspirations that created the original, which were actual contemporary sports cars. Even being before my time I can clearly see the sports car looks in the originals, knowing what sports cars looked like at the time, but try as I might when I look at a 02-05 I don’t see anything sporty looking about it by 2002 standards(or 1955 standards tbh)besides the drop top and maybe the pancaked hood scoop, outside of that the 83-97 Tbirds had more sporty lines and proportions, largely because the cars that those drew inspiration from were contemporarily sporty.
Very well said. Exactly, what I have been expressing. They should have styled a great design of the early 00s, and then if they felt they must, considered elements (that worked) from a classic T-Bird.
I came thisclose to using the Saturn Sky as an example of GM taking and reinterpreting what seems to be a modern take on the C1 Corvette from 1958-1961. Ford needed to have done something similar. It would have been awesome to have seen this design given 1955-56 T-Bird touches.
+1 Well said.
Ford appeared to try to take the safest route (to them), and they got burned. The industry is so much more competitive, they really have to respect customers, and aim very high. Much higher, than the past. Many thought this T-Bird was okay. Others, knew it was milquetoast.
When the Saturday Night Live show had a 25 year anniversary special, one of the more memorable musical numbers was The Eurythmics performing a medley of their hits.
At the time, I recall some asking, “Why The Eurythmics?”. To me, the answer was obvious: they had had major hits throughout that entire 25 year time frame which jibed with the show’s tenure. Annie Lennox is most definitely underrated compared with her contemporaries.
Lennox had (has) a terrific voice. It’s almost operatic, with great range, clarity, expressiveness… I feel like I need to look up this 25th anniversary special on YouTube now. David Stewart was also a genius with production and arrangement.
Indeed. I’m not sure that she’s underrated. She’s continued pretty strong into the 21st century.
One of my 21st century favorites.
I also see a parallel between the Thunderbird and Annie Lennox. On paper they should both be very attractive, but both somehow are not as attractive as I’d expect. Lennox is a fantastic singer and beautiful woman, but something about her style and presentation I never found very alluring (quite apart from the music itself, which I like). The T-bird is kind of the same way with me (quite apart from its functionality, which I like).
One thing I noticed in your lead photo has nothing to do with either. The McDonalds is very unusual! It looks like a free standing building, but is architecturally unlike any regular McDonalds or other fast food restaurant. It’s kind of cool.
I live in a city 1/40th the population of Chicago but some of our fast-food outlets look similar … it’s urban design regulations, I’m sure, which don’t want downtowns to look like strip malls or freeway exit service areas.
Jon, I also like your parallels between your experience of car and singer. And that McDonald’s is a beautiful thing to behold. I’m not sure if it’s in an actual Mies Van Der Rohe-designed building, but the Kluczynski Federal Plaza, where many of his buildings are, is mere blocks from this intersection of Monroe & Clark.
A few years ago, I bought a waterfront condo in Virginia Beach. When I moved in, there were three of these Thunderbirds owned by at least two different households. There’ve also been three Volkswagen Eoses(Eoi?) which were owned by three different homeowners. We also used to have the highest owner density of Range Rover Evoques, including one of two convertibles I’ve ever seen. The Evoques are long gone, probably exported to markets where people can’t read a consumer magazine when their leases were up, but there are still two each of the Thunderbirds and Eoi to be seen. There’s also a guy with two El Caminos and a young woman who was a two-door convertible Kia Sportage and a Nissan Juke.
This is great and makes me think more about *geographical* demographics when it comes to popularity of certain cars. I mean, I understand that convertibles would be more popular in areas by the water, but why would some convertibles be more popular than others in a certain region? The yellow ’04 Thunderbird I had spotted last summer was near the Indiana Dunes, another resort-like place, and it’s occupants looked reasonably affluent.
There are also three Mercedes-Benz E-class cabriolets and some retractable-hardtop BMWs here. Convertibles are popular in our parking lots, but I think most of their owners are older. Practically all of the attractive young women drive CUVs; many from premium brands, although CRVs are probably the single most popular cars.
Chrysler was fortunate. As the Concorde was a clean-slate design, they could easily move away from the ambiguous 1998 Concorde’s ‘happy fish’ look. To a 2001 nose, that was less easily misinterpreted.
Maybe I’m in the minority, but I did like the ’98 Concorde face and prefer it to that of the ’01 with its Audi-esque front grille. I think they’re both good-looking cars. I do miss that era of Chrysler styling.
You are correct, the ’98 Concorde nose, did look good. But sadly, with very little imagination on my part, it’s easy for me to also see a big honking happy fish maw. 🙂
Hard for me to unsee, unfortunately! I have the same dilemma, with this era T-Bird, unfortunately.
If you recall, the original two seat T Bird was not as successful as the later four seat model. By the time the retro Bird rolled around, two seat cars had little widespread appeal. From what I’ve read, even the Mercedes SL500 only sells in limited numbers.
I thought that these looked okay as an homage to the original T Bird, especially the two tone interiors seen in some cars.
These obviously appealed to more “mature” buyers, people that remembered the magic of the original models and the Squarebirds that immediately followed them.
The knowledge that these feature a Jaguar designed engine is not something that instills a lot of confidence in a present day collector car buyer. Myself included.
Great observations. Most of the time when I’ve seen one of these, it has been a parked example, but on the few occasions I’ve seen one in motion and gotten a half-decent view of the driver / occupants, they have been more mature clientele. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with these not being targeted to youth – there’s the Mustang for that.
I did love the 1958 – ’60 Squarebird, and the next two generations that followed, but I suppose if Ford was going to find exterior design inspiration from an earlier design, the first two-seaters was a fine place to start. I don’t think there would have been a way to bring the Squarebird’s design cues into a more modern, aerodynamic shape, though it might have worked with the Bulletbird. And then, people might have asked, why the Bulletbird and not the original?
I stand by my thought that Ford made some good choices with this car, even if it wasn’t for everyone.
Wow, I really like this ice blue and saddle tan color combination on the most recent T-Bird, a car I have long struggled to appreciate. That ice blue is a color I associate with 1970s GM cars, but one I really like, and the saddle interior and roof really make it pop on this T-Bird. I will add that the profile shot above reveals a very clean profile, with none of the messy details fore and aft visible. Truly a new way of looking at this car, for me.
As for Annie Lennox and the Eurythmics, I too remember their dominant presence on early 80s airwaves and MTV. Love the sound then and now. I spent the summer of 1983 in Germany as an exchange student and “Here Comes the Rain Again” was all but unavoidable in the clubs in and around Munich!
This car really does have such a great color combo. And I prefer this blue to the more pastel blue of the ’03.
I remember being happy when Annie Lennox had released a solo album after the (temporary, but long) hiatus of Eurythmics. I did like her first solo album, Diva, but on first listen as a teenager, it definitely skewed more toward adult contemporary than I liked at the time, though I genuinely love that album now. I was looking for more of that fire from their earlier recordings, but that time had come and gone.
What if the Thunderbird was a 4-seater in this design? What if there was a longer wheelbase Mark9? What IF Mercury was allowed to develop a unique styled Cougar off this platform? The LS was to receive a restyle for 2003 looking more in line with the ’01 Continental Concept with a 4-door convertible. At lease that is what Motor Trend reported back in 2001. All these “what if’s” Maybe Thunderbird would be around like Mustang and Lincoln wouldn’t have one tire in the grave and the other on a banana peel. I do remember speculation that the LS could allow a longer wheelbase to become the Continental replacement, but nothing came of it unfortunately.
Lisa, I love the metaphors (one tire in the grave…) LOL. Seriously, though, and to your point, I’m wondering what a four-seat version of the 11th-generation Thunderbird would have looked like and what the extra cabin length would have done to the basic proportions of the car. I’m sure Ford wouldn’t have been able to get away with a pair of “+2” seats back there for the price they were charging. And to this day, I lament that there’s no more Cougar (or Mercury).
These Birds never impressed me, bar of soap body, should have had a supercharger or turbo option. Just a boulevard cruiser. Black ones look alright. Just a crappy body style, melted ’55-57 or ’96 Taurus version T-Bird. Would be nice to see what other designs were on the board that were tossed out.
Some really creative typography, and album cover design, happening at this time. The group logo was cutting edge.
I still want me one of these.. Even before any/every car became “unaffordable” , these ((due to the limited run)) were just too much $$.
Thanks Joseph for another great Tuesday read. In the early-80’s I was in my mid-twenties, just changed jobs into a different industry, spent every non-working hour riding motorcycles all over the West, and was on the path to buying my first house. My musical tastes were bouncing all over from rockabilly roots to European hard rock to British New Wave, and Sweet Dreams was definitely a highlight. Twenty years later, I had my nose to the corporate grindstone, raising two kids, driving an SUV and not really listening to popular music very much. But at least I listened to some, while the TBird flew past me as an unidentified and uninteresting flash in the pan. I liked the PT Cruiser much more, and the New Beetle enough to buy one for my wife.
Thanks so much. Doing some quick math, I think you and I would have been of a similar age when we stopped paying attention to then-current radio trends. It’s not that I particularly dislike radio past a certain point. Maybe it was just that I couldn’t relate to it as before, having entered a different phase of my life where many artists were appreciably younger than me and living that life.
I remember the New Beetle being very much a thing – I had a college friend who owned one and really liked it, as did the father of a high school friend. I was happy to see the Beetle’s return, in any form.
Love Annie Lennox (I’m very distantly related) and Eurymthics, Dave Stewart is a creative genius, but nobody has mentioned that Marilyn Manson’s version of Sweet Dreams is amazing, especially live, even if Marilyn isn’t a great singer. Deep dark and spooky.
But I have only one opinion on this Thunderbird, looks like a modern MGB to my eyes.
I think I remember the Marilyn Manson cover of “Sweet Dreams”, and thanks for posting this. And the MGB comparison is apt – I see it, and might not have if you hadn’t mentioned it.
Thanks Joseph. Not PC (me too, no not me!) nowadays to talk about Brian Hugh Warner but whatever you think about him, he is a lasting musical influence and has written a number of great songs.
Living in Australia we didnt get any generation of Ford’s Thunderbirds, and I’ve only seeing pictures of the 1st gen from here on CC. While I can see inspiration from the 55-57 Thunderbird I think the insert trim around headlamps and the rounded body line from the top of the headlamps through to A pillar and the gentle slope down to the mini fins are a crib from the MGB.
Funny story about the MGB from my teenage years. A fellow classmate in high school dad was an engineer with Ford Australia. His dad was working on the 1988 EA26 Falcon project and his son boosted to me that the new Falcon will be quicker and handle better than an MGB. Had to tell my dad about my classmates claims about the new Falcon that was due to be released in a few years time. My father replied ‘Gee Ford are setting the bar and aiming high, MGBs are like driving a rough riding billycart without the frills. Your mum’s 1.6 auto Holden Camira is quicker, now that is saying something’ After learning to drive in mums car, I knew what he meant.
So, the Thunderbird and Lincoln LS’s engine wasn’t actually the 4.0-liter. It was a weird 3.9-liter derived from the Jaguar 4.0-liter AJ26. The 3.9-liter was called AJ30, and the updated 2003 one with VVT was the AJ35. The AJ Jaguar series in general was definitely designed while Jaguar was under Ford and was built at a corporate plant in Bridgend, England…but it’s unclear whether Jaguar designed the whole thing in-house or whether it relied upon some of Ford’s corporate powerplant know-how.
The T-Bird, LS and S-Type all used the Ford/Jaguar-engineered RWD platform known as DEW98. But for the T-Bird and LS, allegedly, Ford wanted to use its own Mod engine, probably the 4.6-liter 4V that was in several high-end and performance Fords of the day. But it didn’t clear a portion of the suspension when installed from below, an important consideration at the factory, and so they came up with the Jaguar-derived engine instead. Why Ford didn’t just go ahead and use the Jag 4.0, I’ll never know. I think the 3.9-liter was actually even built here in the US, in Lima, rather than in the UK.
The T-Bird and LS also never got the benefit of the supercharged units that were only on the Jaguar and Land Rover models.
As for DEW98, Ford was preparing a Lincoln coupe that would have used the platform, and even debuted a couple of concepts (MK 9 in 2001, Mark X in 2004), but the production car was canceled. At the same time, Ford had plans to use DEW98 as the basis for the SN95 (1994-2004) Mustang’s replacement. However, they quickly deemed DEW98 to be too expensive for the Mustang, and so set about cost-cutting the everloving crap out of it. Among other things, they added back the solid rear axle instead of DEW98’s independent rear suspension. When finally the production S197 (2005-2014) Mustang arrived, it was on a new platform called D2C. Little remained of DEW98 in that platform other than a portion of the floorpan and the fuel tank shape.
Very insightful and informative, thank you!
As to the whole retro thing, the only such car that’s really survived is the resurrected MINI Cooper, under BMW. I suppose the 500 has, as well, but barely.