The 1964–1966 Ford Thunderbird, known today as the “Flair Bird,” was one of the most dramatically styled cars of its time, but what really made it stand out was its interior, an automotive toy store calculated to dazzle both the young and the young at heart and make every Sunday drive feel like a deep space mission. Let’s take a closer look at the many strange and wonderful interior features of the 1966 Thunderbird.
The 1964–1966 Thunderbird is a car that would have blown me away in the decade before I was old enough to drive — say, from about 7 to 11. I don’t recall ever seeing a Flair Bird back then, and I don’t think I would have registered it unless I’d actually ridden in one; my awareness of cars back then was mostly limited to James Bond movies and the Batmobile.
However, like many of my generation, I grew up with Star Wars, and if I’d had the opportunity to really interact with one of these ‘Birds, I think it would have blown my mind in a similar way, bringing a particular range of fantasy to vivid, three-dimensional life. Never mind driving it — I would have been very pleased to have a mock-up of the cabin to play in.
I think a key part of the appeal of these cars was that they felt special. They looked like concept cars, inside and out. They weren’t long on real technical novelty, their driving manners were unimpressive, they weren’t very practical, and (as Curbside Classic’s Aaron65 has previously recounted) they were a pain to work on, but a four-seater Thunderbird gave buyers a head-turning, showstopping hunk of four-wheeled glamour for about the price of an Oldsmobile 98.
This formula was very successful through three successive generations: the 1958–1960 Square Bird, the 1961–1963 Bullet Bird, and the 1964–1966 Flair Bird, as their fans now call them.
Strictly from an exterior styling standpoint, I think the earlier Bullet Bird was the most attractive of that trio — I enjoy the looks of the Flair Bird, but it was a hodgepodge of themes from the two previous generations, with a smattering of other design elements borrowed from hither and yon, like the body-side skegs.
Personally, I like the convertible and the standard hardtop, but I’ve long disapproved of the Thunderbird Landau and particularly the 1966-only Town Landau, with its blind rear quarters, padded vinyl top, and simulated landau irons. The latter would have seemed wrong to me as a kid, and they still bug me today — it’s like putting a surrey top on an X-15 space plane.
Contemporary buyers loved the Landau models — the Town Landau accounted for half of 1966 Thunderbird production — but there are no landau irons in space, and you can quote me on that.
Anyway, what I want to talk about is not the exterior design, but the interior, which was the Flair Bird’s crowning glory. It did leave a lot to be desired from a practical standpoint, of course: over-styled, ergonomically sub-optimal, and needlessly complicated. As Motor Trend editor John Ethridge remarked in March 1966:
Being initiated into the Private World of Thunderbird isn’t the easiest thing. Except for ignition, pedals and gear selector lever, the controls are either located in a different place or operate differently than those of any other car. They require considerable study and drill in their use before one qualifies to wear his ‘Birdman’s badge right-side up.
Ethridge was exaggerating a little, but only a little.
The interior design ethos of the Flair Bird seems to have been “every feature a special feature, every control a gadget.” It was that quality that would have fired my imagination if I had first encountered one of these ‘Birds at the right age. Cars in my immediate family were mostly quite spartan, with little in the way of gadgetry; the car in which I learned to drive didn’t even have a radio. They contained no hidden compartments, no banks of intricate readouts, and no panels full of mysterious buttons and levers, all of which the “command post” of a well-equipped Thunderbird offered in seemingly endless supply — more than enough to fit whatever fantasy need a child recently emerged from Star Wars or The Empire Strikes Back might conceivably have (programming a hyperspace jump, angling the deflector shields, you name it). Moreover, the T-Bird’s delirious mid-century sci-fi styling would have required little suspension of disbelief as a Star Wars prop.
People have often suggested that the Flair Bird controls were aircraft-inspired, but I now think that’s wrong. If what you wanted was an aircraft-like instrument panel full of steam gauges and toggle switches like a WW2 Supermarine Spitfire, there were any number of smaller British sports cars that would have served you much better. The 1964–1966 Thunderbird was science fiction, from the era when fanciful concepts like spaceflight were on hovering on the threshold between fantasy and reality.
John Ethridge opined that loyal Thunderbird owners “must surely experience strange sensations on entering ordinary cars.” Newcomers experienced many strange sensations upon entering the Thunderbird, beginning with the T-Bird’s standard swing-away steering wheel. With the shifter in Park, the whole steering column could swing to the right for easier entry and exit. A conventional tilt/telescope steering wheel (which was an option on quite a few other high-end American cars of the time) might have been more useful, but, like so much of this car, the goal was to surprise and delight, both at the Ford dealership and when owners showed off their new ‘Birds to envious family or friends.
The instrument panel had a full array of gauges, although their design and format were rather eccentric: rolling-drum instruments (which glowed green at night) set into metal “eyeballs,” and a peculiar type of ribbon speedometer.
Some Thunderbird controls would have been familiar to many Ford customers of the time, but are rather obscure today. For instance, the shift quadrant had two “Drive” positions — selecting the left one (the smaller dot) caused the standard C6 Cruise-O-Matic to start in second gear for less wheel spin on slippery roads, a crude form of traction control.
Controls for the power windows, if ordered, were fitted in the center console rather than the doors. (Power windows were not standard on the Flair Bird, although they were ordered on about 79 percent of 1966 production.) There were several different panels, depending on whether or not the car had power vent windows, which were a separate option, and a solid black panel if the car had wind-up windows. On the chrome rail to the left of the window controls on this particular car, you can just make out the switch for the optional Highway Pilot Control, a $97.21 cruise control system developed for Ford by Curtiss-Wright.
Unlike the shift quadrant, Highway Pilot Control will be more familiar to modern drivers than it was in the mid-’60s. Except for the on/off switch, its controls were on the steering wheel. On the left was the SET SPEED switch; on the right were switches for RETARD (which on a modern car would probably be labeled DECEL) and RESUME. This kind of arrangement has been commonplace since the ’80s, but was pretty advanced for 1966.
With or without air conditioning (which was still optional on these cars, and not always ordered), the Flair Bird’s heater controls were fairly conventional. However, getting the best heating or cooling required careful study of the car’s effective but fiendishly complicated ventilation system.
Ordering “SelectAire” air conditioning, a $415.90 option fitted to 63.7 percent of 1966 Thunderbirds, added these three central vents, whose angles you could adjust using the two little joysticks and the small lever between them. (Without air conditioning, this section of the dashboard was filled with another blank matte black panel.)
The Thunderbird had conventional vent windows, but the hardtop models also featured “Silent-Flo” flow-through ventilation. Silent-Flo drew in fresh air through the plenum under the windshield and exhausted it through this vent below the rear window.
The Silent-Flo system was controlled by the “REAR VENT” lever under the heater controls (which was replaced on convertibles by the power top control). Ford recommended that you close the rear vent if the vent windows were open or vice versa, rather than trying to use both at once. They also recommended that you close the rear vent if you wanted to turn the heater on full blast, or if you ran the A/C in recirculation mode for maximum cooling. However, opening the Silent-Flo rear vent provided excellent air circulation even with the windows closed, helping to keep the cabin air from getting stale or muggy, particularly in humid or rainy weather.
All Flair Birds ALSO had fresh air registers located under each side of the dashboard. These were controlled by these “LEFT AIR” and “RIGHT AIR” levers, located on the right side of the rectangular pod under the dashboard’s padded upper lip. With each lever pushed all the way forward, its corresponding air inlet was sealed off; you could then open either or both inlets by pulling the levers back. Learning to coordinate these with the heater, air conditioning, and rear vent took practice (the owner’s manual had a whole table of recommended combinations for different conditions), but once you got the hang of it, it worked well, and it was quite versatile. I live in an area that tends to get obnoxiously muggy on cool evenings, forcing me to constantly switch between vent and defrost, so I think Ford really did have a better idea here.
Many Americans smoked when these cars were new, and the Thunderbird was designed to cater to them. The Silent-Flo system drew cigar or cigarette smoke out of the cabin even with all the windows shut, and the standard cigar lighter and ashtray were close at hand, concealed under the brushed-metal panel at the leading edge of the center console. Never having been a smoker, I can’t speak to how convenient this might have been — using the lighter while driving seems like it might be awkward — but it was a stylish arrangement.
The storage bin under the center console armrest was lockable, with the lock cylinder visible on the driver’s side. If you ordered the remote decklid release, the pull-switch for that option was located inside the bin, on the front wall. Incidentally, this console storage bin was the closest the Flair Bird had to a glove compartment; the right side of the dashboard was just a blank panel with a “Thunderbird” script badge.
Let’s return for a moment to the dashboard’s center pod. In addition to the air inlet controls, this pod contained the clock and two other sets of levers. The center levers controlled the power antenna and the map light; if you didn’t order the power antenna, there was a single symmetrical map light switch here instead. At the left were the wiper/washer controls. The left lever activated the wipers and adjusted the wiper speed, and you pulled back the right lever to actuate the washer jets.
The ’60s Thunderbird, like its Lincoln Continental cousin, used Trico Hydro-Wipe hydraulic wipers rather than the usual electric windshield wipers. In addition to being quieter and having more torque than electric wipers, the hydraulic wipers were infinitely variable, rather than having just two or three fixed speeds. On the Thunderbird, you varied the wiper speed by moving the left control lever forward or back.
Some Thunderbird models were available with a Safety Convenience Control Panel, which was located on the back of dash behind the center pod. The switch at the left, labeled “F,” controlled the four-way flashers, with the light next to the button indicating when they were on. The center light was the low fuel indicator, and the light to its right (behind the map light switch) indicated a door ajar. The switch at the far right, labeled “D,” activated the vacuum-powered automatic door locks. On Town Hardtop and Town Landau models, the lock control was moved to the center console, in the space occupied by the seat belt warning lamp in standard hardtop and convertible cars.
The Thunderbird Town Hardtop and Town Landau models dispensed with the Safety Convenience Control Panel in favor of an Overhead Safety Panel, which included the seat belt warning light, four-way flasher control, door ajar, and low fuel lights. (All cars have these today, but they weren’t yet required in 1966, and they were often omitted from cheaper cars.) I would have been over the moon about this overhead console when I was a kid — switching to targeting computer, etc.
Controls for the optional power seats (which more than half of 1966 Thunderbirds had) were fairly conventional, but unlike modern seats, changing the seat back angle for the driver’s seat was an involved chore. There was a rake adjustment screw under the left side of the seat back; to adjust it, you had to get out of the car, flip the driver’s seat forward, adjust the screw, and get back in. Not very convenient, but many American cars of the time didn’t have any rake adjustment at all. Incidentally, the “FORD” logo on the sill plate was one of the few places you’d find the Ford name on these cars without popping the hood, although there was “Thunderbird” identification everywhere you looked. The Thunderbird was popular with well-heeled buyers who could afford more prestigious brands, so Ford kept the blue oval badges to a minimum.
I would be remiss in not discussing the Thunderbird’s convertible top mechanism, which was both spectacular and a little disappointing. It was disappointing in that it was surprisingly fussy to use despite the standard power top: To lower the convertible top, Ford advised that you first unzip and secure the rear window (which was plastic rather than glass), and you then had to release both of the lock clamps and manually separate the top from the windshield frame. Once it was free, however, you could press the power top control, which caused the entire rear deck to swing upwards as if the whole car were about to transform into a giant robot. Once the top was furled and stowed in dramatic fashion, the rear deck then automatically lowered itself back into place. This mechanism, originally developed for the Ford retractable hardtops of the late ’50s and shared with the Lincoln Continental convertible, is a real head-turner when in action, but these Thunderbirds cried out for a true one-touch automatic top, like the one later fitted to the 1989–2001 Mercedes-Benz R129 300SL/500SL/600SL roadsters.
You’ll notice that I haven’t said anything about the powertrains, suspension, or driving manners of these Thunderbirds. There wasn’t much to tell. The standard powertrain was the Ford 390-cid V-8 with dual exhausts and a 3-speed Cruise-O-Matic transmission, which gave rather leisurely performance; 0 to 60 mph took over 11 seconds. For 1966, the bigger 428-cid engine became optional, reducing 0–60 times to a bit under 10 seconds. All 1965–1966 Thunderbirds had standard front disc brakes, which were much better than the terrifyingly inadequate all-drum brakes on the 1964 car. Otherwise, the Thunderbird drove much like other big American luxury cars of its time, which meant a pillow-soft ride on smooth pavement, a ponderous feel, and a general reluctance to change direction with any enthusiasm. For a long, straight cruise to Mos Eisley, Alderaan, or perhaps Las Vegas, it was just the thing, but you couldn’t expect the Thunderbird to thread any asteroid fields to evade Imperial pursuit.
Thunderbird owners didn’t care, preferring comfort to evasive maneuvering. However, even when I was too young to drive, I think the marshmallow-y ride would have made me carsick, and I would not have enjoyed being confined to the Thunderbird’s attractive but uncomfortable lounge-style rear seats. Today, my back aches just looking at the way the seat backs are curved inward (which only made sense when very few people wore seat belts), but style over substance was the name of the game.
Once I got my driver’s license, I preferred cars with less bulk, more agility, and better ergonomics than these Thunderbirds. These cars still aren’t to my taste, but I now find them tremendously charming, in the same way I’m sometimes delighted by toys I don’t need now, but can tell I would have wanted desperately when I was 7 or 8.
Other than its impressive but complicated ventilation system, even a fully loaded Flair Bird with every available option didn’t really DO anything very unique. Many domestic luxury cars of the time offered the same array of features (and some gadgets the Thunderbird didn’t, like automatic climate control and automatic headlights). Most of the features available on the Thunderbird, and more, are now common on all kinds of far humbler vehicles, and they’re usually less fussy to operate. However, the Flair Bird had a unique capacity for making even very ordinary controls seem like an occasion.
For better or worse, that couldn’t go on forever. When it was basically alone in its field, the four-seat Thunderbird could be willfully eccentric and get standing ovations for it, but a measure of orthodoxy had to creep in sooner or later. The Flair Bird sold 236,613 cars in three years, even better than the two preceding generations, but buyer tastes were changing, and the competition was starting to close in, in ways it really hadn’t before. Before long, the Thunderbird would be judged more like a regular car, and so it would become more like a regular car. Within a few years, the Thunderbird would also have to compete with its Lincoln Continental Mark III sibling, which cost more and thus inevitably had the edge in features and interior materials.
The Flair Bird has its faults, but it struck a chord with a lot of people, and it’s easy to see why. A Thunderbird wasn’t cheap — a fully loaded convertible stickered for over $6,500 in 1966, the equivalent of about $73,000 in 2026 dollars — but it wasn’t impossibly expensive either, and except perhaps for the Corvette Sting Ray, it was the most exotic-looking car many Americans were ever likely to see up close. There were other cars on the market that were much better to drive, but very few that offered so much to look at or to play with.
Related Reading
Curbside Musings: 1964 Ford Thunderbird – How Things Make Us Feel (by Joseph Dennis)
COAL: 1965 Ford Thunderbird — My First Classic! (by Chip Downs)
Car Show Classic: 1965 Ford Thunderbird–Unique in All the World (by Aaron65)
Cohort Pic(k) Of The Day: 1966 Ford Thunderbird Town Landau – A Bit Of Brougham Flair (by Rich Baron)
Don’t forget the sequential turn signal lights! They made the car even more identifiable and exotic. I was mesmerized by them as a child.
Here’s the 60’s engineering for that https://www.youtube.com/shorts/rq8yxbyncFo
These are my favorite T-Birds of all time. Would love to have a ’66 with the 428 if I owned a gas station.
I believe Ford had something really special in the first iterations of the four seat Thunderbirds, much like it did a few years later with the Mustang (perhaps not coincidence, another car did not overtly display the Ford logo, and essentially became it’s own mini-brand).
I am also of the opinion that the “flair bird” does not express a very cohesive exterior design (I find the Landau totally unattractive), but that interior is stunning
Form over function, but is that not the purpose of a car like this? Be unique, and make the uniqueness your strength.
Make mine a Vintage Burgundy convertible with black top and white with burgundy interior
Landau bars are like the “bustleback” on some cars from the early ’80s – they reference something so before my time that I don’t even know what it’s intended to evoke. I only learned recently that they’re intended to like early 20th century folding top mechanisms. They’re certainly not attractive stuck on modern car C pillars.
I associate landau bars with hearses, so I find these bars on Landau Tbirds borderline macabre.
Mom bought a new 1960 T-Bird convertible, Dad bought a new 1963 T-Bird hardtop that was given to me on my 16th birthday, early 1967. He also bought a new 1966 Town Landau that was given to me late 1969. My current toy is a 1966 T-Bird convertible loaded with about all the options except cruise control. This coming weekend the weather will be perfect for my first show of the season.
I have some cousins (first cousins once removed) the same age as my parents who immigrated to the U.S. in the late 1960s from Scotland (where they had a Ford Consul, which was reportedly unreliable, and a Volvo 122 which they loved).
Their first car in the U.S. was used Thunderbird of this generation. They loved that car and its styling and remarked that it was like riding in a spaceship. They were living the dream!
A very well-written and informative article Aaron. Enjoyed reading it. I agree. The instrument panel and dashboard were very futuristic,
My parents had a ’64 Thunderbird and it had a different seat belt warning light than the one on the ’66, The ’64 had a square button by the power window switches that would light up whenever the car was started. Pushing it would turn it off.
Also, I believe 1966 was the first year for Ford to use the keys that fit either way in the lock.
Some 1966 cars still had that, actually. In ’66, the seat belt warning light might be in any of three places depending on which model you had and which options you ordered. On hardtops and convertibles without the safety convenience panel, the light was on the console, just like on your parents’ ’64. This was deleted if you ordered the safety convenience panel, which put the light on the dashboard, below the center pod with the wiper and air vent controls. On the Town Hardtop and Town Landau, the seat belt warning light went into the overhead panel, and the power lock control went into the space on the console where the light normally was on the cheaper models.
Around 1971 or 72, Pop got a beater 1964 T-bird (probably for a few hundred dollars) as a beater car for the 1.8 mile drive to the Metra commuter train. Eben thought it was in rough shape by then (8 years old and maybe 80k miles could put a car into beater status back then) the interior still felt space age, but in a weird sort of throwback way. Like what designers in 1962 thought the future would be, but they were wrong.
The best analogy is watching syndicated reruns of “Lost in Space”, but watching them after the real lunar landing.
I remember working on these. The hydraulic, electrical & vacuum systems were challenging to diagnose when trouble happened – as it invariably did when the cars aged. We didn’t see many of them. A Thunderbird really wasn’t a good match for the customer demographics catered to by our small farming town Ford agency. Whether due to scarcity and complexity, our service manager liked to use the occasional repair job as a training ground for apprentice mechanics – under the close guidence of one of the senior master mechanics of course. I’m not sure I appreciated the honor much, but there was a certain logic to the practice. As high schoolers taking power shop courses, we apprentices benefited from usually being more adept at the contortions and tight reaches required for many of the interior wire and vacuum line checks recommended by the shop manuals. I won’t say working on T-birds was fun, but I can’t deny it was educational. The only trouble was that the knowledge really wasn’t much help when working on more pedestrian Fords. The basic running gear was the same as any Ford, but those were not the systems that typically malfunctioned.
I recall sitting in a Flair Bird a Ford dealer had in their showroom sometime in the ’80s or ’90s along with their new cars. The Thunderbird definitely looked and felt like something special. In contrast, I drove a late MN12 T-Bird from the mid-’90s and from behind the wheel it could have been a fleet car or commercial van. Or a Camry interior, but with cheaper materials. I don’t care for the Flair Bird’s exterior though, preferring the generation before or after it.
I like how back in the day in American cars, they’d actually have two or three different switchplates or control panels to accommodate different options, as with the levers and lights described here where you got one big switch for the map light unless you got the power antenna in which case you got two half-size switches. Or how if you didn’t order extra gauges, the remaining gauges or clock was made bigger to fit the space. Nowadays they just put blank plugs wherever there’s a control for an option your car doesn’t have.
Dad rented a new flame red ’64 for a few weeks while waiting for a company car to arrive. Those not around in those years don’t realize how special T-Birds were, there was nothing else like it until the Riviera came along. Both a luxury and sporty car all in one, and totally unique on the road, sort of like a US Facel Vega or Bristol. One felt very special and unique in one.
I love all of the ’58 to ’66 models, particularly the ’60 with triple taillights, in dark green Ivy metallic with light green leather seats (our neighbor’s car) but the ’57 is my all time favorite.
My first up-close encounter with one of these was a light blue metallic ’66 Convertible with the tonneau cover that I saw at a cruise-in back in the spring of ’84, when I was still 23 and had my own nearly new ’83 Aero Bird. I commented on it the other day in our other Aaron’s post about the Bullet Birds.
I was smitten, and would want one just like it in that very color. This guy’s had the white interior which was such a great combination for that car. (If I were to get a ’68 Impala convertible, I’d want the same color scheme, but I digress…)
That interior really captured my attention then, as I’d never seen such a awesome display of luxury. Getting back into my base ’83 T-Bird to drive home was a bit of a letdown after seeing that car.
Referencing the video posted above by Rich in Florida, the guy showed me that mechanism and I was amazed. Certainly a lot more complicated than the simple electronic set up I have in my Mustang.
Perhaps my parents bought so many T-Birds because Dad was an Air Force pilot and he loved the interiors. I find all the controls easy to work, not fussy at all.
I love the red interior of the feature car but also find my black convertible interior easy to maintain. The chrome and SS interior trim looks great in a black interior. Note: the back curved seats wee very comfortable.
I don’t find them so at all.
In the spring of 1967 my Dad bought a pristine 1965 Thunderbird coupe, beige on beige (interior high quality vinyl). I was 17 and got to use the car a lot as long as I was willing to pay for gas (not a small price given its single-digit MPG and requirement for “ethyl”).
The car’s interior was spectacular, especially at night with that beautiful dash lighted, and a plethora of interior lights: red and white in the doors, lights above the front seats, in the c-pillars, and map lights in the dash center. The giant Thunderbird script across the passenger side of the dash reinforced the message you were in a special car.
Everyone smoked back then and the flow-through ventilation worked beautifully. The switch for that feature was controlled by engine vacuum as were the heater and transmission controls IIRC; you constantly heard hissing when you engaged them. From the back seat you could hear the mechanical device controlling the sequential turn signals when they were engaged. The rear seats lacked seat belts and you could find a comfortable position in the corner of the lounge seats if you were young enough and without back problems:-). The windshield wipers running off the power steering pump worked beautifully and gave you total control of their range, a revelation at the time. The front disk brakes were a great improvement for Thunderbird as automotive road testers constantly complained about the inadequate brakes from the Square Bird onward.
These were solid, quiet, highway cruisers that undoubtedly did not age well given the heavy reliance on those vacuum lines and complicated wiring throughout. Our car’s saving grace was that it had manual windows and seats so nothing to break there. These also were years when Wixom was doing better rustproofing and the Bird never had that problem. Dad traded the car in around 1970 when I was in college. I don’t recall any problems with it, he just moved on to cars with less pizzaz and better mileage until he bought a new 1978 Continental Mark V Cartier, his last experiment with luxury from FoMoCo and one not nearly as successful as the Thunderbird.
BTW our car was the same interior color as the 1966 Landau pictured with this piece so perhaps it was Ivy Gold. The pictured 66 is strange as it has the 66 upholstery pattern but the steering wheel design from a 1965 – a hybrid?
You’re right, it has the wrong wheel bus. I don’t think it’s any kind of hybrid (at least not from the factory), just a case of someone putting the wrong wheel on it. I’ll see if I can swap that picture out for one with the correct wheel.
I was looking at one of the pictures of the Landau above where the upholstery looked lighter than the others. Definitely not the color of our interior which was beige.. Like this one minus the wood trim of the Landau:
In the late 90s we hired a consulting systems engineer who was near retirement age. Turns out he was a key engineer at NASA early on and he is in books. He drove a 65 convertible which he had owned from new. If someone were to ask me who drove these I would say NASA engineers and airline pilots.
Excellent article, Aaron about my favorite ‘Bird. You owe me a new keyboard, as I couldn’t help drooling heavily over that black/red car in the lead photo, LOL!! I also remember a 4th grade elementary school teacher that had a metallic blue ’64 hardtop; between him and the third grade teacher that had a ’62 Gan Prix (with bucket seats!) the school parking lot was QUITE interesting! 🙂
Yes, it looks like a space ship even now .
-Nate
I’ve long been convinced that 1966 Ford design is their zenith. Every single car looks like it’s racing, even when it’s at rest.
The third photo really illustrates this—especially without the extra bright work, it’s just stunning. The Fairlane, Galaxie, and T-bird all share similar lines and are unmistakably of a kind.
If only they’d come with collapsible steering columns and dual braking systems!
Well, the government stepped in and forced collapsable steering columns and dual braking systems on everybody in 1968 anyway.
Ford must have known this was coming and dug their heels in as hard as they could… all they could come up with for ’67 was the “Flowerpot”!
In the early 1970s, my cousin who was 20 years older had a 1966 Thunderbird. It was a nice-looking car, but it constantly had some kind of mechanical issues. I saw the car standing still more than I ever saw in motion.
So very “Kirk to Enterprise” – what a flight of fantasy!
I did always admire the headlight/grille/bumper treatment on these – not overdone, yet unmistakable. And I remember those sequential rear lights! Actually, the rear treatment was pretty clean too.
I’ll forgive the canards and winglets and stuff – they just added to the effect.