Image courtesy of google, Lord of the Image Search
1987: the stock market crashed, the world’s population reached five billion, Maggie Thatcher scored term #3 in the UK, Michael Jackson released Bad, and worse, New Zealand’s relationship with the USA went down the plughole (anti-clockwise, naturally) thanks to us becoming a nuclear-free zone. There’s no truth to the rumour that NZ leaving the ANZUS pact turned it into ANUS. In the motoring world, 1987 was the year Australia’s esteemed Wheels magazine took a tru-blue dinky-di Aussie Holden Commodore to the US of A and road-tested it against the Buick Grand National, Chev Monte Carlo SS Aero, Ford Mustang GT and the subject of Curbside Classic this week, the Ford Thunderbird. Read on for how that beautiful Ford in that magazine contributed to this Kiwi kid’s automotive coming-of-age.
I knew 1987 was going to be a tumultuous year for me – I’d turned 13 at the end of ’86, which meant the end of my years 1-8 junior schooling, and the end of the sense of comfortable familiarity those years had given me. 1987 meant starting secondary school, which in New Zealand is years 9-13, covering ages 13-18. It was going to be challenging going from being one of the big kids at junior school to becoming a ‘turd’ at high school!
Not a Thunderbird!
One of my methods of getting through that year was to pore over my Great-Uncle Bill’s car magazines. Uncle Bill was a keen car enthusiast who, along with my mechanic Dad, influenced my love of cars. In 1987 Uncle Bill drove a Vauxhall Chevette (metallic gold with white seats and orange carpet)…and an Audi 200T (black on black, so exotic, so fast, so much understeer!). More importantly to a young and impressionable mind in those pre-internet days, was Uncle Bill’s car magazine subscriptions – Wheels from Australia and New Zealand Car from Uzbekistan (I kid, I kid). I loved biking over to my Uncle and Aunt’s house to read the latest issues – and work my way through the shelves of the older ones. Sadly Uncle Bill died of cancer in the 90s, but his magazines live on on my book shelves – the ‘982’ on my scanned cover below was his subscription number at the local bookshop.
What? Where’s the normal photo of a cool car?
Unlike most issues, February 1987’s Wheels puzzled me. I’d read car magazines for a couple of years, and understood the format: they have photos of cool cars on the cover to entice readers in. But this Wheels only had words on it! Words! How will that look good in my dreams or on my bedroom wall?! The main words referred to there being no Car of The Year, as nothing was deserving enough. But down the bottom were another four words and three red-white-&-blue letters that piqued my interest: “Calais Director Takes On USA”. Wait, what? Aren’t American cars all big-bumpered boxy things that look hopelessly out-of-date, my 13-year-old know-all self asked? What could Wheels have possibly found that could compete against the stylish sophistication of the Commodore?
Kiwi Kommodore Calais V8 wearing an HDT LE bodykit – source googlewebnet
To be fair, it wasn’t a standard Commodore, but a top-spec Calais, modified to become a ‘Director’ by HDT, the Holden Dealer Team. This was Holden’s semi-official racing team, and was owned by Aussie racing legend Peter Brock. HDT had been modifying Holdens for some years and Holden honoured the HDT cars’ factory warranties. Wheels‘ Director was Brocky’s prototype, so wore HDT’s subtle but stylish ‘LE’ bodykit seen above, rather than the, um, different ‘Director’ kit seen below:
Depressingly, they made more than one of these. Pic courtesy of brockcommodores.com
This Calais Director features the full 21-piece ‘Director’ kit, and I can see that a lot of tupperware and Lego died for it… I’m kind of glad that Wheels‘ one had the LE kit. With the unusual bodykit, the Director was perhaps the zenith of HDT’s modifications, with HDT also bestowing it with Opel Senator-based independent rear suspensions (all Aussie Commodores were live axle until the mid-90s).
Unfortunately HDT didn’t get GM approval for the IRS (even though it was a bolt-in proposition and factory fitted in the Commodore’s European cousins), so Holden refused to continue honouring the factory warranties. There was also the matter of the crystal and magnet filled ‘Energy Polariser’ that Brocky insisted on fitting to the cars, to which Holden said “Yeah, nah, complete bollocks mate, so hoo-roo, we’re not cobbers any more”.
I wasn’t aware of this behind-the-scenes GM-HDT divorce, but I was aware that Wheels said the Calais Director was a world class car made right there in Australia! However, I also knew saying something is quite different from proving it. In those pre-intergoogleweb days, inter-market comparisons simply didn’t happen, so taking a real, live Commodore to the States was a new and exciting concept to me. I’ll try now to channel my 13-year-old impressions from 1987 as to how the Thunderbird in the test brought about a coming of age for me in the way I viewed American car design.
Note the subtle reference to yacht racing (as opposed to land yachts!)
So let’s start at the very beginning (it’s a very good place to start). Looking at the two-page opening photo appeared to confirm my American-car-design prejudices. Big square GM things that looked stylistically out-of-date? Check. No Chrysler – do they even still exist? Check. A too-small Mustang with slightly-suspect proportions? Check. A Euro-influenced VL Holden? Well that’s the whole point of the article, so check. Oh wait, what’s that great-looking coupe on the left? A Thunderbird? It’s styled in America and looks as good as that? I suspect my views are about to be challenged…
To understand why the Thunderbird made such an big impact on me, let’s take a gander through the magazine at the other cars tested.
The Buick: Looked boxy and old, with non-flush rectangular headlights and steel wheels. Wheels compared its roofline to that of a Volvo 760. My 13-year-old self giggled. I stopped giggling when I turned to the interior photos and saw the horizontal strip speedometer. In a performance car! In 1987!! Overall I didn’t think the car looked bad, it just didn’t look modern. Except for the lack of a chrome grille, it was the epitome of heavy-handed and dated American styling as I thought I understood it. If it came in orange I could see the Duke boys in one. Next please.
The Monte Carlo: Scored full round instrumentation and red stripes inside, and big mag wheels and bigger red stripes outside. It had the brashness that I equated with American design, but also featured a distinctive and stylish wrap-around rear window. Wheels said the aero-back gave the full Monte “a drag coefficient of 0.365 compared to the Grand National’s disastrous 0.44“, but I said any modernity the aero-back brought to the styling was cancelled out by (again) non-flush rectangular headlights. More typical dated American design. My teenage prejudices remained alive and well. Sigh.
The ‘stang: Ok, a bit of an improvement here with flush lamps and no grille. The non-flush side door glass doesn’t gel with the flush rear-side windows, And half the glass on the afore-mentioned rear-side appeared to be covering a solid pillar instead of letting the sun shine in. But teenage me was surprised at how Ford had made it look fairly current. The interior looked very good too – unlike the GM twinsters, it looked up to date, similar to the Aussie XF Falcon, and almost *gasp* European! The proportions were slightly odd, but it certainly sparked a seed of doubt in my prejuiced thoughts.
But the Thunderbird, oh the Thunderbird!: I turned the page and all my pre-conceived American-car-design prejudices were completely shattered. In my mind, Thunderbirds were old cars – stumpy in the ’50s, torpedoes in the ’60s, and long low-roofed whale-monsters in the 70s. I had no idea they were still being made in 1987, let alone wrapped in such beautiful sheet metal. It was so smooth and streamlined, with flush lamps, flush glass all around, no grille, nice alloy wheels, and such a gorgeous reddish colour. Inside was so modern and European-inspired too.
The old-fashioned door pull and clunky chrome door-release handle were questionable, but paled into insignificance alongside everything else. Overall that 1987 Thunderbird Turbo was easily the most modern, most European, most non-American American car I’d ever seen! And beautiful, so very beautiful. I fell instantly and deeply in love with the Wonderbird, but was brought crashingly back down to earth when I turned the page to…
…the Commodore: Similar lovely colour to the Ford, but easy to see its late-70s German origins inside and out. Having riden in them I knew the dashboard was basically poor quality rubbish – although Brocky’s graphic equaliser mounted in a separate pod in front of the gear lever was quaint! The semi-hidden headlights and the large windows did give it a passably modern look, but I…I couldn’t help myself, I just had to turn the page back to see more of that beautiful Thunderbird that I’m going to dream about forever (to a teenager, a week was forever!)
Let down by its “nasty” 2.3 turbo, the Thunderbird actually came third in the comparison, behind the Mustang and the victorious Holden, but I didn’t care. In my eyes and heart the Wonderbird came first. It’s funny that all these years later, I can still remember how intensely I felt about the Thunderbird upon seeing it for the first time in that issue of Wheels.
So that’s my coming-of-age tale of how, one day in early 1987, a beautiful American Ford completely changed the way this Kiwi kid viewed American car design. More importantly, it taught a know-all 13-year-old (aren’t we all at that age?) that that there was much more to the world and to cars than I thought. I learnt what parochialism was, and how to question my prejudices. Thanks Wheels, and thanks Ford!
Postscript– as I went to hit ‘save’ on this post, I held the magazine up to the light to look at a Thunderbird photo better. I discovered the faint indentations that 13-year-old me left when I traced it to put onto my school books. And isn’t schoolboys tracing a picture of a beautiful car the biggest praise a designer can hope for?
Photo courtesy seattlesclassic.blogspot.com
Those 16″ alloys were some of the most beautiful made at that time. Sort of a copy of a Mitsubishi design they had on the Galant a year prior, but still very nice.
“Sort of a copy of a Mitsubishi design”
Really? *turns to google and image-searches…* Ah, yes, you’re right, good observation. I remember those wheels, we had them on our Mitsi Eterna (same as the US Galant; our NZ Galant was a different, smaller car). ’88 US Galant:
The one in the pic we called the ‘Galant Sigma’ and it had a 3.0 V6 in it. I had a ‘regular’ ’86 Galant with those wheels….. http://www.muamat.com/adpics/4e55f31415662f5d0d22582db.jpg
I gotta disagree on those wheels. They make the car look slow. The high offset and bland design might work for a Japanese sedan, but not on a sporty coupe. What I think really dialed these Birds and Cougars in is when someone pilfered the deep offset ‘turbine’ wheels from a late 80s 5.0 Mustang. Gives the car the ‘beef’ that it needs to look like an American performance coupe. Just my opinion, of course.
Cougar XR-7s got the turbines factory in 88, also on the 20th anniversary 87s. They even have their own centercaps
While I love turbines on Lincolns, I’m not sure they really suit the Cougar.
Didn’t know those were factory on those, Matt. Those wheels REALLY bring out the car and make it look beefy and muscular.
Scott, the turbines used on Lincolns (and Mercs too, I think) would’ve been a similar design, but the devil’s in the details as they say. The Fox versions had fewer, thicker vanes, more offset and Im sure were wider overall, lending a much more aggressive look. The L/M versions had thinner vanes and more of them. The dish of the wheel was shallower, the width narrower, the center cap was different and they were usually paired with whitewalls. While they’re different versions of the same basic concept, it comes off a LOT different in the execution. One looks good on a coupe, the other right at home on a broughammy sedan.
Ah yes, I see the difference. The Lincoln ones are very attractive, if I had an 80s/90s Town Car I’d have to have them.
If I’m not mistaken, the ones on the Cougar are the same ones used on the Mustang GT, and were a four-bolt pattern, versus five-bolt on the Lincolns and Mercuries.
I like these wheels well enough, but they attracted dirt very easily and were a bitch to clean!
This test also appeared in “Car and Driver” at the same time. The two mags must have done it as a cooperative venture. I remember that the CD staffers thought a lot of the Holden.
I don’t remember that, but makes sense as the opening page of the Wheels test is about Jean Lindamood (Jennings) driving the cars around Willow Srpings Raceway in CA. I wonder if the opening page of C&D is about a Wheels staffer driving the cars around the raceway lol. I have a fairly huge collection of C&D at home, so I’ll hunt through after work and see if I can find the right issue.
Boy, did I get confused. It wasn’t “Car and Driver”, but “Automobile”. Because of the David E Davis link, I’m forever getting the two mixed up. Sorry, everyone.
Whew, I’m glad you cleared that up – I went through all my ’86 and ’87 C&Ds and thought I must be going mad because I couldn’t find the test! I do have some Automobile mags, but none from around then.
Duke boys in a Grand National? lol … not really. Like the GS’s of years past, the Buick was still typically Dad’s hot rod… a bit more old-school than the Monte, and the note the exhaust made on those was heavenly (esp. when combined with the usual tire squeal). Flush headlamps were available on the standard Monte Carlo by ’87, and it looked horrid. The SS may have looked dated to some, but it was a sharp looking car in person, and not a terrible ride in most respects for those who were familiar with the quirks of GM products of the era.
That Thunderbird though was a game changer when it came out in ’83, i think more innovative and certainly classier and better looking than the lumpy Taurus/Sable that followed it, and both the 302 powered and Turbo Coupes were no slouches. I’m not a huge Ford fan, but I’d have one today. Really a timeless machine.
Mustang GT’s were a dime a dozen, fast but very unforgiving handling at speed, and unlike GM, Ford had a hard time building fast cars with an automatic in the 80’s. Some kid in every high school in suburban America seemed to have either a Mustang GT or a Camaro, which wasn’t as well screwed together, but still a fun ride.
Oh I dunno, I think if Dukes of Hazzard had been made 10-15 years later the GN could have been quite an approriate choice – brash, loud, RWD, faster than anything else in a straight line! Can’t really see them in an L-body Charger!
I didn’t know they offered flush lamps on the standard Monte, a bit of googling confirms you’re correct, they really don’t go with everything aft.
Having owned a number of slow ’80s Fords with self-destructing autos, I can confirm Ford found them just as hard to build as fast cars…!
I’ve been a fairly faithful reader of the British magazine CAR for nearly 40 years. As I guess you already know, many car fans feel CAR is THE best auto magazine…yet the writers/editors of CAR have said many times that they feel WHEELS is the best auto mag. As of today, this is as close as I’ve ever been to reading an issue of WHEELS….thanks.
I guess car fans feel that the vehicles available in other countries are rarely as good (much less better) than the home markets products.
In 1987, the Buick Grand National was thought to be Buick’s best ever modern performance sedan. Even today it’s rep means that low mileage examples can match 80s Corvette prices. But as you point out, both American GM cars look quite old compared to the modern Ford products.
“Match 80’s Corvette prices”? Yeah right, a low mileage GN is worth more than most 80’s Corvettes, you can get a Corvette from that era for dirt cheap, I’ve seen a couple under 4,000 on CL. GN are more popular than ever and their prices are climbing. And forget about owning a low mileage GNX unless you have some serious cash.
As far as the article goes…..that Holden is an ugly 4 door that looks dated, it reminds me of a 4 door Lumina. Meanwhile the Monte, Mustang, t-Bird, and GN still look great to me. I love the non-flush headlights personally. I will say that GN interiors always were a major turn off for me. Such a badass looking car…..but it’s interior looked like something from a car my grandma would drive.
I’ve enjoyed CAR on and off over the years too – their halcyon days were definitely the 80s and 90s when the magazine was aesthetically the best out there. A number of Wheels staffers went on to work for CAR – Steve Cropley and Angus MacKenzie edited it at various times. I haven’t enjoyed CAR so much over the last 10 years, but having said that Wheels hasn’t been quite my cup of tea either. Both magazines have far less humour than they used to. I still subscribe to Wheels, but only because I have every issue on my shelves and it seems a shame to stop.
Yes, me too, I still have most of my 80’s and 90’s CARs somewhere. Excellent writing and photos, and as I re-read them over years started to appreciate totally different articles, columns, and writers than the first time around.
Both really went downhill when they tried to be Top Gear. I stopped buying them regularly around then, but never got back into the habit after they abandoned that experiment.
Looking at some of the text of the article, it reads like it could’ve been written by KiwiBryce!
I’m wondering if this wasn’t a slightly unfair comparison. The Holden has obviously been breathed-on by a specialist tuner company, where-as the other cars are bone stock.
In terms of looks, I’d put the T-bird dead last. I never warmed-up to the styling at all. I have a particular dislike for the taillights.
HDT Holdens were an option backed by the factory and not far from stock it was mostly suspension tuning, HDT tuned police cars for highway patrol duty for the Victorian police and those were only as fast as a Brock Commodore, Proved in a street race held illegally I got to witness.
Lol, Wheels was always pro-Australia. Totally agree that it was slightly unfair – although the Commodore’s engine was stock and fairly underwhelming, and I’m not convinced the Polariser added anything.
Of course its an unfair test. You think they went all the way to the US to lose? Having driven everything in that test except for the Holden, I do wonder how much of the results were actual comparison, and how much were, er, influenced by patriotic fervor.
Well Wheels could be parochial, but were generally unbiased, which is why they had such a high reputation in the automotive world. Immediately prior to America they took the Commodore to England and ran a comparison test among it and several European sedans. I’ve just decided to write a follow-up post on that test, so won’t give much away, but suffice it to say the Commodore didn’t win in Europe!
Ironically the Monte SS looks a lot less dated now a days than the flush lamp 87/88 base Montes, which kind of have that generic late 80s GM face going on.
Now that I know the base Montes had flush lamps and have googled them, I concur.
87 yeah I remember 87 I have even read that article of course Aussies knew about the Mustang Dick Johnson having famously said it couldnt pull a sailor off your sister in reference to his imported German race prepped cars, But a yank car with a turbo now that was cool, it wasnt however very fast compared to the bent eight from down under, confirming a V8 was how to go fast, a notion dispelled when Dicky and others began blowing the doors off V8 Holdens with 4 banger turbo British Fords, Nice write up Scott I prefered Brockys aero kit to Walkinshaws Vauxhall Batmobile aero kit he imported when he took over from HDT.
Thanks Bryce, and yes, Walkie’s Plastic Pig is even more jarring to look at!
Thanks for sharing such a personal account Scott! I’ve never seen the Calais Director with the HDT LE kit before – very interesting. I understand your enthusiasm from those car magazines, as I too was enchanted by Automobile magazine and brochures I collected as a kid.
On a side note, your reaction to the February 1987 Wheels cover reminded me of something. I remember reading an interview with now-former editor-in-chief of Automobile, Jean Jennings a few years ago. I remember her remarking on how the October 1995 cover, all words, was the most regrettable Automobile cover of all time.
I have a few Automobile magazines on the ol’ bookshelves. I always enjoyed Jean Lindamood/Jennings’ writing – and she’s linked to this very story as the Wheels article starts with her driving the cars around Willow Springs Raceway!
“The Buick: Looked boxy and old, with non-flush rectangular headlights and steel wheels. Wheels compared its roofline to that of a Volvo 760.”
The Buick GN did look boxy but in a good way. It has aged well and so have the Audi C2 and Volvo 740-760.
The aero Bird and Audi C3 are the ones that look old fashioned now. Both had a very short short wheelbase for their overall length. Interestingly the ancient G-body had a longer wheelbase and shorter length than the aero Bird. The longer WB on the Mark VII made all the difference in the world.
Over at Audi the C3 had the same WB as the C2 but it was longer. Maybe the designers felt they needed a large body to pull off the aero look? Maybe the carryover platform was to blame on the C3?
The US magazines tried so hard to make the Turbo happen for Ford. First on the ’79 Mustang then on the ’83 T-Bird. I kept thinking “why aren’t you talking about the 5.0?” I lost a lot of respect for them around this time.
Nice write up and KILLER shot of that black C2.
The “rah-rah” for turbo Fords still continues today, with the “Ecoboast” engines, power and fuel consumption like the larger engine its supposed to imitate, but with double the complexity and future repair concerns! Hooray!
I share your pessimism. Three anecdotes:
The Hyundai / Kia mileage debacle with small displacement engines failing to deliver real world fuel economy as sold.
When I was shopping for my F-150 last year, dealers told me to buy the Ecoboost for the zippy drive and tow rating, but not the gas mileage. They get constant complaints that the engine does not deliver on gas mileage. I didn’t need that much towing, the 5.0 was a no brainer. They were also honest about Ecoboost reliability, and said the jury is still not in.
Motor Trend is making a big deal of their research into “Real MPG.” Among their “discoveries,” small displacement engines vary more from ratings to actual results than larger engines. As shocking as this sounds, apparently people drive them harder to wring performance out of them.
CAFE is once again out of control. Could door mounted seat belts be far behind?
I drove my friend’s 2011 Buick Regal turbo last weekend. upon merging the freeway I floored the gas pedal telling him to hold on, he was asking me “what? tell me what happened?” I told him I floored the gas pedal, he said ” you did? I didnt know! ” sigh****
and during the trip I found it only returns 28mpg at 70kph, which is only 1mpg better than my ’94 Lincoln Mark VIII at the trade off much inferior performance. or, that Regal returns equivalent mpg as my ’95 LeSabre but I still feel my snail slow LeSabre appears to be faster than that Regal.
Ford’s major problem is the king-kong dimensions weight of many of its products, making turbo engines necessary to pass CAFE standards. I had a Fusion rental recently, a two litre Ecoboost and the thing was huge, at least 200 kg heavier that my Acura, without that much more room inside. It actually used more gas than my Acura would in similar driving, kind of semi-rural. You’d look at the tach and it would be revving at very high speed just in normal driving. I guess this is the only way to get the heavy car to move with any authority, which it does. Still, it is not as fast as my Acura.
Ford needs to pare the pork. They have introduced all aluminum tuck cabs, which will cost a fortune to repair and more to make, so they could keep the gargantuan size that sells so well to the he-man demographic. The even have a 2.7 litre Ecoboost for the base engine now.
Ford simply needs to learn to build lighter weight vehicles. That is plain good engineering.
Agreed, frankly I’ve been banging on that drum since the 05 Mustang came out, it was a real harbinger for things to come. The old Fox based 04s were pretty outdated and a bit more unrefined but they were a damn sight lighter and smaller than the S197s that succeeded them and they didn’t need nearly as much power to go fast, hell they never needed much more than bolt ons to do or at least get damn close to what the current 400+ horsepower 5.0s are doing at the track now a days, and that’s with 260-320 horsepower rated V8s
In Ford’s defense though, most cars are pigs now a days, doesn’t matter if it’s Ford, GM, Toyota or Honda. Flash back to 2000 to any given car in the same segments and there’s going to be a minimum 500lb weight deficit between most of them vs. their 2014 counterpart.
agree on the general unsuitabilty of turbos for normal driving…if you don’t push them, there’s no power, and if you do, there’s no mileage. it’s a government thing…they get EPA featherfoot mileage better than a small V8. however, the turbo four isn’t going to last as long and cost you way more to fix…but what’s important is that the DC politician is happy, not the consumer, right?
It is so silly to blame government for turbo engines. You want a big naturally aspirated engine? Well, you can get a Camry or Accord with something like 270 hp for less than $30,000, if you don’t like turbo. Or they each have a big naturally aspirated four that will do what anyone needs. Or Subaru, choice of naturally aspired four, turbo four or n/a flat six. Chrysler sells a really fast V-8 for the buck, too, and the V-6 is not too shabby.
Most, if not all, of these cars are faster, safer and use less fuel than anything did thirty years ago, and they are available, CAFE law or no.
Ford does the small turbo thing because its bread and butter are really large and heavy cars. The Taurus is horrid, way too big outside for the interior, for example.
A V-6 Camry will do 0-60 mph in like 5.3 seconds. That is super-car territory not long ago.
Your points about the Camry V-6 are indisputable – a lot of performance for the buck in a pedestrian car.
Toyota offers the engine because they can. They know the take rate is low, they also sell of lot of Prius to offset it. It is more of a halo engine used as an advertising gimmick than anything – the current campaign is the Camry “Thrill Ride” featuring the Camry as a roller coaster. Honda sort of follows suit with its Accord V-6, but doesn’t promote it as much.
Ford, Chevy, Hyundai, Kia, VW have all ditched mid-size V-6 engines – a direct result of the progression of CAFE. Impala offers a V-6 only on high trim lines; you can have it, but you’ll pay dearly for it. Taurus now offers a 4 popper.
Expect an Avalon 4 cyl. soon. Toyota will drop the V-6 Camry instantly on any need that may arise.
Smooth larger displacement power will only be available to the very well off.
I agree Carmine. Given a few years, many of these ecoboost converts will be singing the. It’s going to cost me how much? blues.
Thank you! And the C2 was a google find. Uncle Bill’s had the factory rub strip down the side and the factory alloys.
Have to agree to disagree re the GN aging well vs the T-Bird, but the world would be very boring if everyone agreed all the time. I see what you mean about the Wonderbird’s short wheelbase though – never really noticed it before, but now I can’t un-see it, so thank you, thank you very much… 😉
This is the one that does it for me, the high point for the Thunderbird Turbo Coupe. Intercooling for more power; flush aero lamps on a smooth front end complete the look. Like so many others have said, I can only agree: this design holds up well when stacked against the cars of today. I’ll go one better; where so many cars of today look like cartoon characters, this one has a purpose in it’s lines.
The high point of the Caldwell/Petersen years at Ford; the TBird TurboCoupe, Mustang SVO and the Lincoln Mark VII LSC.
Agreed, Ford USA was making some excellent styling decisions at that time.
The Grand National could have towed a trailer and still beat every car in that lineup!
Yeah, until the first corner! 😉
The Calais with turbo RB30 motor was no slug either NSW police got those and they were fast and handled.
Scott, I recently saw just the thing for you….pure Americana combined with your love of this Turbo Coupe….guaranteed to make you the talk of New Zealand…..a black ’87 Turbo Coupe with a vinyl roof.
No, I’m not joking about having seen the car; yes, I am joking about it being just the thing for you. It was a horrid abomination, the sort of thing you cannot un-see. The pure lines you so enjoy were truly ruined.
I searched mightily (and in vain) to confirm my memory of Motor Trend taking a similar Turbo Coupe on the track to reach 140 mph, which thoroughly surprised them. Also, if memory serves, the Mustang hit 144 while the Buick was speed limited.
I wonder what speed the vinyl roof is rated to?
Luckily for you Jason, Lord Google was on my side and has failed to show me such a monstrosity! Mind you, at least the one you saw was black, so it wouldn’t have stood out so much – unless it was a tan vinyl roof of course…
I have a few Motor Trends on the bookshelf, will have a gander at ’em to see if one has the test.
It’s likely the July, August, or September issue. Again, going from memory on this.
Turns out the Motor Trend mags I have are from the 50s and 60s, so they only feature the Turbobird’s great-great grandparents.
Great recollections, Scott. Brock’s Polariser certainly lived up to its name.
Thaks Don 🙂 I haven’t read Wheels’ Polariser articles since my teenage years, might have to have a re-read – the whole concept of pseudoscience as related to cars would make an interesting article here!
I genuinely think an article on this a must (and perfect for CC).
Yeah it makes you wonder what Brocky was smoking at the time, he must’ve known it was a career ending decision to use the polariser against GMHs wishes.
I never heard of the “Energy Polariser” but I correctly gathered that it was one of those passive devices that attaches to the fuel line and is claimed to make more power by “aligning the molecules”. Total BS.
Actually BOC, it didn’t even attach to the fuel line, it just sat under the scuttle below the wipers, attached to, well, nothing! The crystals and magnets were set in epoxy resin that, combined with 22psi tyre pressure, “improved the performance and handling of vehicles through ‘aligning the molecules'”. It contributed enormously to the HDT-GM divorce and damaged Brock’s reputation.
To get an idea of the seismic shock, Peter Brock was un-ironically called ‘Peter Perfect’ for a lot of his career over here.
Lest anyone forget, there was a V8 version of this car as well. Click my link to go to Popular Mechanics’ test. Supposedly, the 225hp 5.0 wouldn’t fit under the Thunderbird’s hood, so it got a slightly detuned one. Clearly, it would still burn some rubber (see page 66 if the page number didn’t carry over).
The H.O. engine would fit just fine under the hood. They used the lo-po (155 hp) because the 225 hp would have stolen sales from the Turbo Coupe (and possibly nick a few Mustang buyers in the process).
The MN12 Birds (1991-1993) had trouble fitting the H.O. 5.0. Ford eventually designed a T-Bird specific intake manifold to shoehorn it in there. It lost 20 hp in the process though.
and that explains why no V8 was available on first model year in 1989. they must had a difficult time to stuff it in.
eventually they went after Modular engines for Lincoln Mark and later Tbird. just enough space though
The power loss comes from the very restrictive exhaust(the front half is the same exact part used on the base V6), the computer program, as well as being saddled with the mandatory AOD. The low profile Tbird H.O. intake manifold was actually used on the 5.0 Mustangs in 94 and 95, there’s no power difference AFAIK between it and the tall H.O. intakes.
Of all of Ford’s products, I think the Bird took the aero facelift the best. The Mustang took a step backwards, and the F series and Bronco….YUCK. Both ended up look pretty dorky in the front clip, but even though this is very similar looking to the Stang…I think the beaked front end is what makes it pull the look off so much better.
Agreed re the beak – I didn’t mind the aero Mustang, but making those rear-side windows flush while leaving the door windows inset was a backwards step.
I never considered the flush/non-flush windows on the Mustang before, but now that I have, you’re absolutely right – it would look way better with a matching set.
The LX nose took the aero revision better than the GT in my opinion, the 93 Cobra was a nice improvement as well. Grilleless never looked right on the Mustang to me
Neither looked great…but that little divided oval on the LX’s never sat right with me either. My favorite look for the Fox was the ’79 with the multiple horizontal bars in the grille and the 4 eyes, or the ’84-’86s with the 4 eyes and the black rimmed single slot…it resembles the ’84-’86 Dodge Daytona and Chrysler Lazer. Not sure who was knocking off who there, but it looks great either way.
The 87-88 Turbo Coupes were a great last hurrah for the Fox based Birds.
Liquid filled engine/trans mounts, better sound insulation, and Driver adjustable suspension made for a really nice car.
I bought an 88 TC out of a junkyard “for parts only” years back to be a donor for my 79 Mustang project. I tooled around town in it for a few weeks and really enjoyed it. It was a shame that it couldn’t be titled again.
I have to agree with other posters, the 87-88 Fox Bird was the best of the breed. As much as I loved my 5.0’s at the time, when the 87’s were released, I had an instant case of buyer’s remorse. I should have waited for the turbo T-bird, but bought the 5.0L Mercury Capri instead. Ah youth…
Great article!! It brought back memories of that Car and Driver “comparo” of the Holden with the American cars.
I had a friend with a 1988 T-Bird Turbo Coupe with the 5 speed manual and that car was amazing! It was really fast, elegant, etc, etc.
There’s a black T-bird like this not far from home, sitting in a garage. Not sure if it’s running but I guess it would be worth checking!
Thank you Gerardo!
Excellent article! I really appreciate the perspective from around the world, and someone about 10 years younger.
I generally liked the ’83 aero Bird, nowhere to go but up after the ’80-’82 Bird. I was not crazy about the ’87 revisions, but wow! Looking at it now, it really holds up and is a handsome car.
In the States, it was was usually hard to come up with very many folks that were excited about the turbo. Turbo lag along with reliability concerns plagued the turbo world the minute they started being offered in earnest by several manufacturers. Most people concerned with performance wanted a decent V-8 and to be left alone. The turbo died off quickly as the ’80s rolled into the ’90s due to these concerns.
Thank you Dave 🙂 I must admit the idea of turbo-charging a modified Pinto engine doesn’t fill me with faith, but then again the Sierra Cosworth’s engine used basically the Pinto block. Hey, that’s an idea: drop Cossie running gear into a Wonderbird!
Agree on all counts. I like this 87-88 version a lot better now than I did then.
the problem for nearly all Thunderbird in ’80s and ’90s is, they are becoming more scarce than Lincoln Mark.
I was shopping for a ’89-’93 in a decent condition, but I ended up with a ’95 Lincoln Mark VIII. And that one was wrecked by a Dodge Ram on hwy so I was looking for another one for months ( even though I gave higher priority to Thunderbird considering the lower running cost from Windsor 5.0 version ) but I ended with a ’94 Lincoln Mark VIII. During the 20k miles I drove in the summer time, I only saw one single ’80s Tbird on the freeway near Saginaw, and couples of more Mark VII. Thunderbird SC is more scarce than Mark VIII in a similar way also
Late to they party again, Scott, and thank you for such a fun article. I also lusted after a Turbo Coupe when they were new in the market. I eagerly waited for the local Ford dealer to get a demo, which for me was easier because a friend worked there. The car was red (were they all red?) and had a black interior. For 1987 it was breathtaking. I was with my late father, and he drove it off the lot, since they probably wouldn’t have let me out alone with it. Anyway, he loved the shifter, which was big deal for him, but when he gunned it out on the street, the four banger made one hell of a racket, a raucous four-banger grating sound that made the whole car vibrate. The motor didn’t pull well until 3500 rpm and there was lots of slack in the driveline. Both dad I had 1986 Jettas at the time, and we considered them much superior to the Thunderbird. The car didn’t leave a very good impression at all, and it was loads of money, like $20,000 CDN which was Buick money in Canada in those days.
I hope they were all red as it really worked with the shape! (But I know they weren’t). I knew the Pinto 2.0 litre engine from its 70s-80s Kiwi Capri/Cortina/Sierra applications where its combination of power and economy outweighed NVH concerns. But as 13-year-old me read the magazine, I couldn’t see how the engine – even modified and turbo-charged – could be suitable for a Wonderbird. Then again, the styling doesn’t seem to say ‘V8’ either – that bonnet cries out for a straight-6 to be underneath. In fact, if I owned a Turbo Wonderbird now, call me crazy, but I’d ditch the 4-cylinder and drop in an Aussie Falcon 4.0 turbo litre straigh-6. Or the Nissan R32/33/34 GTR RB26DETT… *closes eyes, thinks about engine note and smiles*
My wife and I had an 87 T-bird with a V-6. It rode great. We bought it used and it had the gas tank from an 86 Mark 7 so with 26 gallons of gas at our disposal, we could go 750 miles on the highway between fillups and still have a gallon left. The car ran great, wind was not a factor, even at high speeds. My wife was sad to see it go as she loved driving it. I wished it had the 302 as they got better mileage (we only got 30 whilst a friend of ours with the v-8 got 32) We traded it for almost what we paid for it 7 years earlier and went to a Chrysler Minivan (we had kids at that point), but I kept my 66 Dart GT and V-8 upgraded Plymouth TC-3.
I wonder if that T-Bird was a press fleet car, because i remember Autocar in the UK (just before it merged with Motor) testing a Turbo Coupe in that same color some time in 1987 after it was voted Motor Trend’s Car of the Year. They weren’t big fans of the engine either, IIRC. By the way, why didn’t Wheels choose a Car of the Year for 1987? I’m sure that story would have been interesting to read, and yes, the ’80s up to the mid-’90s were to my mind the ‘glory days’ for car magazines. Maybe it’s age-related, but i can’t get enthused about them anymore.
Wheels didn’t choose a COTY Bajan, as they felt none of the models released in the preceding 12 months were good enough. The only one they really considered was the Aussie-built R31 Nissan Skyline, but they ultimately dismissed it as looking out-of-date and having a looooooong bonnet at the expense of rear seat room.
In a strange coincidence, my Uncle Bill from the article above actually traded his Audi on a brand new R31 Skyline Ti shortly after the Feb ’87 issue of Wheels came out. I remember the first time I rode in his Skyline and being disappointed in the chintzy/bordelloesque upholstery and the very square styling. I thought it was odd for a brand new car to feel older than a 5-year-old Audi. Fantastic engine note from the silky-smooth RB30 straight-6 though.
“Grand National” . . . . well, I was in my mid twenties when these cars came out and personally, I liked the whole mono-chromatic, Darth Vader look, even though these were the Buick Regal “A” bodies Mom/Dad design. The name was a misnomer (nowadays, they have that whole NASCAR thing about them), however, under the hood and the chassis was where it counted. Nastier is the even more powerful GNX; both cars still post very quick and respectable numbers today in 2014.
Prejudice and preference could’ve gone both ways as one criticizing a Holden could dismiss IT as a mish-mash of Opel, American Chevrolet and outdated for that time Opel/Vauxhall designs . . . .
The 1980s for American cars were about shaving costs where they could after getting a beating by the Japanese and the Germans. Sadly, the shortcomings were sometimes obvious, more so in the GM products which continued well towards the crashing down of 2008/2009.
Yep, no doubt the Holden was a mish-mash, but it was Aussie’s mish-mash so we were proud of it dammit 😉
Shaving costs is one thing, but there’s the oft-repeated saying about good design doesn’t cost any more than bad design. Mind you, proper round dash gauges would have needed more expensive wiring etc than a strip speedo!
Oh man this is a great find – I owned two ’87 TurboCoupes when I was younger and loved the hell out of them. Having also owned a GM G-body and driven several Fox Mustangs, I generally agree with Wheels’ conclusions, excepting the Holden of course (which I wish GM had brought to the U.S.)
They were really interesting cars, outstanding to drive and surprisingly reliable, too.
And beautiful, don’t forget beautiful!
Definitely! When I had mine, I was like 17-18 years old and thought they were so cool looking. And I still do, but that lengthy front overhang really jumps out at me now – especially with the late TC aerobeak. That’s really its only flaw, though.
Of course I’m very biased, but if I get to thinking really hard about it and attempt to be as objective as possible, I’ll still usually come to the conclusion that these are my favorite Thunderbirds ever.
The production Brock Director looks like it would be right at home on the streets of 2015 era Hill Valley as a prop car for Back to the Future II.