So, it’s the fourth week of the Car-Brochure-based online series that Gene Roddenberry described as “way beyond the final frontier”. Its Rusty’s Archive-Showroom Hyperbole. And we’re having an end-of-month special.
This is going to be a four-part Thunderbird Spectacular, and I’m touching on the Seventh, Eighth, Ninth and Tenth generation of Ford’s beautiful bird. And, yeah, I know they weren’t all beautiful. Not by a long way.
We start off in 1979. Thunderbird Seven is Go.
“Come fly with me”
Our hero is pictured alongside what appears to be a Tiger Moth, an aircraft who’s lightweight wood, canvas and aluminium construction bore little similarity to the downsized-for ’78, yet still impressively paunchy, Thunderbird. Measuring some 217 inches overall it was damn near Maybach 57 length.
“One look at Town Landau and you know you are in the presence of one of the worlds most distinguished personal luxury cars.”
For the uninitiated, the Thunderbird had been growing bigger, heavier and more indulgent ever since the second generation; there had even been versions with more than the two doors the T-Bird was given when it debuted as a sort-of-almost Corvette rival. The 7th generation, though, was the first to demonstrate a downward sizing trend, with the machine in this brochure shedding 5 inches over its behemoth forbear. But the emphasis was still very much on luxury and indulgence. Performance barely got a look in.
“The distinctive tiara-band roof, with its brushed aluminium wrapover applique, makes Town Landau easy to identify……Town Landau might be just the personal lucury car you’ve been looking for.”
But, hey, you could get T-Tops! And suddenly the link between the Thunderbird and all the open-cockpit Biplanes in the brochure becomes clear! Yes; shorn of a fully open convertible due to fear of changing legislation, Ford offered you a touch less metal but a sight more “oven-tempered tinted safety glass” overhead. Or you could have a power moon-roof. Optional extra-wise, the sky wasn’t even the limit, although leather decklid-straps may have been pushing the boundaries of taste somewhat.
“In purity of form, Thunderbird has about it an unmistakeable aura of elegance”.
That’s nonsense, if we’re honest. While striking and impressive enough and imbued with undeniable presence the styling here is as cluttered and ungainly as, well, any other Ford US product of the time. Ford draped embellishment over flourish over accessory, with nary a hint of the genuine purity that the ’55 original enjoyed (although even that didn’t last long, with the de rigeur fins striking a blow for aesthetics in ’57).
Speaking of Heritage, that was the name given to the top-tree T-Bird for ’79, significant enough to have an entire separate brochure dedicated to it.
“Heritage. For the discerning collector”.
It’s photographed in the company of a Cord and a Duesenberg, which we are led to believe the ’79 T-Bird is in the same league as. Yep, it’s a wonder that Barrett Jackson doesn’t get whipped into a frenzy when one of these turns up. It’s a car that was so exclusive, so prestigious, and so discrete and tasteful that it came with a customer- personalised plaque for the dashboard and each of the doors.
Not far short of a million of these shrinking violets were thoughtfully nailed together, but as you might imagine I don’t think I’ve ever seen one in my neck of the woods, despite there being a ’64 I know about based reasonably locally. But, hey; at least I own the brochure(s).
See you tomorrow with Fords follow-up, where downsizing finally got serious.
<Disclaimer:- All photos were taken by the author, (a guy called Chris Haining) and are of genuine original manufacturer publicity material, resting on the bonnet of a 1998 Audi A4. All copyright rights remain in the possession of the manufacturer. Ford: Bring back the Thunderbird. And make it good.>
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