It’s that time again when right-minded folk will change their browser to another channel and go read something else for the next couple of hours. Those of you who remain can join me for a rummage through the dirty laundry of time in search of an interesting sock or cherished, fading T-shirt. Welcome to The Carchive
A while ago these vaults hosted “Thunderbird Week” where we fondly revisited Ford’s “personal luxury” offerings from ’78 through to ’93. And very nice they were too. Well, give or take. Today we head back to ’67 and look at what is very probably, no, very actually my favourite American Ford of all time.

“New… A long Smooth Rich Fast Four-Door. Unmistakably, Uniquely Thunderbird”
It certainly was unique.
The ’67 was somewhat different to what prior enthusiasts of the brand knew and loved. Among “improvements” implemented for this generation of ‘bird was the addition of more doors, doubling the original two to a more generous four, the rearmost of which opened up suicidally, Lincoln Continental style. They were still frameless, you’d expect nothing less.
Most harrowing of all the developments was that this new “Landau” model was equipped with baby-pram style “S” bars on the fixed-for-eternity roof. This and the vinyl cladding were said to “augment Thunderbird’s aura of grace, dignity and unparalleled comfort”
Some stylistic peculiarities aside, that was probably true.

“Rakish, impressively cut…. New style in steel”
Rakish was probably the right word. The Thunderbird was always about making a strong impression, and the new ’67s were certainly attention-grabbing. Long, low and lean and with big, hungry looking front grille. And hidden headlamps! This car had it all, and it was all in an effort to distance the ‘bird from the stratospherically successful Mustang which, lets face it, did the two-door, four seat coupé / convertible thing pretty damn well too.
So plush, adult cruiser it was, then. “Highway pilot” speed control and stereo-sonic tape were two of the cutting-edge facilities you could avail yourself of when you chose a ’67 ‘bird. You also got to reclined behind a dashboard which would still look pretty acceptable if it was installed in a luxury car today. Chuck in a few TFT displays and it could easily be 2015 in there.

“The luxury car of Now…. that Flies like the Future”
All you Americans of a certain age probably have old Thunderbirds engrained in your psyches and so none of this will come as anything new or surprising to you, but if one of these machines turned up in a European street it in 1967 it would have smacked us in the face as a big slab of future. Even more so if there was a 428 rumbling away seismically under the hood. This was a brave new world of car.
Sequentially operating tail-lamps which indicated turn direction in “rippling flow of light”. are still one of the most awesome features ever fitted to a car and should make a comeback immediately. As, incidentally, should headlamps concealed behind pneumatic flaps in the front grille.
Full climate control was practically unheard of in a car from such a plebian marque as Ford, and a dual line braking system was pretty advanced stuff.

“Make this Thunderbird yours… this car of now, and tomorrow.”
This was about as forward-looking as Thunderbird got. Generations going forward evolved to be more in tune with the population and economies of the time, and by the mid -70s any pretence at innovation had pretty much evaporated. The Fox and MN12 T’Birds were good Cars, but were they Thunderbirds?
OK, the ’67 was a different Thunderbird to the ’55s. Things had changed and the sporting nature of the originals had translated into a grand-tourer style. What had been a Convair Delta Dagger had metamorphosed into a Hustler; less flighty but better at covering long distances quickly. One thing was sure, though, and it positively radiates from this brochure: Ford were very proud of the Thunderbird name.
And so they should have been. The name brought glamour and identity to the blue oval, and the fact that Uncle Henry no longer thinks that to be necessary is rather sad. That the final, eleventh iteration was a pastiche on the original version was a pity, and probably a case of playing it safe while conforming to the retro fashions of the time.
As a baroque example of pure space-age automotive one-upmanship, this will always be my favourite Thunderbird.
(All images are of original manufacturer publicity materials, photographed by me. Copyright remains property of Ford Motor Company, who I hear are planning to fit concealed headlamps to the next generation Fiesta)