1963 ford thunderbird console woodgrain trim replacement

Maybe because it actually was a Ford? Tremulis was a brilliant and eccentric character, having designed the Tucker earlier in his career. Just as well it turned out as it did I deeply admire the ’61 Lincoln Continental, but it somehow lacks the Dream Car quality of the ‘Bird. That was convenient for production reasons too, allowing both cars to share aspects of their unibody innards. Look familiar? Ford President Robert McNamara ran into it by accident, liked it, and had it turned into the 1961 Lincoln. Elwood Engel’s design proposal (above) lost out to the winning one by Alex Tremulis. The 1961 Thunderbird might well have looked very different than it turned out. Looks like someone else is wondering what happened to the American dream. ( odd color artifacts due to a malfunctioning camera) Mercury was doomed anyway Ford just didn’t do the multiple brand thing well, and at least they’ve finally embraced that reality now. Has anyone thought about how the poor Mercury dealers felt during the T-Bird’s heyday? What was Ford doing selling such an upscale and exclusive car anyway, especially when it sported the optional (and popular) Landau package? Sucks to be them, then and more recently. And the T-Bird practically owned the market segment it created, for way longer than GM would have liked, despite everything they threw at it. McNamara made the right call when he backed the big change to four-passenger Birds in 1958.

The big Birds outsold the ‘Vette by almost ten to one. And it was about as sporty as they were, but who cared? The T-Bird had long ago ceded that role to the Corvette, while it was laughing all the way to the bank. It evoked the classic roadsters of the thirties, with their long tails and no pretense of practicality. Of course it was a bit ridiculous, but don’t tell that to an eleven year-old agog, or the proud driver. Available for 19, the fiberglass cover over the rear seats was meant to evoke the original two-seat T-Bird. The highlight of my fling with the 61-63 T-Bird came when we were on vacation in NY, and I saw a red Sports Roadster in the flesh for the first time (there were none in Iowa City). I guess the public didn’t quite agree with me, because the Square Bird outsold the Bullet Bird, right through its last year. They impressed me on some level, the interior, mainly, but I though their front ends looked like a hideous creature from the depths of the ocean. My feelings for Ford’s late fifties styling has been well documented, and that extended to the 1958 – 1960 “Square Bird”, regardless of how revolutionary a car it was. Was 1961 Ford’s finest hour, at least for a very long time to come? In my book, yes. The American Dream has never been a static affair. In my dream driveway, the T-Bird was replaced by an ever changing palette of GM’s finest.

My brief childhood love affair with Ford was mostly over, especially after one too many vacation trips jammed into our black stripper ’62 Fairlane. Mark of Excellence with its holy trinity of 1963 Riviera, Grand Prix and Corvette Sting Ray. The squared-off, fussy 1964 T-Bird confirmed my defection to the Church of St. Just three years later, both the stunning 1961-1963 “Bullet Bird” and Kennedy were gone. Yes, in the fall of 1960, Ford was building my dream. Only in America could one could realistically aspire to own a car that actually looked like a Dream Car in a car show, one that would glamorously jet you away from the humdrum of ordinary life, if not exactly rocket you to the moon. Seeing fifty ’61 Thunderbird convertibles in Kennedy’s Inaugural Parade only cemented the image. What more was there to aspire to then this? (first posted ) What exactly is the American Dream? Was it easier to answer that question fifty years ago? If you were seven years old, and had just arrived from Austria at the same time the 1961 Thunderbird first appeared, the answer is definitely yes.

1963 ford thunderbird console woodgrain trim replacement