who cares is what i say! The new GT will be much better anyway!!

 

As a former and now current SuperCoupe owner (I just picked up another one a few weeks ago...a gorgeous black '89 5 speed) I'll back up what you said about MN12's potential 100%. On my last one I simply went up to 245s vise 225s, and the handling & grip were unbelievable!

Back to the subject, I've never understood why Ford wasted money on the 3.9 engines. The 4.6 is for all purposes the same design, yet it's a completly different engine. But, then again, the 4.6 was to also be an interchangable engine (sohc, dohc, internals, etc...) but isn't.

Sort of serves as an example as to why Ford ended up on the ropes last year.

BTW, the powertrain & chassis sharing with Jaguar isn't in itself the reason for the LS's expense. The LS chassis was to be under a wide range of Fords from new small Lincoln sedans & new Mark, to Mustangs & Fairmonts. Pretty much everything has been cancelled, scaled back, or put on hold, so Ford's not making back the money on the DEW they initially intended. I suspect that's why they jacked the price up to a totally and unbelieveably unreasonable level on V8 LSs, which I think is sabotaging a perfectly good car.

 

When the T-Birds redesign came Ford had goals of 20,000 units not 25.There was a delay for the 03 which put the car off track which made them up the production to 25,000.

 

Just read a few articles on the T-birds 2nd demise. Being that it won't take place till the end of the 2006 calender year, and Ford's already talking about a new design (possibly based on the 4 passenger '61/62 version), and that it takes about 3 years to bring a new car to market, I suspect the T-Bird's production stoppage will be very very short!

There are more than a few parallels to the 1997 end of production announcement, which as it turned out, was the start of the new 2001 T-Bird's development. While the old T-bird was discontinued less than 1 year after the announcement, the current Bird will still be around for 2 or 3 more seasons. Also, the only reason there would be a gap in a vehicles production (if a adequet chassis and enough time was avalible) is to take the car in a different direction.

It's way, way too early to tell, but I suspect the next Thunderbird will be back in 2007, returning as a midsized coupe... Gee, isn't Chevrolet also bringing out a new RWD mid sized coupe around then as well!!

 

Oh boy, here we go...

"Retro, round 2"...

I was waiting for this to happen... so the next gen T-Bird may be a retro version of a later T-Bird than the first retro T-Bird was designed from...

So, by following that line of logic, we'll eventually have a retro version of all the 70's , 80's, and 90's T-Birds... then... a retro-retro 2004 T-Bird?!?!

Sigh...

 

Guess I'll have a brand new SuperCoupe in about 30 years!

 

Yes, but first you'll have to get through retro versions of these:

One

Two

Three

heheheh.

 

http://www.detnews.com/2003/autosins...a01-144063.htm

This article says the Wixom plant, where the T-bird, LS and Town Car are built, is underutilized and its future is uncertain. I can't believe Ford doesn't realize that the reason it is underutilized is that they build their three most overpriced models in the entire lineup there.

 

So the retro T-bird will move from 1957 to 1961. It's too bad they're skipping 1958, because the "Squarebird" was an aggressive looking car. It was the lowest slung American production car when it premiered, Corvette excepted, and introduced big-block performance to the market.

I saw a completely unrestored 1960 T-bird the last time I went to California, and it still looked impressive by modern standards. Here was a sporting car with good taste styling - something that was rare in the late 50s. It was also a quality vehicle, being the last T-bird to use high quality enamel paint. Amazingly, the original paint was intact.

Of course, I'm never surprised to see a fairly original pre-1967 Thunderbird. These cars had excellent fit and finish, with a unitbody design that was ahead of its time in strength and rigidity. (But not rustproofing. When corrosion became terminal in a T-bird, it really became terminal.) Even the interior materials were far superior to those in any modern Ford or Lincoln. These old T-birds remind me that FOMOCO once produced far better cars than GM or Mopar - the best in the industry.

It makes me wonder how things went so wrong after the early 1970s. Nothing would make my heart gladder than if William Clay Ford turned it all around. A Cadillac beating T-bird would be a good start.

 

Further proof to me that Ford needs to relieve J Mays of his duties. Retro doesn't have the staying power that the GM and Ford are looking for. The retro style is as I've said before niche material, not intended for mainstream sales. As long as the bean counters at GM and Ford know this we will continue to see them, if not the idea will go the way of the dodo bird!
The SSR is retro but I doubt GM plans to sell 25k of them.
Ford's mistake was expections for what they offered, too pricey for what ya get.
I hope they don't kill the Mustang in the process....

 

Touching on what redzed said about the 61-62 Bird, the car was initially began as a Lincoln (likely a new Mark). Ford decided in mid-development to turn it into a Thunderbird. It's unibody structure is very similar to the Lincoln Continental.

My Uncle had one when I was still very little that he had bought new (he kept it even after he bought a new '68 Camaro, finally retiring it when he got a new 73 Lemans Sport). You are right about the rust. That thing rusted out before the engine quit.

I also remember the interior was still in good condition.

Darth, I was making plans to save up for my new SC in 30 years, but after seeing the other Birds I'll have to go through 1st, I don't know if I'll survive that long!

 

Oddly, the 1958 T-bird and Lincoln Continental were both built on the same assembly line - Wixom, Michingan, the current home of the Lincoln LS. However, the Continental failed to make production with a unit body. Because of extreme shortcomings in rigidity, Ford had to add a frame. It's a good thing that the Lincolns used a standard 430 cu.in. V8, because they were astoundingly heavy.

In any case, rust aside, the early four-seat T-birds were exceptional cars. There again, we shouldn't forget that they were far from cheap in their day.

We also shouldn't forget how Ford screwed up the T-bird line from 1967 onward with a suicide door sedan. Then the Bird grew and actually "beak" in 1970. Finally, the T-bird became a cheap Torino-based car in '77, then a Fairmont in '80. Needless to say, it never recovered from its inexpensive image, despite the fact that the 1989 MN-12 had an extremely expensive chassis.

Back to your Thunderbird purchase. The Super Coupe was a briliant concept in 1989, and for its weight and horsepower rating, is amazingly quick. Ford did everything right with the SC, except for their obstinate refusal to fit dual airbags in the Thunderbird line until 1994 - I hated the electric seatbelts. That, and they forgot to market it very much after the first year. It seems like a familiar story...

 

Yep, those seat belts are ridiculous.

The only real complaint I had about my last SC is that (ironically) it was too rare. There are so many special, single model parts on those cars (most all seemed designed to outlast the car itself) that when it does finally need to be replaced, it seems to cost 4 times as much as it would on any other car. It probally doesn't help so few were sold.

The woman that owned this Bird simply got sick of spending money on it. The exterior was near mint condition (garage kept), and the interior was in great condition). She got all the big ticket items: Rebuilt engine, new radiator mounts & exhaust (including converters), redone tranny & clutch. It's just that the brake assembly was the last straw, so she sold it to me for $1800!

Normally, a car has a brake booster, master cylinder, and antilock unit that you can buy separately if it goes bad. On the pre-94 SCs, there is this one piece monstrosity that looks like it came off an F-16 that is a self contained booster free, hydralic, multi-channeled (each brake on the 89-93 SC is individually monitored and assisted! ) pump that costs $1700 from the dealer. I managed through SCCOA to find a remanufactured unit (seemingly the only one in immediate stock in the country) for just over $400.

It doesn't have the OMFG omph my last SC did (I slightly modified a few things on the old one), but the car is still a showstoping torque demonstrator when it's droped from 5th to 3rd gear at 60 mph, and floored.

 

Little side note with the Wixom plant.For has 2 vehicles destined to end up on the DEW chassis which have been put on hold.NOBODY knows the outcome of the hold,But Word has it they are waiting to see what happens after the upcoming contract talks between the UAW and Ford.1 rumored to be a Navi-Cross type vehicle and another a stretched DEW chassi vehicle.