"On This Day" In Engineering History

Fifty years ago, Ford Motor Company ended production of its two-passenger Ford Thunderbird, a so-called "personal luxury car" that was designed to compete with the Chevrolet Corvette. Although the two-seat roadster enjoyed brisk sales from 1955 -1957, market research indicated that consumers wanted more room for passengers and cargo. When the last of two-seat "Classic Birds" rolled off the Ford assembly line at Wixom, Michigan on December 13, 1957, Ford ended its part in an automotive era. The 1957 T-bird was the last two-seater that Ford sold until 1982, when the American automaker released the Ford EXP and Mercury LN7.

The T-Bird is Born

According to legend, the two-seat Ford Thunderbird was born during a stroll through Paris' Grand Palais in 1951. Lewis D. Crusoe, Ford Division general manager, admired a European-built sports car and asked his companion, George Walker, a simple question: "Why can't we have something like that?" As Ford's chief stylist, Walker called Frank Hershey, a veteran automotive designer who had put the "Silver Streak" on the hood of the 1935 Pontiac. While Crusoe waited for official approval, Hershey and William P. Boyer prepared a clay model of a two-seat roadster.

By the summer of 1952, Bill Boyer had sketched a vehicle that resembled the first Ford Thunderbird. Although Boyer labeled his blueprint as a "sports car", Frank Hershey had other ideas. As Ford's first "personal luxury car", the T-bird offered a sportier feel than a family sedan, but wasn't all-out sports car. Unlike the Chevy Corvette with its missing exterior door handles, the Ford Thunderbird featured amenities (such as roll-up windows) that American car buyers had come to expect. Because Ford's two-seater would be expensive, however, Hershey knew it had to be different.

Better than a Corvette?

Instead of decorating the T-Bird's exterior with shiny but gaudy chrome, Hershey drew simple, tasteful lines that ran from fenders to fins. The real story, however, was under the hood. Whereas Corvette engineers had struggled to modify GM's stovebolt six, Ford designers simply dropped in their big V-8 engine. The first Ford Thunderbird (1955) featured a 292-in³ V-8 with 193 – 212 hp. T-birds build for model years 1956 and 1957 came with a larger, 312-in³ engine with 215 – 340 hp. At its top speed of 115 mph, a "Classic Bird" in stock trim could run the quarter-mile in 17 seconds. Drivers who kept their T-birds on a straight course could even beat a Blue Flame Corvette.

The first Ford Thunderbird cost $500 less than a Corvette, and outsold its Chevy rival by a nearly four-to-one margin. Although the two-seat T-Bird didn't handle as well as a sports car, Chevrolet nearly canceled its Corvette until a new V-8 engine put the product on solid ground. Meanwhile, Ford executives such as Robert McNamara worried that the two-seat Thunderbird's days were numbered. For model year 1958, the future U.S. Secretary of Defense placed his hopes in a four-seat "Square Bird". Critics scoffed at its styling, but the 50,000 T-Birds that fans snapped up in 1958 dwarfed the earlier sales of two-seaters.

Resources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Thunderbird

http://www.drivingtoday.com/hometownusa/greatest_cars/thunderbird/index.html

http://www.albeedigital.com/supercoupe/articles/tbird_history.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_EXP

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Hershey