Thunderbirds created a stir from the start. Americans love these glamorous and sporty cars.
But this bird grew and grew until it became a dodo headed for extinction. Fans convinced Ford to put it on a diet and the Thunderbird was reborn.
The T-Bird was poised to take off again.
When the Thunderbird first flew out of Ford’s coop, it really turned heads. But this revolutionary vehicle was brought down in 1997 when Ford ceased production.
The car’s legion of fans kept up the pressure and Ford relented. By 2001, there was a new Thunderbird flying down the highway.
The car reminded people of the two-seater that captured a lot of hearts.
Ford’s Post World War II boom
The first Thunderbird was created in the wake of World War II. Soldiers came back ready to hit the road and have some fun.
But executives at the Ford Motor Company weren’t have much fun at all. Years of mismanagement had created a financial mess.
In attempt to turn things around, Henry Ford II enlisted the help of a group of brightly – mostly youthful – systems analysts he called the “whiz kids”.
They dived in right away, and five years later Ford was enjoying profitability once again.
Aided by the whiz kids of the post-war boom, Ford was building more than a million cars a year by 1950. Ford new it had to take advantage of the growing economy and pay much more attention to the growing demands of car buyers in the United States.
It needed to develop more products that would keep its vast plants busy, and its workers employed for years to come.
The first American sports cars
As America prospered, its citizens started to become much more demanding about what they bought.
Everyone was buying cars, and there were many choices. Automakers were required to fight for their attention. For the first time, there were cars filtering in from Europe and other countries overseas that were creating quite a stir.
The first wave came from British sports cars. European automakers were targeting the United States in attempt to attain more foreign currency. The American economy was in good shape while the one in Europe was still suffering from the fall out of the war.
Birth of the T-Bird
The American car companies responded with their own sports cars. First came the corvette from General Motors in 1953. When the head of Ford’s design department, Frank Hershey, lead of the Corvette, he began to lobby for a Ford response.
Hershey loved the Jaguar SK-120 and decided to use the vehicle as a jumping off point for a Ford sports car. He put together a team to work on his pet project but did not get permission.
He implored them to capture the spirit of the European cars while finding a way to put in the comfort features that Americans so desired – like roll up windows, heaters and big engines.
Hershey’s team was discovered by the head of engineering who thought Ford should put its focus on mainstream cars. Hershey persisted and the Thunderbird – a bigger car with more room, yet with same sleek body – soon became in reality in 1955.
A couple years later, more than 40,000 Thunderbirds were sold. Although eventually killed by Ford, the vehicle was one of the most durable in US automotive history.