I do love browsing YouTube for old car commercials. This is one of my favorites. I can picture the guy Ford is targeting in 1974. He’s probably late 30s to early 50s. Pretty successful, given that the T-bird had a base price of $7,221 (that’s almost $35K in 2015 dollars). Definitely not an ex-hippie, but a member of Boomer or Greatest Generation class, in their prime earning years. He was interested in keeping up with the Jones, and not concerned with keeping that 21 gallon gas tank filled at 10 MPG or whatever these parade floats managed in the real world.
His career was probably one of the usual professional fields, doctor, lawyer, dentist, or a mid level manager. Maybe an engineer, but didn’t those guys buy Toronados? Probably not an innovative or creative person. He wanted bang for his buck, and really longed for a Mark IV, but couldn’t quite swing the monthlies what with saving up for his future Gen X offspring’s college fund.
If he was from the Greatest Generation, he was possibly trading in a 70 Bunkie Bird, or even a ’64 Flair Bird if he was a bit of tightwad. People didn’t hold on to cars as long back then, especially image conscious personal luxury buyers. If you were in the market in ’74, would you “Make a Little Thunder of Your Own”?
Great commercial. These Birds were always mysteries to me. They didn’t sell that well, but the Mark IV sold like crazy, and at a huge price premium. It was only later, in college econ classes, that I learned about “luxury goods”. These break out of the usual pattern, in which something sells more as it gets less expensive.
The car was such an obvious cut-rate clone of the Mark IV, that buying one labeled it’s owner as “not quite there.” Was there anyone who bought one of these new who would not have preferred a Mark IV? I doubt it.
I always thought that the problem with the 1972-76 Thunderbirds was that they looked too much like an LTD coupe. The hidden headlights, standard bucket seats and sequential turn signals were all gone by this point…there wasn’t much that made the Thunderbird all that special. Unless a more cramped back seat and smaller trunk made the Thunderbird special compared to the LTD.
It’s more than a little ironic that the “downsized” and cheaper 1977-79 Thunderbirds did manage to recapture some of the special style and “character” that was lost with this generation.
I only remember one of these cars from when I was boy in the 1970s. It was owned by a friend of my parents. He inherited and ran the family business (a lumber yard) and, between his choice of cars and brand-new, huge house, was rather free-spending and flamboyant for the owner of small-town business.
JP, I started out looking for if the Toronado and Riviera were suffering at the hands of the Eldorado in the same way that the Thunderbird did to the Mark IV.
I was a bit surprised to find that the early T-Birds as clones of the Mark IV actually sold quite well, and outsold the Mark IV by a wide margin in some years.
At quick look at 1973 and 1974…
’73 Bird 87,269
’73 Mark IV 69,437
’74 Bird 58,443
’74 Mark IV 57,316
What I see in this is the trend where after OPEC I, those that remained large car buyers gravitated to high end cars, keeping their numbers selling quite well, while those buying lower priced large cars began looking for more fuel economy. The lower end ’73 Bird buyer traded for a ’77 Cutlass Supreme while the high end ’73 Bird buyer and the ’73 Mark IV buyer went for a ’77 Mark V – which of course sold in wildly successful numbers.
The ’74 Thunderbird was still a bright spot in Ford showrooms simply due to margins – the Bird started at $7,221, while the next highest car, the Country Squire wagon, started at $4,827. The guy that sold a T-Bird probably smoked a cigar on his way home from work that day.
Wow, your numbers are very interesting. I don’t recall seeing that many of these. Maybe I was more attuned to the Mark IV because my father had a 72, but I would think I would have noticed these more, not less. Maybe they sold better in other areas of the country, or my memory could be going. 🙂
I think a Mark IV was closing in on $10K in 1974, so there was still a substantial gap, but that year the pricier car sold virtually even with the cheaper one. Perhaps the TBirds market became the guy who could not make the stretch to a Mark IV, and those people would have been more hampered by the fuel price jump and the bad economy.
I’m chuckling at the thought of a ’77 Cutlass Supreme as an economy move. I saw one the other day while strolling the baby through a nearby neighborhood. It looked so long, low, and wide, almost out of scale with with modern day traffic. And we still have plenty of new long, low, wide cars around, there’s something about the proportions of a 70s cruiser that stand out.
And here’s what the UK offered at the same time (advert from 1971, but what the heck! And with bonus local TV ident as well)
I bet those two car models they tossed around right at the shoreline in the saltwater disintegrated because of rust two weeks after filming had wrapped up 😉
Anyone driving a 70s era British car on the beach is either insanely brave or crazy. I’d be checking the frame for structural integrity right after that scene.
Wow, I wonder if a decade earlier Hyacinth Bucket would’ve have a Marina coupe.
“It’s pronounced *coupay*…”
Maybe it was different in NY or LA, but in Oklahoma this type of car would never belong to a young exec type. The execs and salesmen stuck with sedans and wagons for respectability. This car belonged to an oilfield worker who made three times as much as the execs and spent it all on booze and broads.
“This car belonged to an oilfield worker who made three times as much as the execs and spent it all on booze and broads.”
Reminds me of the old joke about the guy who said he spent 90% of his money on booze and broads – the other 10% he just wasted.
That was the immortal line from George Best (RIP) regarding his money: “Booze, birds and fast cars, the rest I just squandered”. A line for the ages…
Interesting take on the T-Bird buyer profile. I hadn’t considered the blue collar guy who made big bucks and spent it as fast as he could. I also didn’t consider the female T-Bird owner of this era. I don’t know what the split was, but I would guess it was close to 50/50, male/female. I could see a sort of matronly dowager type, think of your great aunt Bee circa 1974, who just came into a lot of money splurging on a big bird.
Funny you mention that. A female friend of my mom bought one of these, brand new. Remember riding in it, in the back seat which was cramped. Same size as the back seat in the ’75 Torino Elite I had in the early ’80s
So true, these and the later gen. of the last “big” bird 77-79 were so big on the outside with tiny for the size backseats. Bad package engineering with those 2 generations of birds!
These type commercials were a lot of fun. It almost seems to be aimed at the guy who just bought one and telling him how great he is. Better than today’s norm of hardly showing the car and going right to the payment terms. Don Draper on Mad Men once hilariously spoofed the modern way while talking to Jaguar execs about their ads in the late 60s.
Do you know which Mad Men episode that was, John? I’d like to to check it out on Netflix.
How many current car commercials come up with a dedicated jingle? Today everyone wants to just license some nostalgic tune that they believe appeals to their target demographic.
Funny you should mention Mad Men after Greg talked about people not holding their cars as long back then; in the latest episode Don was still driving his ’65 Cadillac in 1970. Make of that what you will…
I noticed that as well, I think that was subtle symbolism designed to show that Don is not cutting edge or really interested anymore. He used to have a new car every season, he’s had this one since season 5 I think. I doubt it’s designed to reflect owners holding onto cars that long as a general proposition.
My grandfather was a Cadillac man in the 60s, he did buy them every 2 years both to look up to date and also to take advantage of what was then fantastic trade-in/resale value that Cadillacs had at the time.
Go get yourself arrested….take your new Thunderbird for a ride on the beach, straight at the shoreline.
They might confuse it with a grounded oil tanker.
Or a beached whale.
Actually, it’s still legal to drive on a number of beaches in Oregon. Given the “haystack” in the distance, I suspect it might have been shot here too. But in the 70s, there were plenty of beaches in CA one could still drive on too.
There are still some spots where it is legal to drive year round on Washington beaches as well. https://funbeach.com/beach-driving/
Strange thing about your profile of the (potential) buyer/owner….the only Thunderbird like this I ever got to drive was owned by a WOMAN in her mid-late 50s. In the 90s, I worked for a phone company where one of my co-workers had a mid 90s Thunderbird which was traded for an SUV. That 90s T-bird was owned by a woman, this time one in her late 30s.
BTW, in both cases, the cars were bought brand new.
Love those opera windows!
I’ve always wondered why the T-Bird’s trapezoidal shape was considered slightly downscale to the Mark IV’s oval.
Polite, non-judgmental words fail me when considering this car.
C’mon, “Make a little Thunder…. of your own!” 🙂
Thanks for sharing this ad.
Meanwhile someone filmed a brochure the whole 1974 Mexican Ford line-up with Galaxie, Maverick, Mustang II (however no Pinto, Torino and T-bird) and trucks who also included a panel version of the F-100 as B-100. The Thunderbird arrived in Mexico way later in the late 1980s.
Great video, thank you. Most people do not know just how popular the V8 Maverick was in South America; In Brazil, they are the equivalent of a ’69 COPO Camaro here in the States.
Bad advertisement; “making thunder” is a colloquialism for flatulence.
My 1975 Thunderbird was purchased new by a couple in their mid 30’s who had one child. He was a rural letter carrier who farmed on the side. She was a school teacher. They lived in the Missouri Bootheel. Typical buyer demographic? I haven’t a clue.
Doesn’t sound like the typical buyer. Why anyone with a child would buy a T-Bird is beyond me. Pretty pricey car for a school teacher and a mail man.
And that B-100 is interesting. Did Ford actually make a”Suburban” if you will, and chose not to sell it here in the States? Never seen one before today. Thanks again, killer video.
Middle school math teacher owned a Creme and Gold ’76. She was the teacher nobody liked, her son was the class bully, and the car was in good shape after 10 hard winters but desperately unstylish in the mid-80s.
There is nothing quite like it on the highway… In all honesty it has a better feel on a flat stretch of highway than any of my panther based Town Cars have had. The 460 purrs…
Agreed. These are phenomenal highway cruisers. I still miss the one I had.
My only issue now is the timeliness of finding parts for it. This Bird has been in the family since new and kept stock but it seems the availability and actual numbers of these on the road are dwindling fast, even in the non-rust states…
In all the period road tests I’ve read, the consensus was that the T-Bird (and FoMoCo’s other full-size vehicles) went all-out in a quest for the most isolated, smoothest ride possible. This was at the expense of handling, of course, and possibly even safe control of the vehicle as it heeled over like the RMS Lusitania even on the most gentle entrance ramps.
Never really encountered that with mine. It’s wide enough it tracks better than you would think for the kind of vehicle it is and was designed to be. Fresh tires and updated shocks go a long way.
If the sales numbers of TBird vs. Mark IV seem surprising, I think it’s because the Lincolns were more likely to be saved and coddled, so more survive today. The TBird wasn’t necessarily disposable, but was a Ford, after all, so probably treated with less respect. Less survive and so now we think it never sold when in fact, it sold quite well. However, my personal childhood 70s memories don’t include many of these. We did have a family friend who had a Mark IV (or was it a V– maybe both in succession) alongside a sensible Toyota, which I think was a pretty common scenario back then. They did have kids… and our neighbors (with 2 kids) had the downsized ’77 version. People with kids totally had 2-door cars back then — if the back seat was small, that was OK because it was for the kids! And, it was safer since they couldn’t “fall out” of that back door.
In 1974 would I have made some thunder of my own? Absolutely not. I hadn’t even graduated from high school. I cared for cars with great handling. BMW 2002 was pretty high on my list of aspirational cars. My idea of American cars was totally based on things I read in “Auto Motor und Sport”, the German car magazine. And I cannot remember a single American car that was not being panned by them.
Now, 41 years later, I can imagine myself in a Thunderbird. It would be a ’95-’97 Thunderbird LX with the 4.6L V8.
The woman in the commercial bears a certain resemblance to Kathleen DuRoss (the third Mrs. Henry Ford II), who actually was a FoMoCo model.
There was a certain “look” that all these women had: Not too young, not too thin, usually blond. Good ol’ upper Midwest stock…
I seem to recall reading somewhere that’s exactly how HF II met her, she was doing commercials, so it may well be her.