I love penguins. It’s hard to pinpoint when this might have started. I do remember having owned and shared a children’s record on which the positive characteristics of various birds, fish and animals were extolled in song as qualities that good, young boys and girls should aspire to internalize and be in the world. Reading that last sentence again, the idea wasn’t as hokey as it may sound, but I don’t care if it does. I really loved the song about how penguins don’t complain about their blustery, cold surroundings and weather conditions, and also how they were depicted as ice skating and tobogganing on their bellies as if their natural habitat was just one big snow-day. As an adult, my fascination with penguins has only grown, and I have learned so much about many of their eighteen species.
Gentoo penguins at the Detroit Zoo. Boss “Thor” is on the left. Monday, March 19, 2018.
One thing about penguins that had escaped me as a child was that they aren’t mammals. They’re birds. Looking at a penguin and with no other frame of reference or in-depth reading, this kind of mistake seems like it would be easy to make. They look like mammals. They stand upright and walk in a waddling gait, not unlike many mammals. (This is when they’re not gliding across ice and snow on their stomachs for greater speed and efficiency.)
They have an almost human-like form, albeit short and squashed, but with avian features like flippers where arms would be, and a beak, among other things. There are other flightless birds, like ostriches, kiwis, and dodos. While I love all of the animal kingdom (the zoo is one of my favorite places), it is the highly adapted characteristics of penguins, including their loyalty to partner and offspring, perseverance through insanely cold temperatures, skills at swimming (Gentoos can swim up to 20 miles per hour), fishing, eluding predators, and cuddly appearance that have endeared these plump birds to me. I even had the chance maybe six or seven years ago to participate in a paid “penguin encounter” at the Shedd Aquarium, where I had the chance to learn about, interact with, and pet a Magellanic penguin named “Chile” (after the country). I was over the moon.
Rockhopper penguins at the Lincoln Park Zoo. Chicago, Illinois. Saturday, October 1, 2011.
Over the years in which I’ve been a participant at Curbside Classic, the fourth generation of Thunderbird is the one I can recall many readers having opined as being the one that represented the largest stylistic break from what came before since it had grown a back seat for ’58. Don’t ask me to cite the CC article with that particular comment thread, because I can’t. I live in constant fear (not really) of unwittingly duplicating an essay I’ve already written (which might have already happened, at least in part), let alone being able to remember where I’ve read a comment or two over the past nine years. The idea that the ’67 was a wholly different kind of Thunderbird holds water within several contexts.
Up until this generation, the Thunderbird, though a personal car, was still a sporting machine, even if some had fender skirts and other luxury leanings. Beltlines looked lower, greenhouses taller, and cockpits seemed to have a more closely-coupled look and feel, befitting a car with connotations of flight and air travel. When the ’67 arrived, not only was there no more convertible (called a “roadster”), but a new four-door had joined the roster. A Thunderbird sedan.
Its styling was now more fulsome and rounded, adopting more of a mainstream-midsizer kind of look, complete with more fully integrated “fuselage” bodysides where there was much less of an obvious break where the roof met the rear quarter panels. The ’67 still looks very much like a Thunderbird to me, and I have always found it attractive. It just seems to be in a slightly different category than the other ‘Birds before it, much like penguins aren’t like anything else you’re going to find in the aviary of your city zoo.
The ’64 Landau was photographed in Edgewater on Monday, October 24, 2016.
Next to a ’64 Landau, a ’67 coupe looks, well, fuller. I was shocked to learn that not only were there only marginal dimensional differences between the first-year examples of their respective generations, but the base curb weight of the ’67 is actually about 4% less than that of the ’64 (~4,250 lbs. vs. ~4,430). On a wheelbase just an inch and a half longer than the ’64, at 114.7″, a base ’67 coupe is only 1.5″ longer overall at 206.9″, 0.2″ wider at 77.3″, and 0.3″ taller at 52.8″. The physical sizes of these two iterations of Thunderbird are almost interchangeable. Why does the ’67 two-door look that much larger? Don’t say it’s because of the wide whitewall tires, because other examples of fourth generation cars have long left me with the same impression of greater heft.
African penguins at the Lincoln Park Zoo. Chicago, Illinois. Sunday, September 16, 2018.
Thunderbird’s price range for ’67 closely resembled that of ’66, with an entry level coupe starting at just over $4,600, which was about $100 more than the year before. The new four-door, priced in the $4,800 range, cost about as much as the departed ’66 convertible. Sales of almost 78,000 for ’67 represented an increase of almost 13% over ’66. This significant growth makes sense in keeping with the new Thunderbird’s major shift from sport to luxury, which echoed the increasing popularity of the brougham. Ford’s own flossy LTD, introduced for ’65 as part of the Galaxie line, would later become its most popular full-sizer.
Just like many species of cold-weather penguin have adapted to life in truly harsh climates and conditions, the Thunderbird had to do the same amid changing tastes and preferences among American buyers. Its move into overt luxury may not have started with the ’67 (ahem, fender skirts, dummy landau bars, ahem), but by the introduction of the fourth generation cars, luxury is where Ford had pushed all their chips. All of them. There was no longer any pretense of sporty anything by ’67.
There would be other seismic shifts in the Thunderbird’s direction in the future, but my final thought is that the change for ’67 was more significant in that at the time, it was only the second instance this model’s identity had been overhauled to this degree. As for penguins, my love for them eventually bled into fascination with birds in general. Perhaps another trip to the Lincoln Park Zoo is soon in order for me in this new year. Here’s to the breathtaking ability for adaptability among all creatures.
Rogers Park, Chicago, Illinois.
Saturday, December 16, 2023.
To me, the 67 was where the Thunderbird lost that something, that elan, or whatever. Compared to the 66, in my eyes it looked somewhat stodgy, and as the 60’s went on into the 70’s with it growing bigger and and bigger, I was even less impressed with it. The downsized “basket handle” ones were okay, but it took the 80’s Aerobirds to regain my attention. Funny, not really having given any thought to it, I’d always assumed that penguins were mammalian! 🙂
On that last sentence, thank you for backing me up!
I liked the ’83 Aerobird at first, but then it just sort of stayed in that place while the rest of the industry also went aero, so it lost something. In ’83, though, it was a revolution. I’ve also come to appreciate the 1977 – ’79 Fashionbirds even more now than when they were used cars when I was growing up.
Color me surprised the ’64 and ’67 are about the same size. Perhaps that is a testament to how good styling can do a lot to influence one’s perception of size, heft, and all sorts of other characteristics. It’s obvious whoever pulled off this styling trick on the ’67 Thunderbird had left Ford entirely by the time the ’80 Thunderbird came into being.
Joe, I credit you for picking one cold day to include penguins in an essay. It’s -1F here and I’m seeing it’s -2F in Chicago. For perspective, it’s +31F in Juneau, Alaska, at this moment (so says weathernationtv.com at 0548 hours CST).
You would enjoy the penguin house at the St. Louis Zoo. It’s a walkthrough building kept at 38F (a place to go warm up on a day like today) where one can be within about 18″ of penguins that are behind half-walls. I would highly recommend it, plus the St. Louis Zoo has no admission fee.
“Baltimore zoo” still has (I hope) “Penguins”. Have not trekked up that way in years!
I’ve always loved observing them; “Chilly Willy”, the cartoon character was a fav . ((back in the prehistoric days of my youth))
I notice the front shot of the “beige, T bird”; headlight covers are closed.
Taking it as a heat they’re still functioning. (or were then)
Chilly Willy was a great cartoon bird. For some reason, I was thinking that there was also a line of frozen slush drinks with his image on them, but that Chilly Willy was a cartoon bear.
Now, there’s a side-by-side comparison I’d like to see – a ’67 and an ’80. For the record, I like the ’80 Thunderbird. But two crash diets within the span of four model years was a *lot*. I was wasn’t still unfreezing myself from this morning’s -6F, I’d look up exterior dimensions of both cars.
If work, or anything, ever takes me back to St. Louis, I’d love to check out that zoo. I just enjoy zoos in general, and you said the magic words: “free” and “penguins”.
I love the analogy Joe.
And I think it’s because the 1967 is just “rounder” that makes it look larger than it is. That’s my theory at least.
Yes to this! Thanks for the Lyle Lovett clip. I’m not super-familiar with his work, but I’ve always read about his alt-country leanings and being out of the box. And the model – was that Linda Evangelista? “We don’t wake up for less than ten thousand dollars a day” is still one of my favorite ’90s quotes. LOL!!
It is indeed Linda Evangelista.
I heard Lyle at a concert once explain that song. It basically came down to the fact that he went out with some woman, who seemed totally “normal”, until he got to her apartment, which was literally filled with penguin images and figurines. For some reason, that weirded him out…and a song resulted. The point of the song is to simply sing about penguins. Literally though, most of the lyrics are nonsense, he says.
He’s great. I think he may have a new fan in me.
Joseph: Maybe it looks larger to you because it lacks a vinyl top. It does look different to me because of that; my memory imprints the image of these T-Birds only with vinyl tops. I think it is cleaner and better without but it is different enough because of that. Therefore, these photos are striking to me.
I like your theory that a vinyl top would have somewhat broken the visual mass. And white is not a slimming color. I just thought of that. I wonder if this ’67 would have looked more svelte in black.
I think, it is the C-pillar. It is less bulky and more inclined on the MY ’67 car. This way, it stretches the whole body shape.
The size and shape of the C-pillars looks similar between the ’64 and the ’67, to my eyes. The ’64 has that dummy landau bar on it, though, to give the illusion of a soft top. I wonder if that has anything to do with it.
“I wonder if that has anything to do with it”.
To that point I do agree. The landauesk ornament is of no relevance.
In bad weather, we would sometimes carpool to school in a neighbor’s 2 y.o. ’68, with the wraparound seat back, so it was the first TBird I’d seen up close and too personal with squashed kids. The earlier ones just looked old to me. While I didn’t like the beak years, its nadir were the mammoth, nondescript ’72-6 Mark IV wannabees. The first AeroBird looked more bloated and unappealing than this one to me. They’re always pale blue in my mind’s eye.
This one has undoubtedly lost its vinyl roof before a repaint. Were they standard then, or just mandatory?
I really like the idea of a wraparound back seat in one of these, which would have lent itself to the feel of a living room couch and luxury furnishings. Wasn’t that part of what these were about? And now you’ve got me wondering about the vinyl top. Doing a quick internet search, it looks like they were available without a vinyl roof, but most of the ones in my search results have one.
I almost laughed out loud at the faux double exposure with the penguin apparently looking askance at the 67.
I actually do like the 1967-69 Thunderbirds, with their Pontiac-inspired cleanness of line and rear fender kickup. The dynamic qualities of the underpinnings were never truly sporty, anyway. The sales figures show that this was yet another example of Ford correctly intuiting what the typical T-Bird buyer really wanted, as opposed to what the buff books wanted.
I like the Pontiac reference, and I think it’s apt. The 1970 & ’71 models look even more like Pontiacs (Catalinas, or something), thanks to those hips and the Bunkie beak.
Always find your pieces enjoyable, Joseph. Years ago I visited Cape Town for work and was delighted when the guidebooks reminded me that there were penguins aplenty on the coast of South Africa. My significant other was a little surprised by my childlike enthusiasm for seeing them in the wild, but come on…penguins! They weren’t in an enclosure, they were right there, hanging out on the beach, doing, well…penguin stuff! It ended up being a surprisingly emotional and utterly delightful experience.
Thank you so much, and for sharing this. It has been only within the past 7 or 8 years or so that I learned there are warm-weather penguins! Like the African penguins or the Little (blue) penguins in Oceania. I wish I didn’t have to go all the way to Dubai to hug a King penguin. I’ll just save that money and watch YouTube clips.
I’m likewise fascinated by penguins, but I’ve usually viewed this generation of Thunderbird as some sort of evolutionary detour that ended up yielding some unfortunate critters. But, yes, definitely a different species of ‘bird that what went before!
You’re so right that this white T-bird visually resembles a penguin – that last shot is just perfect.
And I’m so glad you were able to do a zoo penguin encounter. I’ve visited zoos that have offered “encounters” for various animals, but I never seem to be there at the right time to enjoy one for an animal that I really like. Someday hopefully I will.
I forgot to add that the best penguin display I’ve seen was at the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga. An aquarium isn’t where you’d expect a great bird display, but they are aquatic creatures, so it makes sense. Great penguins there.
The Boston (New England) aquarium has a great penguin exhibit as well. It was always a favorite destination when my kids were little.
Also, a penguin exhibit in a zoo is my go-to example for not simply “making stuff up” when you don’t know the answer. I recall years ago standing at the penguin exhibit at Washington DC’s National Zoo. Next to me was a little girl with her mom and as little kids do, the girl asks her mom “Mommy, what ARE those animals??”. Mom was clearly as perplexed as her daughter, and despite standing right in front of the signage explaining “Penguins” offers up…”Uhhhhh. Baby seals.”
A prime example where “I don’t know” (and “Let’s find out!” to boot) would have been the much better adult response. 🙂
That story’s amusing on several different levels. For one, I’m surprised that any adult wouldn’t recognize a penguin. Penguins seem to me as distinctive, and as well known, as giraffes. And then there’s the not-reading-the-sign part…
But we all have mental lapses occasionally, so maybe this was a stressed-out mom who just wasn’t having her best day. All I know is if that were my kids, they’d eventually figure it out, and then they’d never let me live it down.
LOL! Mommy must have been really stressed out. Or confused.
There are definitely some other animal encounters I’d like to do. Ever since I discovered the Dodo YouTube channel with all kinds of animals doing animal-y things, I feel like I’d like to spend more time learning about more of them and the habitats.
Love penguins. Not so much the ’67 T-bird.
The New England Aquarium in Boston has a great penguin display that gets you up close with them as they do their “Penguin Stuff” (to use Axel’s term above).
You can even livestream their antics: https://www.neaq.org/visit/penguin-webcam/
Amazing. Thank you for this. I used to spend a not-insignificant amount of time in the Boston area as a former home office was located there. It wouldn’t have occurred to me back then to see the zoo during my off hours.
In the history of the Thunderbird’s evolution, the 1967-69 ‘Glamour Bird’ is far from the worst. It definitely skews towards the ‘not bad’ description and, if nothing else, is a great example of Ford management accurately predicting the PLC market trend away from sport and to ful-fledged brougham-ification, which Ford would completely embrace with the next generation, 1972-76 ‘Big Bird’ .
As far as styling goes, it was one of those rare examples of being unique without being particularly polarizing. That front end was supposed to evoke a jet intake, but it was way more like a Hoover vacuum cleaner.
The penquin analogy isn’t particularly bad, either. They’re a unique bird that can’t fly, but more adapted for swimming. They’re not all that attractive, either, but still interesting in both appearance and how they’ve evolved. Kind of like the 1967-69 Thunderbird.
I agree that the Glamour Bird is far from the worst, at least to my tastes. And not to diss the 1972 – ’76 models (everything is beautiful… in it’s own way… – Ray Stevens), I’ve never been into bigness just for its own sake.
One particular feature I love about the ’67 are those gorgeous, full-width taillamps.
I’m enough of a penguin geek to count “March of the Penguins” among my all-time favorite documentaries. Bravo to you, Joe, for getting up close and personal with penguins at the zoo.
I agree that this T-bird does look like a penguin. I like the styling of the late ‘60s ‘Birds better than their immediate predecessors though I think the earlier cars had nicer interiors with better quality materials.
Seeing a late Sixties T-bird always makes me think back to my early elementary school years, when the neighborhood bachelor drove a dark green 1967 T-bird and had the only in-ground swimming pool in the neighborhood (very unusual in 1960s Indiana). Both the car and the pool symbolized a lifestyle completely different from the local norms and seemed so glamorous and exciting in contrast.
Yay, penguin lovers unite! 🐧
The styling of these ’67s was more smoothly integrated than what came before. The roof of the earlier generation looked like it was just plopped onto the lower body. I’m also not a huge fan of fender skirts, though in the proper application, I can give some a free pass.
Fun fact that I’ve mentioned before, but it’s appropriate here: The National Park Service still uses this generation of Thunderbird to represent a car on its official signs.
Wow. Totally looks like our featured car.
“Do not Thunderbird. 🚫”
Joseph, you found a good example of a basic T Bird model. It has the hardtop roof without a vinyl covering and still has the little quarter window. The Landau model, which I believe was introduced in ’66, had the really wide C pillars without a window, vinyl covered with a fake landau bar stuck to the side. In basic white, and without a lot of decorations added on, I can see what the Ford designer were trying to convey. It has only a slightly longer hood than deck, but it follows the PLC template better than the earlier late ’50’s-60’s models which had almost equal lengths front and rear. The earlier models were kind of fussy and baroque “jewel boxes.” The ’67 is modern, cleaner and more purposeful looking. I think of the earlier models as being like Dean Martin as Matt Helm,( there is an early Bird in the movie Murder’s Row) as opposed to the ’67 being more like Mike Connors as Mannix.
Keeping with the avian references, I like the final Bunkie Beak models, with the low fastback roofline. An automotive raptor! I’m just glad that no one took the comparison any further and labeled this T Bird as a Dodo!
Well, it is extinct! LOL
Jose, thanks for this. I hadn’t thought about the Landau missing a rear quarter window entirely. With no firsthand experience driving a car with blind rear quarters, I don’t know how comfortable I’d be driving a car like that. Even with modern mirrors and cameras in rentals, I still turn my head to check my blind spots before merging.
Apparently the 1967 Landau model did have a rear quarter window, unlike the 1966.
Given my love for our 1965, I’ve never cared for this iteration of the Thunderbird but I must say Mark’s enthusiasm for his car’s styling in this video is infectious. It is a lot more glamorous car than Joseph’s curbside find.
Mom’s ’67 T-Bird was my favorite car of my childhood! This example in the CC post is missing the T-Bird badges on the “B” pillar between the back edge of the doors and the rear fender, since it is not equipped with a vinyl roof. If it had a vinyl roof, a.k.a. a “Landau”, the badges would be replaced with the faux “Landau Bars” in the same location. Since this example is missing both the badges and the Landau Bars, and the roof is painted and not covered in naugahyde, there are two (2) possibilities. First, the car originally had a steel roof, was repainted, and the badges were never reinstalled, since the body-colored insert inside the badges no longer matched the new paint color of the car. Or, the car’s Landau Bars were removed when the vinyl roof was removed, and never reinstalled after the roof damage was repaired and the car repainted.
There will be roof damage with a vinyl roof, because the vinyl traps water under the vinyl, causing the roof to rust through. Repairing that rust damage is crucial to ensure the car’s long-term survival.
This one seemed to be lightly tailored to the owner’s specs, as evidenced by certain paint accents and certain tells. I like that the owner personalized it, because why wouldn’t he or she? It all works to me. The body looked solid.
This example made me notice a very odd styling incongruity, it has a simulated convertible/retractable roof seam at the top of the A pillars, yet this generation also has the C pillar meet the lower body seamlessly. The result of which makes the much more common vinyl roof treatment look unconvincing, and make the non vinyl roof body look disjointed. Perfect analogy using a penguin, a bird that cannot fly and a convertible that cannot convert.
That detail cements my thought that Ford planners didn’t really know what direction to take the Thunderbird by 1967 and the designers did the best they could with that lack of direction, textbook case of designed by committee result. I don’t think these are the worst designed Thunderbirds, I reserve that for either the 72-76 or 80-82 generation, but coming off the glamour years where there was still that 55-57 spirit in them (even if the weight and dimensions long sapped out any sporting pretense) the 67s don’t really have anything defining… a suicide door 4 door option? So did Lincoln half a decade earlier… hidden headlights in the grille? So does the Riviera, Charger, Cougar, Camaro RS etc… Interior was still fairly unique, but soon Ford stuffed a bench seat in them and lost yet another one of the Tbirds defining traits. The Lincoln Mark III clearly was where all the effort was placed in Ford’s personal car line, the Tbird became low priority
Matt, it was your comment and JP’s below that had me revisiting his original article in that link. I think part of the confusion around the design direction could have been because of the high priority placed on the new, ’68 Continental Mark III. I still think this is a very attractive car at its core.
I may be the guilty party who wrote about this generation of Thunderbird in a way guaranteed to bring out opinions, whether good or ill. My opinion was definitely ill. https://www.curbsideclassic.com/curbside-classics-american/curbside-classic-1968-thunderbird-who-am-i-why-am-i-here/
I have softened a little on these since I wrote that, and have concluded that the way large cars, auto styling and the Ford Motor Company in particular were going, a Thunderbird like this was sort of inevitable. This is just one more example of how I don’t like cars from the later 60s as much as I liked cars from earlier in the decade. Your example looks a bit off, with a suspension that sits too high for my eyes. And what is it about people who think that you can slap any wiper arm onto any wiper arm post and it won’t matter? I think this car has them on backwards.
I will confess to being lukewarm about penguins (sorry). Except for the one played by Burgess Meredith around the time this car was in the final stages of heading for showrooms. I love that one!
JP, thanks for relinking that article – it was a good one, and I did have to look at it again after reading this comment.
Good point about the wipers; I didn’t notice at first when I looked at this story on my phone. I assume there are driver and passenger side wiper arms for this T-Bird, just like today’s cars generally have longer wipers on the driver side?
The wipers – a design detail I wouldn’t have even paid attention to. I did like the fascination certain automakers (I’m thinking of GM) had with hidden wipers. I wonder if those were trouble prone in the kind of freezing weather we’re having right now in Chicago.
The hidden wipers GM introduced in the late 60s (a Pontiac first if I recall correctly), were prone to problems in icy and bitter cold weather (as in, more difficult to extract stuck wiper blades). No doubt that is why today’s cars have only partially concealed wipers — there’s generally a trough at the base of the windshield but the blades themselves are within easy reach.
Dean’s Garage website has a very recent article on the development of the 1967 Thunderbird and intelligent speculation on Lee Iacocca’s influence on the design.
I’ll have to check that out – thank you.
The big change that strikes me with this generation of Bird is the plainness of the body countours. From their inception the four seater Birds were characterised by sculpted sheetmetal with a decidedly spotry look. On this one they went back to the aesthetic of the two-seater, more of a cut-down big Ford appearance. Compared to the previous model, the bodyside contours are just static. It’s only the strange frontal treatment and overblown rear that give it any visual distinctiveness.
Doesn’t mean I haven’t built one, of course…
Nice work as ways, Peter! It’s that over-the-top frontal and rear styling that really makes these cars for me. With a more conventional look front or aft, I wonder if they’d do as much for me. I love hidden headlamps and full-width taillamps.
When you started the article by referring to your love of penguins, I was certain you were going to liken this generation Thunderbird to the appropriately named, extinct Kumimanu fordycei. I too was always sure these Birds were considerably larger and heavier than the previous generation but no. There is something about the styling which conveys hugeness but obviously it is not so. So now I have no clue what sort of penguin this Bird is. I used to hate them but as of late they are growing on me (and in this case I think the 4 doors are better looking than the coupe), and I could imagine owning one were I to live in the US; it would need decent size wheels/tire combo to fill up those arches and a slight downward adjustment to the ride height. Oh: and painted black, to combat the impression of avoirdupois.
Ah, the Kumimanu fordycei – the biggest (extinct) penguin of all! As much as I love penguins, I think I would be terrified of a human-sized bird. Emperors are big enough, though I’d still want to see one of those.
I do think the four-doors are great-looking machines – I’m split 50/50 between the coupe and sedan as to which I think works better. Even though I have a preference for a factory-stock appearance, I’m all about automotive expression and like what the owner of the car in the above picture did with theirs.
My understanding it was not just human-sized, it was more like a sumo wrestler and it would have been wise to keep a distance (people often forget penguins are (a) carnivores and (b) really, dinosaurs).
As for the car, it is nice – I would have chosen slightly more “period” wheel and tire combination but that’s my personal preference, so… Really, with modern aftermarket products, there is so much one could do with such a car, just treat it as canvas and go.
My 1967 Thunderbird.
Bill, it’s just beautiful, inside and out. Thank you for taking the time for posting this video and pictures. There’s something about the virtual walk-around that added so much to my experience of the car.
Everything about it – the wires, whitewalls, color scheme, condition – and the icing on the cake was those beautiful, full-width rear lights illuminated. The stuff of dreams. You should rightly be proud of that machine.
Thank you for your kind remarks. In my opinion, the 1967 is the last of the true Thunderbirds.
Reasons include:
Last of the full length console, to the rear seat
Last of the center folding windshield wipers
Last of the aluminum trimmed instrument panel
Last of the standard swing-away steering wheel
Last of the unique to Thunderbird interior door handles
Not larger than the 1966, only 1.5″ but 300 lbs lighter!
1 lb/hp less than the 1966
Still had Tbird features such as flow through ventilation, sequential turn signals, overhead warning lights (optional), wrap around rear seat.
It did loose the fender skirts, but gained hidden headlights, and a tilt steering wheel, cool side ways retracting rear quarter windows, and was much quieter due to the body on frame construction.
The body styling had to change to keep up with the emerging near fuselage styling, such as the Riviera had in 1966. I think that the Ford stylist did a wonderful job in updating the Thunderbird for 1967.
another picture of my 1967 Thunderibrd 2 dr. Landau.
And the front of my 1967. I had one like it when it was only 3 yrs old and I was 21 yrs old. I have always loved them, but also have a 1966 and a 1960.
It’s a stunner. And now I’m curious about this Meguiar’s display or show. I used to use Meguiar’s products on my Mustang when I owned it and was always very pleased with the results.
2020 Houston AutoRama. Thanks for your kind remarks about my car.
The 67 has always been my favourite Thunderbird. I think the 1966 models are a bit outdated, especially compared to GM styling of the time, too many contours on the bodysides for one thing, but the 67s are right up with the modern style as I would have called it as a kid.
Unfortunately I will have to be satisfied with my Ebay 1968 Hot Wheels version.
PS Bill Prince’s car is gorgeous, I remember his white Chrysler New Yorker as well.
Thanks