(first posted 10/03/2012) Once, while working on my ’63 Galaxie, I used a cheater bar to remove a bolt. It slipped, causing me to hit my forearm on the bumper and necessitating a late-night trip to the emergency room. Using a cheater bar seemed like a good idea at the time.
Another time, when I desired a root beer float but had no vanilla ice cream, I substituted chocolate. It tasted wretched, although it seemed like a good idea at the time.
The old adage of “it seemed like a good idea at the time” just seems to reek of an unfortunate outcome. In this case, it might also help explain the 1980 Ford Thunderbird.
For its Eighth Generation, Ford dipped and marinated the Thunderbird in a barrel of Slim-Fast. As a result, it shed nearly 700 pounds of road-hugging weight, lost 16″ in overall length and shrank 5.5″ in wheelbase. Maybe it was a good idea at the time, what with the recent fuel crisis, current recession and stricter CAFE standards looming on the horizon. The Thunderbird was the last full-figured holdout in the Ford fleet, the rest of which had been downsized a year or two earlier.
If you’ve ever lost a lot of weight, or know someone who has, you know there’s more to successful weight loss than what the scale reads. Thirty-two years after its introduction, this generation Thunderbird still looks a lot like this poor soul.
The Seventh Generation 1977-79 Thunderbird had been a monumental success for Ford, selling 284,141 units even in worst-selling 1979. In 1978, the best-selling year for that generation, sales of the Torino-based ‘Bird totaled 352,751.
There will always be those who speak the contrary but sometimes, big-boned girls can look pretty darn fine.
On the other hand, certain thin girls don’t look so good, in an emaciated, anemic sort of way. Being nothing but a sack of skin and bones can both be less than aesthetically pleasing and reinforce the perception of emaciation and anemia.
For 1980, anemia was definitely the buzzword around Ford’s engine department. There were still two V8 engines available, the 255 cu in (4.2-liter) and time-honored 302 cu in (5.0-liter). Their horsepower ratings were truly distinctive, and for the wrong reasons, at 115 and 131, respectively.
If that wasn’t frightful enough, Ford would rub salt in that CAFE-inflicted wound midway through the 1980 model year with an 88-hp, 200 cu in (3.3-liter) straight-six as standard equipment. It gave the ’80 Thunderbird the dubious distinction of being the first ‘Bird powered by six cylinders.
Like any Rhode Island Red chicken, the ‘Bird could definitely walk and expertly spread it wings. It simply was ill-equipped to fly.
For those who prized leisurely cruising and comfort over raw acceleration, the Thunderbird was still a fine chariot to own. Granted, it was smaller in every dimension and now advertised as a four-passenger vehicle, unlike its five (or more)- passenger predecessors. Then again, how often did a Thunderbird actually carry more than two passengers?
That aside, there was one distinct positive for all 1980 Ford models, including the Thunderbird: The venerable AOD (automatic overdrive) transmission. It would go on to lead a very long and successful life, hanging out beneath countless Ford-produced cars and pickups.
During the three model years of this generation, from 1980 to 1982, Ford sold 288,638 of these new Thunderbirds. In 1980, the most successful year, 156,803 units were sold. With sales dropping by almost half in 1981, and again in 1982, they weren’t exactly flying out of the dealerships anymore.
The parents of a high-school friend of mine owned a solid-white ’80 Thunderbird. At the time, I thought this generation of Thunderbird was just about the ultimate: Their design was at once so much more contemporary than the ’77 to ’79 models, yet more traditional than the ’83 to ’86s. At least it certainly seemed so at the time.
Their snow-white Thunderbird demonstrated the sheer durability of this Fox platform-based generation. It was powered by the mighty 3.3-liter straight six engine. I rode in that car many times, and found its red, split-bench seat interior highly comfortable. My friend’s father was a rural letter carrier with a daily route of slightly over 120 miles. Roughly 70 miles of it comprised the kind of gravel roads that tortured suspensions and butchered tires. He drove the route for several years, always in his Thunderbird. Suffering at least one flat tire per day, the nearly 10-year-old Thunderbird ran the mail route six days a week, and served as the family car when off-duty.
This Thunderbird generation has some obvious and distinct shortcomings, but mechanical and structural integrity are not among them. So why didn’t these Thunderbirds begin to approach the success of the previous generation? One factor was the sales-stifling economy of the early 80’s, which hurt the entire auto industry. But was that all?
Most likely not. Certainly, size was a consideration; contrast the ’80 Thunderbird with the ’76 model. At a time when people were accustomed to truly full-sized cars, the ’80 Thunderbird was considered a compact. Change doesn’t come easily for some.
Styling is another possible reason. Try as they did, the look of these cars did not effectively evoke or evolve the previous generation. Ford might have thought it a good idea at the time, but shifting so many 1977 design cues onto the ’80 models simply didn’t work. Perhaps they should have followed their own example and created something distinct: How much similarity do you see between this ’76 and the ’79 near the top of the page?
All in all, was it a good idea at the time? Maybe, and maybe not. The car wasn’t horrible in its own right, and certainly more attractive than a contemporary Monte Carlo. In the context of its Thunderbird lineage, though, it was a big miss. This Fairmont-based chariot seriously eroded the cachet of the Thunderbird name.
As regular Curbside Classic readers know, certain General Motors products have rightfully earned recognition as Deadly Sins. Might I suggest an “F” for Ford’s mistakes? How about a Ford FUBAR?
Really? That thing is a Thunderbird? I had no idea the US car industry got so bad in the Eighties until this abomination appeared on my Eighties US car starved radar.
Now I feel sorry for America.
The malaise era (roughly ’73-’83) was depressing, with many succeeding makes and models worse than the previous. The second energy crisis in ’79-’80 didn’t help any. This car is simply a victim of it’s time.
Once upon a time everyone aspired to own a Merican car but it was so long ago Ive forgotten why
This American sadly agrees with our Kiwi friend. We haven’t stopped trying though, maybe this will help.
I still aspire to own a ‘Merican car Bryce! One of the local JDM import dealers (4 Guys in Hamilton) is also now importing brand spanking Dodge Chargers, which look fab! NZ$80+K though, so worth 20x what my Laurel is lol! A nice Grand Marquis or Town Car would rock my world too, shame they’re so rare here!
Then do like a number of guys from down under do, come to the US for a Holiday and take your pick of one of the thousands of US cars here and ship it back. A friend of mine who moved to Australia came back to visit and brought along a couple of his buddies who bought some Corvettes and parts for them. Also just recently I went on a trip to California and at our hotel I met a 3 Aussies who came and toured the US and purchased a Edsel Wagon to take back home with them. I caught them as they were tinkering with it to take it to the dock to have it shipped back home. In the back were a number of pieces too.
NZ Skyliner, I have A 1985 Mercury Grand Marquis LS four door sedan for you here in western Canada. Its a twenty footer, meaning it looks great from twenty feet. Loaded with options most of which still work. I saved it from thee wrecking yard this summer. Hopefully it will get me through the coming winter.
Try a newer Cadillac or Buick. You may remember……….
Dont be sorry, friend, THE REST OF AMERICA (eg countries south of the US border) didnt see this kind of situation
Agreed… not the same as the other thunderbirds by any means..
“Suffering at least one flat tire per day…”
!
“So why didn’t these Thunderbirds begin to approach the success of the previous generation? One factor was the sales-stifling economy of the early 80′s, which hurt the entire auto industry.”
To be fair, the downturn seemed to hit personal-luxury coupes especially hard. The fomerly booming market for midsize personal luxury coupes, which Ford had downsized/decontented the T-Bird into in 1977, never really came back again. I agree that there was more to the 1980-82 T-Bird’s failure than economic and market conditions, though. Even within the context of the energy crisis, recession, and decline of the midsize personal luxury coupe, the 1980-82 T-Bird was a poor seller. Its attempt to put traditional styling in a smaller, more modern package somehow failed to find buyers looking for either attribute.
Re: the Monte Carlo, I’d argue it was a better design than this ‘Bird or the Mirada/Codoba that also bowed in ’80. GM seemed to grasp the smaller proportions better, and gave their coupes much more upright greenhouse than their predecessors along with tighter and more crisply defined lower bodies. In contrast, the Ford and Chrysler offerings looked shrunken and simplified.
I’m pretty sure these cars didn’t suffer the same production drop-off as well, but the figures to back that up don’t seem to be online. They were damn near ubiquitous when new, something you couldn’t say about this “Bird or the Mopar twins.
Uhhh…did you really HAVE to show that third photo? Even the T-Bird isn’t THAT ugly! C’mon now…
What I REALLY want to read about is that other Grass-Side classic above – the Curtiss JN-4 “Jenny”. Now THAT’S a classic in every sense of the word.
The car in question? Hmmm….well…at least Ford TRIED…
Our 1981 Reliant K looked better.
The Reliant, or in our case, Aries (same year) got 88 hp with a 2.2L four. That’s petty sad when a I-6 (3.3L) gets the same horsepower as a four with 1.1L less displacement.
I’m willing to bet the 3.3L I-6 T-Bird with an automatic was a dog on the road when compared to the 2.2L I-4 Aries with the 4-speed stick (which we had).
A 200 powered 81 Thunderbird in a CR test did 0-60 in 17.3 seconds, 1 second slower than the lighter fairmont.
Some friends of my parents had the Cougar version of this car, and Jason’s right, it was quiet and rode very well. It’s really no uglier or duller than any other Car 80. (Remember that lousy movie?)
I have trouble thinking this is a FUBAR, as it wasn’t Beyond All Repair; they fixed it in ’83 just by restyling it. The alliteration angle is good, though, they used it themselves…maybe it needs to be a matter of degree? On a scale from Model T (Fabulous Flivver) to Pinto (Fiery FUBAR), I give this T-Bird a middling grade of Ford Flounder.
I almost skipped the rest of the article to write this comment when I saw the Jenny. Whoever concepted and did the ad layout knows nothing of aircraft, else they *never* would have used an airplane with very little “usable” airspeed (difference between stall speed and the wings peeling off) and which was never known for any kind of “high” performance characteristics. Sure, you could barnstorm in one, but only on her terms.
The Jenny would kill you as quick as a wink if you weren’t on top of her at all times, usually at the end of a stall-spin. She was saddled with all manner of duties during and after the Great War, and while she soldiered on as best she could, she was ill-equipped for most of them. But, like the Thunderbird above, she was what we had at the time, so we made do…
When I flew the Bombardier Canadair Regional Jet (CRJ) for a certain regional airline, as we cruised up to our service ceiling of FL410 (if we weren’t too heavy), we could see the stall carrot and overspeed carrot converge on the electronic airspeed indicator. Coffin corner.
There was a crash a while back involving that make of aircraft with the flightcrew cowboys doing the same exact thing.
Take about living on the edge…
Wow, yeah. Interesting read: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinnacle_Airlines_Flight_3701
I wish I did not click that link. That’s terrifying, and my distaste for flight just doubled…
The margin between overspeed and stall speed of the U-2 was 5 knots at it’s usual altitude.
My father had a 1980 Thunderbird Town Laudau. It was two-tone silver/black with the Michelin TRX package. It also had the electronic instrument cluster.
It arrived from the dealer with a cracked transmission case. We didn’t realize it until a couple of weeks later – it started to take more and more time to feel the transmission clunck into gear when putting it in drive. It also had a piece of chrome moulding lifting up from the edge of the door. The fact that a brand new car arrived in this state after dealer inspection shows the state Ford was in during that time period.
The car had issues but one thing it excelled at was driving in snow. The tire package could handle any type of weather condition thrown at it.
I can see why electronic instrument clusters didn’t last long. They took some getting used to and IIRC, the gas gauge was kind of wonky.
Dealer inspection, has always been cursory at best. Working at Goodyear Auto Service in the 1990’s, I regularly saw New Vehicles come in for an oil change with DRY Ball Joints. Sad that it took a 3-5000 mile Service to inject Grease.
What a variety of cars on the Fox platform. So many of them loved and admired. Then there was this one. To me, then and now, the design was almost right. The proportions were close, but not quite there. The stylists just did not pull this one together properly. This has to be the most pathetic Fox car ever.
The biggest problem was that “Thunderbird” had never been about compromise or being sensible. “Thunderbird” was about style and making the owner of the car feel successful. This generation was a complete fail on this metric. This car was nothing but compromise. Your theme of “it seemed like a good idea at the time” is spot on, because CAFE had the entire US industry in a panic in the late 70s.
An aunt came to visit driving one of these. My Uncle Bob said “your aunt always wanted a T-Bird.” I forget what they traded for it, but they had driven big GM cars for years. I drove if for maybe 15 minutes and absolutely hated it. The little V8 was gutless, and the AOD transmission was particularly unforgiving of torqueless engines. The early Fox thing of 4 stalks jutting from the steering column was just strange. I do recall that it rode decently, but I could not get past the drivetrain. I tried to be polite. But she must have felt the same way because they did not have the car long. They lived in eastern Tennessee, and that car must have been excruciating to drive in hilly country.
The thing I remember the most about these cars is their terrible headroom. I am 5’10” and my head touched the headliner constantly when I drove or rode in my grandma’s ’81. Don’t even think about sitting in the back seat, it was for small children only.
Now that you mention it, I remember feeling claustrophobic in my aunt’s car. There was nothing about that car that felt “right” to me in driving it, including the seating position.
IIRC, Ford had a consistent practice of elevating the driver seating position to give a more commanding view of the road or some such…
I’m 6′-5″ and I had the same problem in both the Mercury Marquis’ my grandparents owned. It was annoying as all get-out.
What makes this more appealing than a contemporary Monte Carlo? I’m asking in earnest.
Ah, the company that made it! Duh!
I bought a creampuff 82 Town Landau Tbird in 1989 for $3000 as my business ride. It had traveled a mere 43,000 miles and was spotless. It had a V-8 that was quite gutless but very smooth with a nice Ford V-8 burble about it. The AOD transmission was pleasant and economical. I quite enjoyed the car despite the slight vibration from the front end that I could never get rid of. (tried everything) I thought the interior was extremely nice looking and comfortable for my 5’8″ frame. My wife, on the other hand, never liked the Thunderbird and only rode in it a few times. I kept the car for two years and then traded it for a new Ford Fiesta. What a boner of a decision that was. The Fiesta was so tiny I hated taking it into traffic, only kept it a few months.
When the 80 T-Birds came out, I thought they looked awful. I loved the 77-79’s. I thought they were just beautiful. Still do. In 79, I could have bought a base model for around $ 5,500. The dealer had a white one with green cloth interior and landau roof to match. Sparsely equiped, but nice. It’s remarkable that I never bought one. Still, there’s still time. The hidden headlights, the eggcrate grill, that general styling, it just didn’t work for a downsized 80.
A guy I knew had an 80. I rode in it a couple of times and I thought it rode well. Now, 30 years later, I kinda like the 80. Nostalgia reasons, of course. I don’t think I’d buy one, though.
The Futura should have been the 80 Thunderbird. Proportions were more correct, and that wrap around roof ushered in continuity. Some classy interiors, along with more substantial bumpers and chrome, would have done the trick. Maybe, make a two seat convertible, limited edition. (No six cylinder nonsense.)
“The Futura should have been the 80 Thunderbird. Proportions were more correct, and that wrap around roof ushered in continuity.”
The Futura had horribly awkward proportions culminating into the world’s largest, most awkward sized plastic tail lamps.
I look at it this way. If Ford had not failed so miserably with these early Fox body cars, we might never have seen the absolutely gorgeous ’83 T-bird. I can’t remember where I read it, but at point I think Jack Telnack went to the designers and asked them to design a car they would be interested in driving – thus the ’83 T-bird.
Yes, this was an ugly car. But the ’83 T-bird is still one of the most gorgeous automotive designs to grace any roadway. AND – it had the exact same dashboard as the Square-bird (aside from the body – what else changed including the turbo motor?). It’s interesting what a gorgeous body can do to turn around a platform.
The 83’s wheelbase was also shortened 4 inches from 82, 108 vs 104. Though the 84 Lincoln Mark VII did use the 108″ wheelbase
No, the 1983 didn’t have the exact same dash. The A pillars were different, the dash was different, more contemporary and slightly plumper (more soft touch).
I remember Car and Driver testing a Turbo Coupe and saying it had the most ‘all of a block’ feeling of any domestic car they’d ever tested. My 1984 Turbo Coupe was sold by me years and years ago at 187K. The buyers thought it was 87K well cared for. It was an exceptionally well made car, no rattles and fantastic gas mileage.
Ford spent so much of it’s budget redesigning the exterior that there was no funds for an entirely new dash and console design. So Ford modified the existing dash and carried over the floor console intact. The new dash came for the 1985 model year.
The Fairmont Futura was originally a downsized Thunderbird proposal. The styling prototype had the same exact body section but the front and rear end was styled like the 1977-79 Thunderbird. The basket handle roofline is what made the 1977-79 Thunderbirds distinct and it would have given a downsized Thunderbird better styling continuity. As an aside, the grille of the Fairmont Futura was purposely designed to look like the eggcrate pattern of the 1960 Thunderbird.
The Futura was in fact originally a downsized Fox platform-based Thunderbird proposal dated March 1976. It even had the same front and rear end styling as the production 1977 Thunderbird. The Futura should have been held back for two years to 1980 to be the follow up to the 1977-79 Tbird. It at least had the wrapover roofline to give it familiarity where the production 80 Bird had a generic look surrounded by overly boxy upright proportions. It is funny is the Futura coupe was produced from 1978-83 outliving the poorly received 1980-82 Tbirds by one year. Since the Futura was produced as a sub-model of the Fairmont instead of being tagged a Thunderbird, it got a four headlight version of the Fairmont front end. However the grille was purposely styled to have the same eggcrate grille pattern as the 1960 Thunderbird.
Futura coupe bodies are quite popular among Fox-body enthusiests. One of the common customizations is to install the 1983-96 LTD front ends on them for a sleek aero four eyed look. It fits because 83-86 LTDs are restyled Fairmonts in the first place which retained the same doors, glass and midsections with only restyled front and rear ends.
Ironic considering I hate the 83 T Bird to me they look like a cheap Taurus. And they got cheaper looking as they hit the early 90s. I love these 80-82 T Birds they have a more formal look. To each his own. I also now have one a 1982 Convertible made by Coach Builders limited and it has the 255 V8 and drives great and gets amazing gas mileage with the 4 speed overdive auto, I don’t get the hate for this car I love it.
I have to agree with you, Derek. I bought a Silver Anniversary edition in 1980 and loved it. After I traded it, I wanted it back. I have another one now. I also found the ’83 T-Bird ugly. As you say, to each his own.
That’s absolutely brilliant, do you know how many they made?
I can see why it was a flop.
Having said that… I want one. Was this the lightest weight, smallest in dimensions T-bird of all time?
I’d love to turn one into to a HO 5.0 powered flyer. Explosive power in a small package – kinda like my wife. 😛
These make good drag racers, since they are Fox platform, and any Mustang aftermarket parts fit. One silver T-Bird was featured on Speed TV show ‘Pinks’. The Landau top was scraped off and had Stang GT rims.
Also on the new Discovery show ‘Fast n Loud’ a ’78 Fairmont 2 door was modified into a Drift Car.
I think modifying these makes them way nicer. Too many plain looking Mustang notchbacks can get boring. I like seeing a different Fox car modified,
Precisely why I dumped my cable TV subscription. I don’t need to spend over $100.00 a month for television shows that insult my intelligence. Something the vast majority of cable and non cable networks are guilty of.
Ford FUBARs sound like a good new series. I seem to remember from Paul’s TTAC days the Ford EXP, that seems like a good one to include. The ’80s were terrible for everyone domestic, although there were a few shining moments. The Japanese really took advantage back then and never looked back, while American automakers were floundering.
My boss had the Silver Anniversary edition of this P.O.S. It was a collector’s item he said and he just loved it. Thought it would be worth a fortune some day. He was an idiot.
My one memory that to me really encapsulates this car: In traffic, a white on blue car, geezer at the wheel, with his little lap dog perched on his arms.
Since most of you know that I’m old enough to be considered a geezer by some, you know that if I refer to someone as a geezer, you’d consider him a GEEZER.
Come to think of it, my supervisor inherited one of these cars from an elderly female relative and used it as a commuting vehicle for a while. We didn’t razz him about it…much.
Compare this car to our more-or-less inherited 1980 LeBaron coupe, aka the “Batmobile” and I’ll take the Chrysler any time. It was just about the same color, too.
I gotta dig out and scan more pics of the heaps I’ve owned and post them when the timing is right…
My father had an acquaintence that bought one of these, factory ordered it loaded. I remember it well, it was a sliver LX with the gutless 255 V-8. Anyway, this man, a respected deacon in the local holy-roller church, decided that the motor only needed two litres of oil to run just fine, not five. He claimed the extra oil was an oil company conspiracy.
Dad and I took bets as to when the Bird would blow up. Surely enough, on a trip to the Rockies not long after, the motor burnt up on the infamous car-killing Coquihalla Highway.
It was towed to Kamloops where the local Ford dealer saw it had no oil in it and since there were no oil change receipts, there was no warranty. It came to $3000 out the door, a lot of money in 1980.
After that he always put five litres of oil in it.
I remember first seeing these in Car and Driver (back when the arrival of the annual new-car issue was a big deal) and even then wondering what had Ford done to this car. The attempt to use styling cues from the 1977-79 generation on the new Fox platform resulted in awkward proportions and some strange details.
I can’t say that this was more attractive than the 1980 Monte Carlo. The Chevrolet was no beauty queen, but it was more handsome and coherent than this car. The Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme and Buick Regal were better looking than either one.
The Dodge Mirada was the best-looking of them all, but you had to be pretty brave to buy a Chrysler Corporation product in 1979-80.
The ’78-’80 A-body coupes weren’t as proportionally-challenged as this T-Bird, but they aren’t what I’d call attractive. Baroque ’70s styling cues did not translate well to anything smaller than a downsized GM B-body.
The ’81 aero facelift was much better.
I remember reading that issue, seeing what they’d done to the Thunderbird, and thinking “Surely the Americans won’t fall for that!”. And you didn’t.
From “Unique in all the World” to this sorry thing. Juxtapose an advertisement from above with one for a 65 Thunderbird, perhaps with a 707 in the background, and it is clear why Thunderbird buyers would look elsewhere for a new car. I remember the first time I saw this car in a dealer showroom in Pasadena, CA. True that for four years the President had told us to lower our expectations but this was really the rock bottom. Better times were around the corner.
http://www.1965thunderbird.com/tvad.htm
Ford stylists had already grafted the roof from the previous T-Bird onto the Fairmont Futura/Mercury Zephyr XR7, and the grille of the restyled Granada was pretty close to this ‘Bird’s beak. The car needed more than hidden headlights, big taillights, and a trunk lid in order to be special.
Forget the car (easy enough). Is that Mark Harmon in drag?
Good eye! It’s Mark’s sister Kelly, also known as the “tic tac” girl. At one time she was married to John DeLorean.
They must be twins
1980 Thunderbird is haunted by the ghostly disembodied giant head of Kelly Harmon.
I’m just gritting my teeth to get through this week, hope we get to the little turbo Tbird soon…
I assumed she was intended as a Bo Derek clone. The movie “10” had been a big hit the previous year, and Bo had just supplanted Farrah Fawcett as the sex symbol du jour.
Ditto the Pic #6 chick. Same girl as in #2?
Here’s what I said (out loud, in a Ford dealership) the first time I saw one of these T-Birds:
“When did you start selling a Fairmont Pimpmobile?”
I stand by that.
It’s like they ran out of steel and They Tried To make ??? It Looked like they had attached a bunch of Pasta onto the corners, over the roof, it just did NOT Look Right… The Cougar Front at Least does what it has to, and leaves well enough alone.
Your comment makes me think that the car looks like Ford went to Buddy the Cake Boss and asked for a Thunderbird cake. For a cake, it would be an amazingly accurate likeness. As the real thing, it’s a mess.
GREAT comment. Burst out laughing when I read it. We get his show down here too.
It could be interesting to see if there was some alternate designs studied for the 1980 Thunderbird? I guess the 1980 Thunderbird suffered the same jinx as the 1962 “plucked chicken” Dodge and Plymouth.
IMO those shortened Exner designs, especially the Plymouth, look stylish compared to this POS.
Wasn’t the Futura a T-Bird study originally?
here’s the styling buck
That actually looks pretty good, a little too short, but better looking than what came out in 80.
If anything, I’d rank the downsized ’80-’82 Thunderbird/Cougar as worse than the ’62 full-size Plymouth and Dodge. The Mopars were cobbled together in a panic from the Valiant platform at the last minute. They never really had a chance under those circumstances.
The Fords, OTOH, were a deliberate, thought-out program done on a normal design/production schedule. In fact, if not for being in the showrooms during a time of some of the highest gas prices in US history (relatively speaking), one wonders if Ford would have sold any of the smaller ‘plucked chicken’ Thunderbirds and Cougars at all.
Even more scary is that someone thought they looked good enough to put into production.
There was. The original one from March 1976. It became the Futura instead.
FUBAR: Ford’s Ugly But Arrogant Rejects.
The worst feature on this styling nightmare is the faux-radiator grille, cut in half, with the bottom stuck on the bumper, many inches ahead of the top! If they line up my eye can pretend it’s a real radiator grille behind the bumper, but this! I half expect to see a green puddle underneath. (I know, drive one long enough and I surely will.) It’s as if the “stylists” painted the flat front end of a box, like one of those cereal box cutout cars, and didn’t know or care the bumper actually juts way out.
I nominate this front bumper for the Ugliest Bumper of All Time award. There is no uglier bumper on any mainstream production car, before or since.
Please cut photo 3! Good lord, the car is bad enough. First thing this morning at breakfast, I pop open my favorite web page and see that before I’m even awake. Oh, the humanity.
Ah, well, only six years later FoMoCo brought us this. Sweet relief.
Better choice of aircraft, too.
Not a fan of that it looks cheap and hate composite headlights.
They got rid of the lower grill in 81/82 on the T-Bird and Cougar.
Which doesn’t help at all. It just makes it obvious that something is missing, with the remaining grille clearly being a “top half”, and no “bottom half” to complete the lines.
People are going on and on about “FUBAR”, but 3 model years later was the Aero Bird, a huge success, based on the same car!
I think the 80-82 T-bird and Cougar are the only Fox car that people hate.
Ironically they are the only ones I like. I do love the Fairmont too. Everything past 1983 looks like a cheap bubble
Agree with you on that! Even Lee Iacocca thought the ’83 T-Bird looked like a potato.
The original 1980 proposals based on this styling were a lot better proportioned and sleeker, even wedgier. Lee Iacocca did not want lowered hoodlines, aerodynamic curves and kept insisting on padded formal roofs with opera windows and big upright grilles. Jack Telnack of Ford design was asked if this Thunderbird was what he wanted in his own driveway and his answer sparked a quick response to start working on a new version to replace it which resulted in the beautiful new 1983 Aerobirds which restored sales close to pre-1980 levels.
To each his own I hate the 83 to me it looked cheap like a low end Taurus. Looking at the 80-82 now it has a more classic look. I have a 82 now and it’s a great car smooth ride and great on gas for a V8
As a Ford Guy I never got this car. In 1979 I liked the Mustang and the other Fox bodied cars. They were sensible and aerodynamic. It seemed we were finally getting out of the doldrums. Bumpers were more integrated, economy was up, cars were running better. Computers seemed to have taken the fat out of cars. I thought a Fairmont was a good, even better, Volvo alternative. The LTD was likewise sensible for it’s mission. The Mustang Ghia seemed a modern, sleek, economical luxury coupe with the Turbo 4 or reasonably quick with the (pre-HO) 5.0……..I thought the next Thunderbird would be more like that.
I hated this car. 1980 and 81 were steps back……..255 V8? The T-Bird bumpers didn’t align with the side trim. Everything seemed grafted on for no purpose. Tacky and unimaginative. Ford obviously thought it was a mistake, along with 255.
1982 was much better. I actually bought a new car! A Mercury Capri HO 5.0. 1983 Ford had corrected the course of the T-Bird in a beautiful fashion.
If you have ever seen the custom Futura coupe with the 1983-86 LTD four eyed clip, that is a good look that complemented the modern aero look the 1979 Mustang had.
Was the eight generation available without a vinyl roof? I think it would look much cleaner with out it.
I think you could get a base car without the vinyl roof. I’ve seen one but it had no options.
“back when the arrival of the annual new-car issue was a big deal”
I salivated waiting for that issue to hit the mailbox, then sequestered myself to read and reread each and every article….
I never realized the wheelbase was so short, and the front overhang SO LONG…..
Not even Thunderbird people like these cars. In the local T-bird club this is the only generation of T-birds that no one ownes. I can’t believe that 3 years after these came out Ford replaced them with the great looking (perhaps one of the best looking cars of the 80’s) Aero Birds.
I think these were one of the last Fords that Lee Iacocca had a hand in approving.
God, these were awful. That’s really saying something, because as brilliant of a marketing move as the ’77-’79 T-Bird was, it was really just a deluxe version of the Torino-derived LTD II…the Torino, of course, being one of the single biggest pieces of shit you buy in the 1970s.
But this…this is pretty much rock bottom for Ford. With all the enthusiast attention to the more performance-orientated later models, it’s easy to forget that every Fox prior to 1983 was complete crap. The Fairmont was pitched as a Volvo alternative and while the basic platform engineering backed that up, the Falcon-era straight six and abysmal build quality did not. The early Fox Mustang’s greatest virtue was that it was no longer based on the Falcon or Pinto. The ’81-’82 Granada was an even bigger flop than the T-Bird. The ’82 Continental was a Granada with an even uglier version of the ’80 Seville’s failed styling. The ’83 T-Bird, LTD (which still shared a lot with the Fairmont/Granada), and upgraded Mustang with the High Output 5.0 started to turn the tide.
But this Thunderbird, ugh. Until ’77, the Thunderbird was essentially in a class of its own, and it was almost more of Lincoln than a Ford. Owning a Thunderbird really meant something back then. The ’77, while certainly a step down, still looked the part and made up for its shortcomings with a far more attractive price. The ’80 redesign turned the T-Bird into what was unmistakably a Fairmont Futura with hideaway headlights and killed the prestige almost overnight.
The 1977-1980 Lincoln Versailles really was a dressed up Ford Granada/Mercury Monarch. While the ’82 Continental was based on the Fox platform, it had a unique body and interior.
Although I am a big fan of late seventies/early eighties cars, this one is NOT part of the equation. It’s only salvation might be is that it looks tolerable in fully-optioned regalia.
The 1982 Ford Thunderbird Heritage Edition:
I agree with Michael. The 1982 Heritage edition looks the best, to my eyes, due to its’ wrap-over roof band.
I agree with michael, i’ve always been in love with the big, baroque boats of the ’70s but these just looks dreadful…to me they mark (walk) the line of a dead styling course…
I’ll spare the whackjob theory for now..
What bugs me about this car isn’t that it’s a Fairmont in drag or the lack of power.
It’s that generic Ford “Face” from 1975 (now with an underbite! mmmhm..) that they tacked onto it.
The good thing is that it’s a Fox chassis.
This Fox is a box, a styling pox.The mighty T Bird is on the rocks.
These are one of the worst T-birds ever, bar none. Not that the chassis was overly bad (although the spring and shock rates leave much to be desirec), the aerobirds that followed were decent cars on essentially the same chassis. They were and are poorly styled, had no power, and weren’t really any fun to drive. Althought the late 70’s birds were just a Torino with a more modern body, they had style, character and decent ride and handling for the time. There’s a reason why so many people still like and own these cars.
That said, I disagree with the author on the 1980 Monte Carlo. In my eyes, it was far better styled, although it too wasn’t at it’s best (the 1981 was a BIG improvment for the Monte Carlo). Collectible Automobile did a cheap wheels section on these years ago, and I remember one of the side bar opinions about these cars that stated they had more sqeeks than thunder, and were had the styling of a brick rather than a bird. He suggested they be called “Sqeek Bricks”.
I am not sure how many of you have owned early Fox Fords. I know they eventually became decent cars, but I never was impressed by the early ones. We had lots in our Family, Fairmonts, Zephyrs, Cougars. None were great, and the ’79 Fairmont wagon with a 302 was the worst car we have ever owned in our family – bar none. The only semi-reliable one was a 1980 Zephyr with a 200 six that had enough power to reach 85 MPH flat out. It saw 16 years of service but maybe 100K miles at most.
This was the time frame when Olds Cutlass sales were, if you will pardon the expression, rocketing along. Before anyone knew what a Camry or a Taurus was, the Cutlass coupe routinely ranked high on the best seller list. I don’t have quite enough info handy to say for sure, but it looks like a Cutlass Supreme coupe comparably equipped to any given T-Bird trim level was either about the same price or cheaper. Yeah, maybe the Fox Bird’s competition was supposed to be the Toronado or Riviera. But in reality, it didn’t offer any value over an everyday Cutlass.
The Ford ad in picture #2 of this essay shows the paint not matchiing the car on the right rear. LOL!
Looking through the glasses of automotive design history and influence, you can see what a dramatic breakthrough the 84 T-Bird redesign really was. Not to mention the turbocharged and intercooled 2.3 EFI Turbo Coupe. Imagine what the buyer of one of these rolling barges must have felt like when the new Turbo Coupe showed up on the showroom floors!
I Never even Think of the 2 Models (as in 1980-82 and, 83?-86 T Birds)as Related in anyway… I Forget They were Both consecutive Thunderbirds.
Ford’s 2.3 Turbo was not a great engine by any means. I remember riding in a brand new 1985 Thunderbird turbo with a five speed manual. The engine was rough, rattly and noisy. But for the time it was considered “powerful.” The 2.3 turbo proved to be a troublesome power plant that compared to the 302 V8, by 1987, had no edge whatsoever. In essence Ford’s little turbo was short lived and gladly forgotten.
“…as worse than the ’62 full-size Plymouth and Dodge.”
The 62’s nearly bankrupted Mopar, the T-Bird was not Ford’s mainline product. The overall economy hurt Ford, not just one car. So, the 62’s were actaully worse for the bottom line.
I never noticed just how Futura this car looks from certain angles…and since this is supposed to be a Thunderbird that’s not a compliment. I like the Futura styling, it may be my fave Fox-body…but when turning it into a T-Bird, they just did a poor job of disguising its Fairmont origins.
At least Ford’s build quality was improved from the 70s pretty much across the board. Some other manufacturers would not learn that lesson until Chapter 11 came knocking at the door.
Shes a “Flat Foot Floozy” the 80 Thunderbird. It looked so cheap, Throw Some vinyl and black plastic over The Fairmount Futuras Dashboard and Maybe Digitalize The Guages under dark glass amd You’ve got The Inside of a Thunderbird… ? Is That Enough personal luxury for You?
its was a zeprhy z7 with a cool roof, 2 door futura with new dash , roof, but i’d sure like a silver anniversary or heritage model now in 5 star shape. rare.
Let’s Not Forget, By Now it looked like an 80-82 Granada Taking a nap. or with sunglasses on… sis rented an 80 instead of driving moms 73 t bird, both black next 2 each other it was like a fairmont looked next to a t-bird. drove like one too. better on gas.like that mattered then.
i want to see a collection of survivors.
yes its ugly as !%&# but mine runs like a raped ape on steroids. It makes me feel like a rebel moonshine runner when i drive it, with the tires smoking at 50mph.it is fun to smoke a shiney new chevy wit at the lights.yes ,it has a few mods.I still rock out kiss & ted nugent on the 8-track player.ole school!!!
i just set the birdcatcher on there for a good laugh. I run a dual snorkel air cleaner from an 85 mustang gt.
trying to load pics ?
See, in order to judge something a success or a failure you have to consider objective as well as results. The ’77-’79 Birds were a phenomenal success, being creatures of their times, and wisely resized without losing sight of what the car had been marketed as in recent years. The 1980-’82s attempted to do exactly that same thing, while continuing the downsizing trends. A 1980 T-Bird with the cues of the ’77 grafted onto the ’80 WITH the addition of the basket-handle roof on the Fairmont Futura as someone posted above would have been brilliant.
But, alas.
I remember these cars well as a mere 10 year old. Motor Trend and C&D did several extensive articles/tests on the T-Bird Heritage version with the 302 and the problematic recalled 4 speed AOD transmission which would stall out in traffic leaving the car without power steering and brakes. This was in the 1980 Consumer Guide Auto test of both the T-Bird and Cougar or any other full size Ford using this transmission. They fixed the issue in 1981 presumably.
I also consider the 78-80 A-body GM’s to be not only better looking but better performing and handling cars compared to this generation of T-bird. The Cutlass/Regals and Monte Carlo’s sales would support this claim.
My very first car I ever owned was a 1982 ford t-bird. I fell in love with it the moment I saw it & I had to have it. I have owned & driven many cars since then. But the 82 bird was by far my favorite.
Hands down the ’80s was the WORST decade EVER in automobiles. The ’80s was the worst decade ever for virtually everything else. What a gross era!
Ford seriously began sacrificing quality when their downsizing and lightning was mandated to their new designs. Witness the start of a downward spiral began with the Fairmont and the gross overuse of the fox platform.
I remember seeing the first 1980 Thunderbird at an auto show in the fall of 1979. I was 11 years old at the time and I remember thinking how ugly the car was inside and out. Even worse was the 1980 Cougar. Oh my goodness you talk about ugly!!!
The 1983 Thunderbirds and Cougars were an improvement, but they still suffered with the dreaded fox platform, egregious interiors and the Cougar’s odd box top roofline and ugly quarter window.
Chrysler’s pathetic and sinfully ugly K cars were yet another product of what the hell was wrong with the US automobile industry. Surprisingly those rancid K cars sold well. But in an era where style was completely absent and fuel economy was king Chrysler cashed in on their ugly ducklings.
The “revolutionary” Dodge Caravan and Plymouth Voyager vans (even though ugly and laden with quality and engineering issues) got Chrysler on the board for selling boatloads of those crappy minivans. Remember the ones with the turbos? They were easy to spot with smoke plumes gushing from their tailpipe’s resulting from failed head gaskets.
Chrysler still hasn’t learned their lesson in building faulty automobiles. This continues to this day.
Even though the US automakers have risen leaps and bounds from their darkest hour in the ’80s, they still and probably never will have an edge over their foreign competition.
The big three american automakers were riding high in the ’50s, ’60s and early ’70s in terms of style, innovation, quality and desirability. Toyota, Datsun and Honda were bit players in their earlier days building good quality but ugly tin cans that had nothing over the american automobiles except fuel economy.
Owning a Cadillac, Lincoln or Imperial was a child’s dream decades ago.
Compare the gorgeous, innovative and high quality 1961 Lincoln Continental to the laughable, plastic laden, ugly shoebox styled, lethargic 1980 Lincoln Town Car. Yep, you’ll know what I mean.
Sadly the american auto industry just can’t hold a candle to its competition in terms of style and innovation anymore. There’s just ONE exception to that and that is the VERY beautiful and VERY innovative Tesla Model S. The Tesla Model S is the most attractive american automobile in over 40 years. Perhaps Chrysler, GM and Ford should take some design cues from Tesla 🙂
I love every car you hate especially looking back after 25 years of plastic bubbles. and the Tesla? LMFAO UGLY! Tesla is boring and ugly.
I hate these I must say. They just seemed so compromised compared to the wonderful. 79 model. I too hate the bumper grill and the awful styling. The Monte Carlo I liked stylwise. And the engines. 6 cylinder abominations. Nothing looked worse except the cougar. I kinda like the futura though. The futura was an honest car. This t bird is like a child dressed as a whore. Just wrong.
I actually like the 80-82 T-Birds. Not just saying that to be difficult either.
I had a ’81 Town Landau, in beige. Had a 302 with AOD that was shockingly gutless. Don’t know whether to blame the ridiculous amount of emissions equipment, or really bad rear gearing. Was going to swap in an aluminum intake and Holley four-barrel, but couldn’t connect the AOD to the carb. ( Now I hear Lockar has kit/adapter. ) I sold it about a year after I got it. On the good side, once you finally got it to highway speed, it cruised nice and easy.
I am going to shock everyone with a positive comment. I like it.
Whoooo Hoooo! I am no longer alone on this!! My Fox bird is Awesome!!
You’re not the only one, MikeArm. I like this generation of Thunderbirds a lot myself, especially the 1982 Heritage Edition in particular.!!!
Give me a 1962 Thunderbird convertible, top down, tunes up,…..We’re out for a ride, its all ahead of us.
Ford should not have wasted their energies on the Fairmont Futura; that would have been the perfect vehicle for a downsized T-bird. Or they could have taken the Futura and modified it. But those times were so desparate and chaotic, with everyone rushing to downsize.
I wondered if the series would get to this variety of ‘bird, and now I realize these had already been discussed. A co-worker bought one of these when they were new and he was extremely disappointed with it. I remember him saying that he had wanted a new Thunderbird for 10-12 years and, now, that he finally could afford one, it was a piece of crap. He didn’t keep the ‘bird very long, less than a year; it was replaced with a Cutlass of some variety.
I once drove one of these across the Dakotas in college. I didn’t really care for the styling, but overall I thought it was decently solid and comfortable. Styling aside, one of the better cars of the early 80’s I’d say.
“…certainly more attractive than a contemporary Monte Carlo…”
Not in this universe. I’d pick the Monte over this super-Fairmont any day.
I liked these because they were so small, they seemed sporty. You could get a base model without a vinyl roof and a base front bumper that matched the rear. They were available with Recaro buckets. I was 24 at the time, and remember my grandfather saying he had looked at one and was surprised it didn’t have disappearing wipers. Just another example of de-contenting. I felt the same way when I discovered the 70’s ‘Birds dropped the wrap-around rear seat and sequential turnsignals. I am not a fan of the ’83 Thunderbird. Pure jelly-bean. Always looks like an unfinished styling buck to me. A Thunderbird in name only. As one entry above suggested–park an ’83 beside a ’65…ugh! The sleeker ’87 facelift was an improvement. My dad had an ’89 Thunderbird- -fleetcar interior/0 resale value.
The thing that struck me when I first saw one of these ‘Thunderbirds’ was how desperate Ford had become… And how cynical.
The slab-sided look on these was there for the same reason it was on the Chrysler K cars. It’s the cheapest shape to stamp out and the easiest to assemble. Compare the 60’s Fairlaine to the 80’s Fairmont and guess which one is the cheap car.
Now, let’s take the Fairmont, and make it a “Thunderbird”! Maybe if we hang it with all the trappings it will fool everybody into thinking it’s a luxury car, ya think?
I was very glad to see the next generation of T-bird, and then the Taurus. I have always thought that there must have been a very bloody coup inside Ford where someone seized control, put a few thousand accountants up against the wall, and thereby saved Ford.
What really happened is that Henry Ford II finally retired in 1980, he was really one of the big fans of the classical neo-baroque square edged styling. I imagine that along with Hank the deuce, there were probably a whole bunch of other old timer “yes” men that probably turned in their Mark’s and moved down to Palm Beach around that time too.
Thank you for including the interiors page of the brochure. I never before knew what a “Flexolator” was, even though I own a 1994 Ford Taurus whose brochure mentions them but dors not define them.
Weird, but…
“Flexolator”? Sounds like a movie with Ah-nuld Schwarzenneger.
I understand it is Ford’s precursor of the “Flux capacitor”. Five years later Dr. Emmet Brown made it work in a DeLorean.
But for this bird it means “Back to no Future.”
Jimmy Carter, disco, polyester, the Iran hostage crisis, malaise, rising gas prices,and the FUBAR Bird.Just like the year itself, memorable for all the wrong reasons
To be fair to Ford, this Bird landed in a perfect economic storm. Nobody was selling cars.
But, this Bird was pretty awful. I saw an ’80 Monte Carlo this past Monday, and it was quite good looking for a heavily sculpted small car. It sported the new for ’80 quad headlights, and was the best looking Monte of its generation.
This Bird looked like luxury metal and trim bolted to an economy car, which is exactly what it was. GM, and even Chrysler for that matter, moved typical styling cues like hideaway wipers and frameless window door glass from its big coupes to the downsized versions. Ford couldn’t be bothered.
Add to that the complete lack of courage Ford took with downsizing. The basic instructions were to use the GM play book, but miniaturize Ford ’70s design cues and bolt them on. The result was this mess.
I was thinking the same, they were probably high five-ing themselves in the design studio when these were done, thinking that they had “successfully” transferred all of the 1977-1979 Thunderbird design cues down to something about the size of a 1978 GM A-body, seeing how well the downsized 78 GM’s were received, they though that there was nothing left to do but stand back at watch the cash roll in. Boy were they wrong!
The fancy Ford Fairmont with hidden headlights, opera windows, and landau roof. How cynical of Ford to actually produce this crap car.
Parked next to a 1979 Buick Regal or Olds Cutlass, this T-bird doesn’t look THAT bad.
Still, like a ’79 Regal/Cutlass, a car that I would never own.
The whole 1980 Thunderbird/Futura thing sounds a lot like something Chrysler would have done. Consider that the Futura came out with the basket-handle roof styling cribbed from the then-current Thunderbird. Suppose Ford had, instead, held off on the introduction of the Futura and used that car as the basis for the downsized 1980 Thunderbird. Truly, it’s quite unlikely the Fox ‘Bird would experience even a fraction of the ire and sales might not have been nearly as bad, either.
It’s that formal roof that kills it. But, then, formal roofs were all the rage at the time, with both GM and Chrysler having already embraced that styling cliche for years. Usually, when a car company is late to some kind of styling trend, they do a better job of it. But, in this case, it didn’t pan out that way.
There are some cars about which my attitudes have softened from the passage of time. Some cars that I did not like at all in times past, but which I am more receptive to now, if for no reason other than nostalgia.
This is not one of those cars. It was a little troll of a car in 1980, and still is all these years later. FUBAR, indeed.
Are you kiddin me? Parked next to a 1980 Regal or Cutlass or Grand Prix, the “T-Bird” looks pretty bad.
My father brought a used one home from the Ford dealer for my mom, while I was visiting, and that was my reaction–“are you serious?”. My mother liked it even less.
They got a used 81 Fairmont instead.
My dad had one of these in yellow, with a light brown half-vinyl top and the 255. Yuck! He traded it on a silver ’87 with the 302, which was light-years, and I mean LIGHT-YEARS, cooler.
I wonder if there was an alternate proposal to move the Thunderbird to the Panther as a specialty coupe, similar to what Mopar did with the Cordoba/Mirada twins? That might have worked better.
I’m sure they would have if it weren’t for CAFE. Without CAFE none of this shit would have happened, and we wouldn’t be infested with pickup trucks either.
Well, I think there still would have been some sort of move towards downsizing, but probably not so extreme.
Now then you mentionned the Cordoba/Mirada, what if the 1980 Cordoba was the 1980 T-bird instead? I think we might had a different history.
Or keeping the Futura roofline for the 1980 T-bird instead of the Fairmont. It’s another “what might have been”.
This paragraph caught my attention:
“The parents of a high-school friend of mine owned a solid-white ’80 Thunderbird. At the time, I thought this generation of Thunderbird was just about the ultimate: Their design was at once so much more contemporary than the ’77 to ’79 models, yet more traditional than the ’83 to ’86s. At least it certainly seemed so at the time.”
Birds are aerodynamic animals, how else cold they fly? Pigs on the other hand…
In a way the Thunderbird had to get worse before it could get better.
Thunderpig?
These were the Photo Montage Compilations on Ford similarly sized Mid-Sized Automobiles in 2 Door Coupe Models as relevant to the T’Bird shown here. YES they were ALL intentionally picked in various shades of Red. They are as follows: 1965 Ford Mustang 2 Door Coupe (Top Row Left), 1970 Ford Mustang 2 Door Coupe (Top Row Right), 1970 Ford Mustang 2 Door Fastback Coupe (Second Row Left), 1973 Ford Mustang Grande 2 Door Coupe (Second Row Right), 1973 Ford Mustang 2 Door Fastback Coupe (Third Row Left), 1969 Ford Falcon 2 Door Coupe (Third Row Right), 1976 Ford Maverick 2 Door Coupe (Fourth Row Left), 1976 Ford Granada 2 Door Coupe (Fourth Row Right), 1978 Ford Fairmont 2 Door Coupe (Fifth Row Left), 1978 Ford Fairmont Futura 2 Door Coupe (Fifth Row Right), 1981 Ford Granada 2 Door Coupe (Sixth Row Left), 1980 Ford Thunderbird 2 Door Landau Coupe (Sixth Row Right), 1985 Ford Thunderbird 2 Door Coupe (Seventh Row Left), 1988 Ford Thunderbird 2 Door Coupe (Seventh Row Right), 1989 Ford Thunderbird 2 Door Coupe (Bottom Row Left) & 2002 Ford Thunderbird 2 Door Roadster (Bottom Row Right). With the exception of the Jaguar based Ford Thunderbird and the 1989-97 last larger version of the Ford Thunderbird, most of the cars pictured here were either Ford Falcon based or the later Fox based versions.
The 1980s were something you survived…not something you look back on with fondness.
As a kid in the 80s, I think it was a mixed bag. Some good movies, awesome toys and generally good times. Cars and music were a mixed bag. On one hand, you had turbo Mopars, 5.0 Mustangs and Japanese sportscars, as well as the Scorpions, Def Leppard, and ZZ Top..AND the babes in ripped jeans with their big hair and heavy makeup. But the, you also had smogged out V8s, crappy fwd American cars, Poison, Michael Jackson, and Culture Club….AND a bunch of GUYS wearing tight jeans, big hair and heavy makeup…..
FWIW, I would take any 80s era sports coupe with its potentially turbo’d engine as opposed to any of the frumpy looking cookie cutter sedans and CUVs of today.
Steve Earle’s Guitar Town, Raising Arizona, Blade Runner, Back in Black (just), Straight Outta Compton, Fear of a Black Planet (recording of), It Takes a Nation of Millions…, Toto IV, Midnight Run, Juice Newton’s version of Angel of the Morning, Nissan Cue-X; but yes, most of the 80s were hard to stomach.
Miami Vice, parachute pants, electronic carburetors, Tandy computers, cassette tapes, Beta, VHS…
Ugh.
Hey now…..Miami Vice is awesome. I thought you would understand as a Five-O fan.
Okay, I retract that. How about Alf.
Alas, Jack Lord went off the air in 1980.
Charles in Charge.
Five-O did manage to eek into the 80’s, just barely, though the 1979-1980 seaon of Hawaii Five-O was re-run as “McGarrett” on CBS late night, after 11 for 2 seasons.
Though I was referring more to the similarities, really Miami Vice is an MTV & coked up version of Hawaii Five-O, right down to the sunny location, instrumental theme song and flashy credits.
I remember the big lead up to ALF, back in the ye olde pre-internet days, when you really didn’t know what the new shows were going to be about until they made their debuts.
Why did they change the name to ‘McGarrett’? Was there ever a more distinctive name for a TV series than Hawaii Five-O?
I imagine that they (CBS) still retained the right to air the shows but probably didn’t want to pay Leonard Freeman’s production company for the use of the name or something like that.
I agree. Miami Vice was the $h!t. It brought the cop show into the modern age and helped to revitalize all those cool old Art deco buildings in the Miami area that were falling apart.
Plus Tubbs owned a sweet Curbside Classic 64 Deville convertible.
Oh and since this is Thunderbird week. One of the other Vice cops Switek, owned a sweet looking T-Bird that they used on the job once in a while when the bug van was out of commission.
Hey look, another Thunderbird Week tie-in!
The seventies were pretty awful too. But the later eighties were okay. Maybe the worst years of the two decades were 1973-83. But I met the love of my life in ’84, so perhaps I’m biased.
Please. Having grown up during the 80’s there was plenty of things that made that decade good. Just because a few early 80’s cars had underpowered engines doesn’t condemn the entire decade.
Just as with today you had to exercise some intelligence when ordering a car, buying an appliance or buying a house etc. I think movies, music and the entertainment industry were far more interesting back then compared to today with all the idiotic reality shows and movies that use the F word 20 times per second or need to have an explosion ever 5 seconds to make up for a total lack of plot. We have reached a point when new ideas are few and far between and things are often regurgitated for lack of fresh
thinking. Cars mostly all look alike, old classic songs are being re-sung by today’s bands, movies are being re-made and children spend more time on there cell phones or playing video games than they do in school!
I agree that the 80’s was a mixed bag but so were the 70’s, the 90’s and the 2000’s. I find the 2001-2010 decade to be one of the worst. The twin tower disaster. The financial crisis in 2008. War, record inflation and oil prices. Record debt. Stores closing in droves, record unemployment, recession, losing 6 car companies and the family unit is not what it once was. If anything the decade of the 2000’s will never be fondly remembered by me.
I rather liked the looks of the Cougar version when it came out in 80. I had plenty of opportunities to check it out as my POS 78 Zephyr was in the shop every month. I would not, could not, consider ever plunking down my hard earned bux on any Fox platform, thanks to my POS Zephyr.
First and foremost, a root beer float with chocolate ice cream is known around the Saint Louis area as a “Brown Cow”. I’m sorry you didn’t find this as delicious as so many have.
Now…I’m seriously thinking about buying a 1982 Town Landau. I’ve never owned a Thunderbird, never owned a coupe that wasn’t a convertible, but it’s been so lovingly kept that I just feel compelled to buy it. If the owner would come down $500 on the price..
The only thing that keeps from buying it is that I’m also looking at a ’77 New Yorker which is almost a perfect copy of my first car.
Decisions, decisions.
Oh, yes, the Brown Cow. I lived in Hannibal at the time of said float; my in-laws still live near St. Louis.
OMFG, FUBAR is the perfect acronym.
I used to pal around with a guy in H.S. who had one of these. Looked nearly identical, same color and evertthing. I remember it had the same clunky wheelcovers that clinked and clanked from loose spokes and/or pebbles caught inside. AND it had this infernal squeak whenever you cycled the front suspension. A set of urethane bushings from Energy Suspension would’ve cured it…
Never really liked these cars; overstyled bricks. Shame, really.
Why is there so many comments on this today? Ive been here about 1 year & haven’t seen but a few , but today many.
Check the posting dates.
Considering that, after Mustang, Thunderbird is the nameplate most associated with Ford, it makes sense that there would be a high number of comments, particularly on the version that is to Thunderbird fans what the Mustang II is to Mustang enthusiasts.
Bring on the Furd Deadly Sins I say.
1) Pinto
2) Mustang II
3) Edsel
4) Consul Capri.
5) 1980 Chunderbird
6) The Fox platform LTD.
7) The flathead V8.
Thats off the top of my head.
Theres been plenty of GM bashing here, lets give Henry a roast
Don’t forget the ’58 Lincoln.
Thanks Bryce & Pete, forgot about those horrors.
Toss in the EA Falcon and the Ford Crapi from down under too.
Sure you don’t mean the AU?
The 1977 Lincoln Granada oops Versailles.
In 1986 a close friend purchased a loaded 1982 Thunderbird Town Landau from the original owner. They had special ordered it from the factory. It was white with a white landau top and red cloth interior. I always thought it was a rather odd looking car. I didn’t hate it but I didn’t love it, either. It was a mixed bag in the interior, too. When he went over bumps I remember the steering column shaking and the dash vibrating. In a T-bird? Loaded with luxury features? It never sat well with me. I always remember him complaining that it was very underpowered. It had the small 3.3 litre V-6 and it really couldn’t get out of its own way. His mother ended up taking the T-bird and drove it for several more years until it became a rust bucket and was junked. I think Ford was simply in a basic rush to get a downsized T-bird out to the public and used what they had available in the Fairmont platform to create this Thunderbird. Considering it was 1980 it wasn’t the worst possible result but it wasn’t a great one either, hence the 3 year life cycle of the little square T-bird. Ironically at the same time my Dad owned a 1982 Country Squire that felt Lincoln-esque compared to my friend’s T-bird. Maybe if Ford used the Panther platform and created a sculpted looking coupe that would have worked better for them? At least the 1983 T-bird was a hit and truly deserving of the Thunderbird name.
3.3 Liter was a 200 cu/in Straight 6. I had the same engine in, a 1982 Mustang. Certainly, easy to work on. Log Intake Manifold built into the Head, did the engine no favors.
I actually like these cars in certain trims, my favorite is the Silver Anniversary Edition. At the time, the electronic key pad door locks and digital dash were really cool, at least to my 13 year old eyes!
I read an article about a Ford designer who put a proposal front end design for the up coming 1980 Thunderbird, it resembled an early nineties Imperial and looked much better then the square version Ford ultimately went with.
Amazing, no other Mfg. copied the Key Pad Door locks.
No direct experience with these, although I have spent several decades hating them from afar. Closest I ever got was in early ’80s when my girlfriend’s older sister started dating a guy who (supposedly) was some kind of big deal and (supposedly) made a lot of $$$. He bought one of these, in that black/silver two-tone they offered at the time, presumably in an attempt to remind you of Rolls-Royce/Bentley. IIRC I was only in that car once (back seat) and don’t remember much about the experience, except that there wasn’t a lot of room back there.
This guy and I never really hit it off — but then it was hard to respect somebody who, armed with a budget to buy an above-average-priced car at the time, would drive home with a tarted-up two-tone Fairmont overdressed with a lot of costume jewelry. Later it turned out this guy didn’t have that much money. A fake millionaire with a fake luxury car. After a couple of years playing at being high-roller, he got a job driving a city bus. But my gf’s sis married him anyway.
Worst. ‘Bird. Ever.
The only way to order this car was with the 302 or model years 1980 and 81 only with the TRX suspension and aluminum rim package and the bucket seat console interior. Also skip the gaudy overdone vinyl roof. Even then it was still a Fairmont underneath with rattly shaky interior and that overdone dual front grill and tacky dash.
I sat in a brand new Tbird back in 1980, closed the door, and darkness prevailed. Then the radio switched on by its own volition and kept playing a song similar to the one in “West Side Story.” “I’m so ugly. I’m so ugly. I’m so ugly, ugly, ugly. I’m so ugly, so painfully ugly….” The poor Tbird was doomed from then on.
The Futura was indeed originally a design study of a downsized Thunderbird on the Fairmont platform. With the success of the 77-79 Thunderbird, it should have held on to the unique basket handle roof design for the 1980 redesign. It was a great misstep to not use the Futura body as a Thunderbird. They could have saved all the money they spent making the eventual ugly Thunderbox and put a decent front end on it and put in a much nicer interior. Just look how the picture of this black Futura turned out with the 1983-86 LTD sedan front clip bolted in place. Yes it bolts right on since the LTD was nothing but a restyled Fairmont in the first place. I thought about this very thing back in the early 80’s before anyone ever thought about swapping parts to make it a slant nosed four-eyed wonder.
I had one of these, an ’80 model, I think with the 5.0 liter engine. This was in ’94. It wasn’t powerful, but the engine was smooth and the thing was built like a tank. You could walk on it. It was also indestructible. I ended up giving it to my former high-school’s shop class. Good memories.
The red/white one in the ad isn’t too bad. The tiny wheels all tucked way under doesn’t do it any favors. Just so much gingerbread tacked on to most versions of it. Broughamification at it’s best/worst. to hide it’s vanilla(?) underpinnings.
I love these cars and think they are gorgeous. I hated the 83 which to me looks like a blob. Boring like everything else on the road for years after when all cars got blobby.
I am in love with the huge tail lights on this. No need for that stupid third brake light.
I won’t call the ’80 T-bird a paragon of anything, but to my eye it’s a whole hell of a lot less offensive than the grossly bloated ’79. The ’80 was mercifully relieved of the drunken, incoherent mashup of melted-bar-of-soap-shaped extra little windows, randomly-angled lines forced to pretend to get along with their neighbours, and cartoonishly-overlong front end. The sail panel/C-pillar on the ’80 is rather too chunky, but given the choice I’d take it in a flash over the rolling this-is-your-brain-on-drugs scarepiece that is the ’79 car.
When they can’t even color match the door with the rear fender in the *ad*, you know there’s a problem. On the other hand, it didn’t look completely hideous in NASCAR trim (RIP Neil Bonnett).
I remember the T-Bird was great at drafting as long as it was the second car, not the lead car. Awesome Bill did win with one and then The Aero came along and Awesome Bill and his brother Ernie bitch slapped the whole lot of them.
Yes – I remember that well, and while it wasn’t the first car designed for the street but with an eye toward the superspeedways, the Aerobird definitely kicked off a wind-tunnel war among the manufacturers. Maybe it was a happy accident on Ford’s part but I doubt it. In fact, I seem to remember Ford redesigning the front clip of the street T-Bird in the mid-90s to respond to the ’95 Monte Carlo, which was eating Ford’s lunch in NASCAR and causing a lot of unhappiness in the Ford garages. Can you imagine such a thing happening today? There’s more to that story too:
https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/os-xpm-1995-04-13-9504130046-story.html
I may have posted this picture before, but anyway, here it is again.
Roof chopped. Wheel diameter increased with larger wheel openings. Front overhang reduced. Side gills and rear antenna added.
Makes for a rather cool Continental Mark looking car with much better proportions.
Of course, I did not tweak it like the designers could have, but it gives an idea as to the car’s basic design potential. Granted, my opinion.
Wow – a whole lotta hate for this car.
The problem was the styling, not the car.
The car was good when it had the V8.
But in 1980 Detroit was giving up with the traditional car.
Now – the Torino needed to go years earlier. Ford shoved that crappy car throughout the 1970 decade and in many different forms. It wasn’t a very good car. No one wanted a 4000 pound car that seated four in a pinch. It had to go. The TBird version of the Torino was the best of the bunch. TBirds are usually personal coupes and the Torino was a good personal coupe. It was a lousy four door and wagon, but a good coupe. It had to go and the TBird had to have something else.
All Ford had in that size was the Fox. So, that is where it went for the next two generations. The 1980 version, and the 1983 version. 180 styling-wise, but the same car.
The problem was the 1980 styling. There isn’t a single thing on this overloaded styling exercise that was in any way, shape, or form, original. Nothing. We’ve seen every one it its styling clues on other cars. Bigger cars. So putting all that Brougham-esque, out of date styling on a Fairmont, was a disaster. Yes – Ford thought it was a winner in 1980, according to the bragging I have from a contemporary Ford book. No – I don’t know why. This generation of TBird and Cougar XR7 looked like a big box of leftovers from 1976. It was a new decade, but these cars didn’t look the part.
The Lincoln Mark VI was in the same situation, but it seems that because it didn’t sell as well as the Squarebird, we forget that the same problems heaped on the 1980 Thunderbird, was smack-dab right there with its Lincoln counterpart. The Mark VI suffered from the same problems styling wise. Old styling served on a Fox car.
No – the Monte Carlo and the rest of the GM gang wasn’t much of an improvement, however, at least the GM Brougham design looked different. That is because GM didn’t share much sheet metal with the sedans they were based on, while the Ford/Mercury reeked of 1978 Fairmont/Zephyr.
So – for three years, Ford offered this dull looking leftover on the Fox body. Then – Ford gave us the same Fox body, but changed the entire car into the Aerobird, and the Lincoln Mark VII.
Same car – different body.
So – what’s with all the hate?
The styling. As you said. Extremely unattractive. Are you attracted to or want to buy blatantly ugly cars?
How hard was that, to figure out?
How hard was that, to figure out?
As you of all people know – sometimes you just have to wonder.
How did the LeBaron become a success when it has all the same sins as these Thunderbirds?
There was more sheetmetal shared between the 77-79 Tbird and LTD II than there was between the 80-82 Tbird and 80-82 Fairmont and Granada. These were actually a good bit wider than any fox bodied car, and up to this point the most extensively differentiated. All that width is in dead space in the doors and fenders mind you, the narrow looking track widths reflect it.
The Lincoln Mark IV was not based on the Fox platform, it was on the Panther platform.
Personally I think the Tbird is hideous while the Cougar XR7 is passable with it’s more conventional front end. As for the Lebaron, I think the convertible being added to the line added enough novelty to it for the times that it was more positively remembered by the public. If not for that it would just be another gingerbread Lidomobile
Couldn’t have said it better.
After the previous car, this was such a letdown. And that’s from someone around the other end of the world who’s never laid eyes on one in the metal.
The basic shape of a car – any car – has to be attractive; and you can’t rely on layer upon layer of applique to make the car look prestigious. Unfortunately that seems to have been what Ford did. They seemed to have been building up to this throughout the seventies, and it’s as though this was the crowning glory of the applique-makers. Strip off all the shiny stuff and what’s left? Yawn.
Thunderbirds traditionally were long, low, and sleek. Translating past design cues that to the Fox platform somehow seemed to mandate a higher cowl and a Pinocchio-esque front overhang. The famed dash-to-axle distance was all wrong.
An interesting car – okay, curious – but for a kid who was in awe of the sixties T-birds, unworthy of the Thunderbird name. Ford really took their eye off the ball with this one.
Not to mention the useless amount of wasted overweight , this Thundy isn’t either a practical bargain for a delivery pizza’s guy . Bet most ex Soviet automobile’s contemporary designs 1978-1984 aren’t so grotesque as this Ford , yet considered Ford Motor Co. had hundreds times more financial sources for industrial research than whoever Avtoexport’s bunch of companies
Worst new car I ever owned: Three transmissions in 50,000 miles. Never owned another Ford since then. Betcha more than one of us had the same experience.
Ford said “Quality is Job One”. What they meant was that our quality is so bad, our execution of the design in building is the biggest challenge we’re facing. If you want a quality vehicle, look elsewhere.