Once the 4-seat Thunderbird arrived in 1958, there was nothing quite like it in the US market. From the onset, it outsold the original 2-seat model by almost a 2 to 1 margin. Sales grew yearly, as the model found a field bereft of competitors. By 1960 the ‘Squarebird’ was reaching the end of its production, but desire for the car hadn’t abated. It was arguably, one of the first ‘image’ cars sold to the general public.
What ‘image’ that was, everyone was trying to pin down. Every term was tossed to the model in those early years; prestige car, personal car, and so on. It would eventually settle on Personal Luxury Car, with the Thunderbird now considered the segment’s trailblazer. And for June of 1960, Motor Life was to road test the trailblazer in its last production year.
Motor Life’s Thunderbird was an optioned-out convertible carrying some updates the model had received since its 1958 launch. First, a 430 CID V-8 of Lincoln-Mercury origin with 350HP, available as an option over the standard 300HP 352 CID V-8. Torque figures for the 430 V-8 were listed as 490 lbs.ft. at 2800 RPM, against the 352’s 381 lbs.-ft. at 2800 RPM. (Curiously, ML’s article only shows the 352’s specs in its charts, but the tested car carried the 430 mill.)
Ford had also done additional work on the Thunderbird’s rear suspension, with the Squarebird’s original coil spring and trailing links being replaced with a more conventional semi-elliptic arrangement.
Overall, the Thunderbird’s performance improved with the updates. Yet, let’s not forget that the car’s whole powertrain was “engineered more for smoothness and silence than exceptional performance.” As such, the Thundebird’s Cruiseomatic transmission was not “quick reacting”, and with the car’s low 2.91 axle ratio, it took “careful technique to get good figures.” The power steering was “not very precise and, at 4.1 turns lock-to-lock, rather slow.”
The new suspension arrangement improved the Thunderbird’s handling capabilities, but “some problems remain.” On the positive side, the car’s tendency to float at highway speeds had been reduced and rear stability had improved. The car’s overall ride was now much steadier, and the rear-end’s behavior was easier to control and predict under hard acceleration and sharp cornering.
The T-Bird’s interior was in many ways behind the car’s success, and reviewers found it to be “not exceptionally spacious, but well designed for comfort… The soft leather and comfortable bucket seats make up for little faults.” Meanwhile, rear seat comfort was “among the best to be found in a convertible of any size.”
Photo by J P Cavanaugh.
Motor Life was aware they were measuring a new kind of breed in their final summation; “The Thunderbird is sometimes regarded as a blend of luxury car and compact, but it really lacks the refinement of one and the convenience of the other.” However, “few cars have ever captured the public imagination the way the Thunderbird has.”
As such, the ’58-’60 Thunderbird combined “performance, comfort and prestige with reasonable size and price. In that respect is unique. Despite the increasing variety of cars available, there is still nothing quite like it.”
Related CC reading:
Curbside Classic: 1958 Ford Thunderbird – The Most Revolutionary Car Of The Fifties
Curbside Classic: 1960 Ford Thunderbird – Fancy Meeting You Here
IMO, a step backward from the cleaner, and more original ’55 T-Bird. Styling that is busier and more cluttered. In terms of exterior design, I felt the ’55 and ’83, were the only T-Birds truly at the top of their game.
Styling – for me the most impressive is the 1961
For as much as I too like the 55s I never considered the styling particularly original, most of its most striking elements are literally recycled from the standard 55 Ford line, just in a smaller cab rearward proportioned package. The 58s are visually cluttered but they look very different from a 58 Ford and many elements by themselves like the aggressive headlights and twin cowl dash proved enduring to this day
We’re lucky that the Thunderbird was saved by the four seater design. The first design was a sales loser and would be history if McNamara didn’t give it a back seat. Love it all you want now, that two seater couldn’t pay for itself.
Remember the lead pic from when the article about cars/pools appeared. There was a very similar of a Buick convert , almost in the pool. lol
I’d like a “60” ride as I rolled of the assembly line that same year.
That pic invokes not only the cars-by-the pool trope but also the cars-on-golf-courses trope. I’ve seen neither in real life.
I know from personal observation, those houses, condo’s, built at/ next to golf courses take a beating.
This was my mother’s 1960 Thunderbird, with sunroof and continental wheel. It was her daily driver for nearly 10 years. I learned to drive and took the road test for my license in it!
What amazes me is that it took GM until 1963 (with the Riviera) and Chrysler until never to field a competitor to the T-bird. Ford had the four seat personal luxury field to itself for five years, cementing itself as THE personal luxury car. It easily outsold all others. Ford was always good at finding underutilized market niches and exploiting them. Wagons and pickup trucks were also areas where Ford just paid more attention than its competitors.
My mother had a 1960 in beige metallic with a sunroof and continental wheel. It was her daily driver for nearly 10 years. I learned to drive and took the road test for my licence in it.
Hey Paul (and regular commenters),
How do I avoid having the image I attach appear sideways?
This also happened the last time I attached an image.
Not sure, but weird thing is that it becomes right-side-up when enlarged.
Just noticed that!
Folks around here like to cite the 1965 LTD as the beginning of the end of manufacturers’ hierarchy of brands (aka the Sloan Ladder), but I think this T-bird might have been. It can easily be identified as an early Personal Luxury Coupe, and Ford (the brand, not the manufacturer) wasn’t supposed to be in the luxury car business.
Why not just blame the Chevrolet Corvette as the beginning of the end. Ford created the Thunderbird to match up against it, but both soon went in different directions. The early Birds veered towards that ‘personal’ car tag which, to Ford’s credit, really opened up with the bucket seated, four passenger 58’s. The 58-60 T-Birds had no similar, direct competition other than maybe the Studebaker Hawks.
The ’65 LTD was the car that really shook things up with luxury appointments like center rear seat fold down armrests, and Ford’s brilliant advertising that compared it as being quieter than a Rolls-Royce. Ford’s fellow low-priced brand competition quickly followed suit with their own luxury models and the big shakeup with brand image took off.
I’ve said before that it was the LTD and its’ responses that showed the divisions’ real places in their corporate pecking orders. Ford Division post-Edsel had license to experiment upmarket as much as they wanted. The boss’ name wasn’t Henry Mercury after all.
Chevrolet’s innovations were constrained by the 14th Floor wanting B-O-P to have a clear field but their #1 sales position was important enough they had a free hand to match Ford’s innovations model-for-model (as Old Man Knudsen had said, “vun for vun”), hence the Caprice within months.
Plymouth had few to advocate for it at the corporate level and with all dealerships paired with Chrysler, nobody on the sales side least of all front-line salesmen who wouldn’t think twice at trying to upsell a VIP prospect to a Chrysler Newport.
What the LTD did that had not really been done before was to cross over into territory inhabited by upper level brands and take certain of their heretofore upscale elements back to its mainstream, low-price category. That created a dissonance in the auto world where traditional roles among brands came into question.
The Thunderbird merely went its own way alone for a number of years, eventually joined by traditionally upper level brands (Buick, Oldsmobile, Cadillac).
The (accidental?) A/B test Ford ran with the 4-seat Thunderbird a ringing success, one of only two carlines to post a sales gain in recession 1958 (the other was Rambler) while the Edsel was a flop for the ages, cured Fomoco of the GM-midprice-divisions envy that had plagued it ever since Henry II and the Whiz Kids had taken over just after the war.
In autumn 1960, on a well remembered crisp day, with a deeply azure blue sky, complemented by the golden brightness of the sun, I recall that my mom and dad returned in the later afternoon with a “Diamond Blue” 1960 Thunderbird Coupe. It was an amazing vision of a car while the sun glinted on its chromed surfaces. We were all in awe, as car crazed kids, while gazing on it. My best friend, Tommy, excitedly pronounced when looking at the speedometer, “wow, it’ll do 140!!!” Then my mom proudly began to take groups of us, but first our downstairs duplex neighbor, Mrs Denny, for rides throughout our modest neighborhood. We kids all thoroughly enjoyed those rides, savored like a luxurious amusement park ride.
That 1960 T-Bird became an amazing experience conveying our family on some, especially at the time, exotic trips. In spring 1961, my Mom and Dad planned a trip south as soon as the snows of our then typically cold Ohio winters disappeared. For that first trip the “Bird” was pointed east to the Ohio, then Pennsylvania turnpikes where it seemed to cruise effortlessly at speed to the Breezewood exchange for its southern bound journey. This was an amazing speed and comfort experience for me in the back seat contrasting with what had been by me in our 1956 6 cylinder Customline which had been traded toward the “T-Bird”. I was now a sybarite experiencing a previously unknown passenger’s sensual treat. Yep, still so memorable decades later.
From Breezewood, the “Bird” was directed south driving on the Shenandoah’s Skyline Drive delivering beautiful vista after vista. Even though we had a T-Bird, my parents’ incomes were very modest, and we eventually reached the first of several camp sites to stay the night on our way south to eventually reach Florida and to our ultimate destination of our Pompano Beach motel for a springtime beach vacation. As a kid, camping each night in a tent was like a dream come true, a boy scout’s dream.
That 1960 T-Bird obviously a special car to many along the way. I remember one gas stop in a small town in rural Georgia where everyone in the gas station had to come out to see the car, asking my Dad to open the seemingly exotic front hinged hood to view the engine compartment, and to additionally have both doors opened so that they could all see the interior. Dad had to open the well sculpted rear trunk lid too to everyone’s delight. I heard several of the men say, “Can’t believe that’s a Ford”, as they oohed and aahed at the car. It was as though they were seeing a Ferrari but without any jealousy. It was a likable American exotic. It was a very memorable experience for everyone, including us at that gas stop.
That T-Bird, which we all came to love, successfully did that pre-interstate trip uneventfully to and from Florida., back and forth to Ohio while giving us a trip of a lifetime. Sadly that loved ‘60 Bird was replaced by another equally loved Bird in 1964 with Ben Franklin spectacle rear tail-lights. That was another great car, and the source of many other road trip memories. I still miss that ‘60 T-Bird.
Great Story!
Great story indeed; I doubt this scenario would have ever played out with a 1996 T-Bird, or for that matter a 1982. By then the Thunderbird was just another car.
While the Square Birds were never my favorite, I have come to appreciate them through these pages here at CC.
My favorites are the Bullet Birds, the Flair Birds, and the Aero Birds, but the latter is probably bias as I owned many of these Fox based Birds from ’83 to ’88.
Although I owned a BMW-Wannabe Bird (or whatever the MN12’s nickname is), it was never really a favorite of mine styling-wise, even though I did like my 1994 and my last bird ever, the 1997.
I wish Ford still made these cars. 😢
Yes I know, hindsight, zeitgeist and all that, but to my eyes that driver-centric instrument panel and that neat console to me screams the need for a floor shifted trans rather than the column mounted one.
430 CID, 350 HP, 490 Tq. 490! A real brute of an engine.
Car, pool, AND golf course all in one ad. How silly! Here’s my contribution, along the lines of MAD MAGAZINE’s “scenes we’d like to see”.
Thanks for the story, GeeLongVic. It reinforces what the T Bird’s mission was. It was not a sports car, and not a true luxury car, it was a compact “special” personal car. It was the actual embodiment of the Fifties concept of the “Dream Boat.” It was a vehicle that combined the best attributes of the standard American car, with a unique design, and details that would delight the senses.
Shortly after my parents divorced in 1959, Mom moved us to San Francisco. She traded-in her turquoise & white 1955 Olds Starfire conv. for a new 1960 T-Bird conv., white with turquoise interior. Mom liked turquoise but I think a factor might have been Dad had an affair with the divorced neighbor lady who drove a pink 1957 T-Bird (leading to divorce). Mom had a close circle of divorced lady friends whom all drove beautiful new or late model cars. At the time Mom also had a very handsome Italian boyfriend who bought a new 1960 Chevy Impala conv., white with red interior. Also Tony had his own plane and would fly us to Las Vegas monthly. In the eyes of my 10-11 year old self I thought Tony would was good step-father material because of his taste in cars and planes. Plus he was always buying me toy cars. Ah, wonderful car related childhood car memories.
Don’t get me wrong, I loved my Dad, and during the same time Dad who was in the Air Force moved to Germany. I had frequent trips to Germany where Dad drove a Mercedes. Many road trips but I was not impressed with European autos, especially after riding in the backseat of American convertibles.
However, being the spoiled child from a broken home ended and Mom & Dad remarried each other and stayed together for another 35 years. I did talk Dad into buying a new 1963 T-Bird that became my first car in 1967, as well as pushing him to buy a new 1966 T-Bird (my second car) when he thought he wanted a Mustang.
After reading this long version of my life with Thunderbirds it should come as no surprise my favorite T-Birds are all the last year body styles, 1957, 1960, 1963, 1966. I am very happy now in my senior years driving my 1966 T-Bird convertible. Wonderful auto related memories of a life well lived.
> being the spoiled child from a broken home ended and Mom & Dad remarried each other and stayed together for another 35 years.
Interesting. My parents didn’t do the divorce-then-remarry thing, but my childhood home nonetheless couldn’t have been any more broken. Sadly, there were no cool T-Bird convertibles to help compensate; the only Ford product either of my parents ever owned was a ’60 Falcon with two-speed automatic, which would be a cool car today but was anything but in 1970.
Rich: you mentioned that the magazine specs listed were for the 352, but the test car had the 430. Were the acceleration numbers for the 430, or 352?
It really goes to show how much standard cars had grown when a 60 Tbird measuring in at 205″ long and 77″ wide was still perceived as a compact!
I used to really dislike the squarebirds, not only finding them an undesirable departure from the two seaters but a busier blockier design than the 61 and 64 successors as well, but they’ve grown on me, it has interesting design elements here and there and I think if the bodysides were smoothed out it might be the best looking tbird to me, the front end is timeless the rear end looks straight out of a sci fi space movie, th interior may well be the best of the series and for as retrograde of a move it seemed adding a back seat and growing it up from a pseudo sports car its early adoption of unibody construction deserves some progressive props. The 430 MEL was a great engine too but like so many Ford mills kind of unrealized in its potential, the Super Marauder was as hot as it got but never made it to the sportier Tbird. If it were these would probably be as sought after as the F code 57s. Regardless just offering it in these birds was something, the 61s committing to the standard 390 only really cemented the Tbird as a straight cruiser without any aspirations beyond.
> Once the 4-seat Thunderbird arrived in 1958, there was nothing quite like it in the US market.
’56-58 Studebaker Golden Hawk? (or the hardtop coupes that preceded it in ’53-55)
Ford was smart though not to offer any bare-bones 6 cylinder versions and to market the Thunderbird as a separate, distinct model from the start, which gave it a luxury image apart from any other Ford.
My best friend’s first collector car was a white ’60 TBird with a sunroof bought in ’82? He might still have it, I’ve lost touch. Soon he concentrated on late 60s GTOs and parts. After the 70s, seeing a V8 run perfectly still was impressive.
.59 Thunderbird in a serious fight with edsel and a couple other contemporaries for ugliest of all time. but then came the ’61.
When I see this generation, I surrender to the idea that you just had to be there to find it attractive. It was unbelievably popular, that’s certain. So, it couldn’t have been considered ugly by contemporaries and sell like that.
The car fit the times. So, this just goes to show you how much the times have changed.