Can you believe that it was branded as a luxury car with OEM Ford Wheels standard on it? I think it's still considered some type of luxury car now - even if the last model was 2005.
When it was first introduced, it eventually created the market calling that was known as the "personal luxury car".
The name came from stimulating the mythological creature of Indigenous & native people of North America.. so I guess they put a lot of thought into it because they wanted to make the car & Factory Ford Thunderbird Wheels "classic" - mission accomplished. The Thunderbird & OE Ford Thunderbird Wheels had first entered production for the 1955 model year as a sporty two-seat convertible.
It wasn't put on the market as a sports car like the Chevy Corvette; instead, it was marketed as a "Personal Car". It was a new market segment from Ford. When it was released again in 1958, it had second row seats! The next few generations kept getting bigger and bigger until they decided to downsize it in 1977, and in 1980, and again in 1983. I guess they can say that sales on the T-bird were good until about the 1990s.
They started making Thunderbirds again in 2002 with Factory 2002 Ford Thunderbird Wheels already on it - but then again, what other wheels would they want to put on it? It made the "2-seater" look good again and this model was available all the way until 2005. Ever since it was first manufactured in 1955 until 2005, Ford had made over 4.4 million models with more than 4.4 million Factory Original Ford Thunderbird Wheels to go along with it.
The convertible models that were manufactured for the second - fourth generations were designed kind of like the Lincoln convertible. Since these were the T-bird models that had the original convertible soft top, the top would be lowered and eventually stowed in the forward trunk area. This was the design that significantly reduced the trunk space that was available after the top was down.
The trunk lid was designed to be rear-hinged. It was raised and lowered by using hydraulic cylinders during the top raising or lowering cycle. The front end of the trunk lid had contained a metal plate that was extended upward so it can cover the area that the top was stowed away in. When the top was down and the trunk lid was lowered, there was no sign of the soft top! So, I guess people would fool the other people in a way.. or that's the way that it seemed.
When you looked at the whole car and just observed all the features that it did have, you'd come to the conclusion that the car had a really sleek appearance with no single trace of it being a convertible top whatsoever. The car didn't need a cover boot - if you know what that is.
Even though it seemed all fine and dandy, this is the type of design that could've presented a problem to the person who was troubleshooting a convertible top malfunction. The system had a spiderweb of things like solenoids, different relays, some limit switches here and there, a few electric motors, a hydraulic pump/reservoir, some hydraulic directional valves, and even some cylinders - so I guess it was pretty complicated. And even though the hydraulics don't cause too much trouble, the electrical relays were known to fail a lot.
So, taking all this into consideration - what do you think?
Mykalanne
OriginalWheels.com
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