Ford Thunderbird Used Parts Online

The Thunderbird is an automobile manufactured by the Ford Motor Company in the United States over thirteen model generations from 1955 through to 2005. When introduced, it created the market niche eventually known as the Personal Luxury Car. A smaller two seater sports roadster was created at the behest of Henry Ford II in 1953 called the Vega. The completed one off generated interest at the time, but had meager power, European looks, and a correspondingly high cost, so it never proceeded to production. The Thunderbird was similar in concept, but would be more American in style, more luxurious, and less sport oriented. Three men are generally credited with creating the original Thunderbird Lewis D. Crusoe, a retired GM executive lured out of retirement by Henry Ford II George Walker, chief stylist and a Ford vice president and Frank Hershey, a Ford designer. Crusoe and Walker met in France in October 1951. Walking in the Grand Palais in Paris, Crusoe pointed at a sports car and asked Walker, 'Why can't we have something like that?' Some versions of the story claim that Walker replied by telling Crusoe, "oh, we're working on it" although if anything existed at the time beyond casual dream car sketches by members of the design staff, records of it have never come to light.

The Ford Thunderbird began life in February 1953 in direct response to Chevrolet's new sports car, the Corvette, which was publically unveiled in prototype form just a month before. Under rapid development, the Thunderbird went from idea to prototype in about a year, being unveiled to the public at the Detroit Auto Show on February 20, 1954. Like the Corvette, the Thunderbird had a two seat coupe convertible layout. Production of the Thunderbird began later on in 1954 on September 9 with the car beginning sales as a 1955 model on October 22, 1954. Though sharing some design characteristics with other Fords of the time, such as single, circular headlamps and tail lamps and modest tailfins, the Thunderbird was sleeker and more athletic in shape, and had features like a faux hood scoop and a 150 mph (240 km/h) speedometer hinting a higher performance nature that other Fords didn't possess. Mechanically though, the Thunderbird could trace its roots to other mainstream Fords. The Thunderbird's 102.0 inches (2,591 mm) wheelbase frame was mostly a shortened version of that used in other Fords while the car's standard 292 cu in (4.8 L) Y block V8 came from Ford's Mercury division. Racing During the 1980-1990s, the aerodynamically clean Thunderbirds were quite successful in NASCAR stock car racing before they were replaced by Taurus based bodies.