Your classic: Ford Thunderbird

| 6 Jun 2025

It’s late summer, 1989, and I’m in Devon, visiting a client in Budleigh Salterton.

On reassuringly crunchy gravel by the golf course, sticking out of a garage, is a ’60s American car.

“What’s that?” I ask, and he replies: “Too big, is what that is. It won’t fit.”

He’s been riding the property boom and bringing back Jaguar E-types and Big Healeys from the USA, converting them to right-hand drive, but he’s gone off-piste and bought a 1964 Ford Thunderbird – and wishes he hadn’t.

Collection day in 1989, two years before Thelma & Louise brought fame to the fourth-gen Ford Thunderbird

I love my cars, and a company daily driver had allowed me to indulge a childhood dream to own a 1973 Jensen Interceptor.

The big V8 bug had bitten and I wanted a ’50s finned beast, too, but now I’d found the keys to a finless T-bird.

It was then ‘only’ 25 years old and it all worked.

The metallic blue vinyl interior and dark blue paint had me smitten, plus it had a power bulge in the bonnet.

The 390cu in V8 burbled with 427lb ft and 300bhp or so: even by 1980s standards it was brisk, once the initial inertia was overcome.

The V8-engined Ford Thunderbird was a step up from Mark’s first classic car, a Zodiac Mk3

His expectations of value and my available cash took time to reconcile, but on 23 November 1989 I collected the Ford and drove it to my parents’ house – on my mum’s birthday.

She wasn’t exactly thrilled; Dad was, but he had to curb his enthusiasm.

We spent 10 mins coaxing the car on to their narrow driveway – a far cry from life in Sacramento, California, where its original owner, Leroy H Zimmerman, had resided.

As a student, I’d paid £55 for a ’64 Ford Zodiac that may have once been the pinnacle of blue-collar motoring in Britain, but this T-bird had powered windows, steering and driver’s seat, plus air-con and cruise control.

Retrimmed seats returned the Ford Thunderbird’s cabin to its cosseting former glory

The Zodiac might have some shared DNA – a strip speedo, and bubble temperature and fuel gauges – but it had few luxuries beyond reversing lights.

The T-bird has been a source of both joy and trauma over the years.

When it’s behaving, it is a delight, starting conversations and raising smiles everywhere; the subtle colour and muted V8 cause funny double-takes.

I have been with my wife for some 28 years now, and our kids are in their 20s, but the Thunderbird has been in my life for longer. They all love it, too, and they drive it.

After 36 years (and counting) of ownership, this Ford Thunderbird is very much one of the family

Its size, at more than 17ft long and almost 6ft 6in wide, is an issue.

At 4430lb (2009kg), if the car fails to proceed you would struggle to push or even tow it.

Its vast, overhanging dimensions prevent recovery on normal trucks and it’s too big for most garages.

For some time, it was left out in the elements or under a cover – both of which can be equally destructive. By the year 2000 or so, the T-bird was looking sorry for itself.

Then, disaster: the choke stuck shut, and in the dark I dropped a washer into the carburettor without realising.

This Ford Thunderbird was brought back to life by a bodywork restoration and mechanical refresh

After a horrible clang and misfire, I shoved the car into a tiny garage and there it sat: can’t drive it, can’t sell it.

Finally, it was taken to Joey Stephens of Snow & Stephens.

One bent valve replaced (£8), and wear on the bore appeared to confirm its 40,000 miles as genuine.

Once it was running sweetly, it was time for bodywork repairs.

After years off the road, we rushed her through an MoT and off to the Goodwood Revival in 2009, with no shakedown run.

‘I shoved the car into a tiny garage and there it sat: can’t drive it, can’t sell it’

It was all quite challenging with the family on board and a small electrical fire in the New Forest (during which incident my son was kicked by a pony), plus needing a dose of Radweld added to the stress.

A joy of T-birds is the availability of parts.

The front seats have been retrimmed in metallic blue and the lusturous Caspian Blue paint has been restored.

A new starter motor (it caused a furore in the scanner at Miami-Dade airport) and an alternator have increased confidence.

This Caspian Blue Ford Thunderbird makes an impression wherever it goes

A Florida friend was a repository for an accumulation of large parts, including a bumper ($25 in Texas), until I imported a ’56 Chevy pick-up with the rear bed filled with T-bird bits.

My kids, Anya and Jack, are at university in the USA, and they carry little bits back when flying home.

Recent brake failure meant a full overhaul and the original carburettor was past it.

With the invisible upgrade to an Edelbrock CFM600, it’s back to running like a V8-powered Swiss watch.

I was 28 when I first drove her. Now we’re both the wrong side of 60 and celebrating our coral anniversary with neither of us showing much sign of growing up.

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