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The 1957 Thunderbird could be ordered with a McCulloch-Paxton supercharger and up to 340 horsepower, which made it the fastest and most desirable two-seater Ford had ever sold. It was also the last. Robert McNamara had already decided what the 1958 car would be, and the styling department drew the entire thing before a single engineer was consulted. Read on to find out why the decision that infuriated the faithful turned out to be right.
Ford built the third-generation “Bullet Bird” Thunderbird for only three model years, and 1963 was the last of them. Of the 63,313 built that year, just 5,913 were convertibles, powered by a 390 FE making 300 horsepower and 427 lb-ft and backed exclusively by an automatic. It was never intended to race anything, and that was entirely the point. Read on to find out what Ford was really building here.
Ford reinvented its personal-luxury flagship for 1964 with a bold, squared-off design and a cabin that felt like something out of a world’s fair — and buyers noticed, snapping up nearly 100,000 Thunderbirds that year alone. The convertible added a fully automatic power top borrowed from Lincoln, while a torquey 390-cubic-inch V8 handled the muscle underneath all that formal styling. A handful of ultra-rare special-order cars even packed a 427 V8, though most buyers stuck with the accessible 390. It remains one of the best sales years the Thunderbird nameplate ever had.
This 1957 Ford Thunderbird represents the final year of Ford’s original two-seat design before the four-seat Squarebird took over — and this example, toured at Garrett Classics in Texas, wears nearly every desirable factory option Ford offered that year: the 312 V8, power brakes, power steering, power windows, and rare factory air conditioning. Finished in Raven Black over red with its signature porthole hardtop, it’s a strong argument for why the last two-seat Bird still commands serious money today. See what samspace81 found under the hood.
Ford’s fourth-generation Thunderbird never needed to win a drag race to earn its reputation; a 390-cubic-inch FE V8 delivering effortless low-end torque took care of that job while the cabin did the rest. Descended from Ford’s workhorse 352 block, the 390 became one of the longest-running big-blocks of the 1960s, powering everything from family sedans to this luxury coupe. See what made this understated big-block a Ford mainstay for a decade.
1957 was the last year for Ford’s original two-seat Thunderbird, and it went out with its best sales year yet at 21,380 built. Buried in that number is a rare F-code variant, a factory-supercharged Y-block making a rated 300 to 340 horsepower, with barely 200 or so built, the first handful of them purely to homologate the engine for NASCAR racing. Whether this particular Thunderbird hides that same blower under its hood is a question worth asking.
Ford’s 1962 Thunderbird Sports Roadster used a clever fiberglass tonneau cover to disguise a genuine four-seat convertible as a two-seat sports car, right down to spoke wire wheels and special fender badges. Check the right option box and Ford would add Tri-Power carburetion to the 390 V8, bumping output to a genuine 340 horsepower — but only 120 buyers ever did, out of 1,427 Sports Roadsters built that year. Historians estimate barely 40 of those M-code cars survive today, making this one of the rarest factory options of the entire early Thunderbird generation.
Ford planned for about 10,000 first-year Thunderbird sales and blew past that number, moving 16,155 units instead with 3,500 orders in the first ten days alone. This 1955 example carries the 292 V8 and Ford-O-Matic combination that made the original two-seater such an easy car to drive daily. It’s a reminder that Ford built the Thunderbird to answer the Corvette, then deliberately steered it toward comfort instead of raw sportiness.
Most 1957 Thunderbird buyers never knew Ford quietly built America’s first production supercharged V8 that same year. Roughly 200 F-code cars left the factory rated at 300 horsepower — though Paxton itself claimed the real number was closer to 360. Here’s the story behind Ford’s rarest personal luxury car of the decade.
A single red convertible on a showroom floor kicked off one of Detroit’s fiercest rivalries — and the car everyone assumes won wasn’t the one that actually won in 1955. Ford’s Thunderbird and Chevy’s Corvette arrived within a year of each other, aimed at the same buyer, but built on opposite ideas of what a “sports car” should be. One offered two-seat purity; the other offered a V8, power windows, and comfort. The sales gap between them that year still stuns people who assume the Corvette always ruled.
Gateway Classic Cars is showing off this 1966 Ford Thunderbird, built the year Ford quietly reworked the 390’s heads and carburetor for smoother power. Buyers that year overwhelmingly chose the vinyl-roofed Landau over the convertible, making today’s survivors an interesting split of common and genuinely scarce. See the full photo set and find out what made this the last great pre-’67 Thunderbird.
Ford built the 1964-66 Thunderbird to win at the country club, not the drag strip, and for the most part that is exactly what it did. But buried in the order books was an ultra-rare 427 side oiler V8 option that dropped the car’s 0-60 time by two full seconds, and fewer than six are confirmed to survive today. Read on to find out what set this hidden performance variant apart from the luxury cruiser everyone else was buying.
George Hansen has owned his 1957 Ford Thunderbird since 2012, but the car was living on borrowed time the day it was built. Ford made the two-seat T-Bird for just three model years, and 1957 was the last chance anyone got to buy one before the redesign added a back seat and changed the car’s identity permanently. Buried in that final year’s option list was a supercharged engine roughly two hundred buyers received.
