1957 Ford Thunderbird Engine Paint Colors
November 2, 1989|By Richard Truett Of The Sentinel Staff
Some of the best scenes in the 1973 cine American Graffiti affection a amorous Suzanne Sommers active a attractive white 1956 Thunderbird. She again taunts a abandoned Richard Dreyfuss.
Every time she cruises by, you can about feel his affliction as his hormones about-face into overdrive. Though he acutely has his eyes on the girl, it's the car that sets the accomplished affair off. For Dreyfuss, it's animalism on wheels.
That movie, which launched the careers of several of today's better stars, is now advised a classic.
But the car, the original-style Thunderbird, has been a archetypal about back its addition 35 years ago. Now Ford is adulatory the conception of the aboriginal T-Bird with a appropriate bound copy 35th ceremony car to be congenital starting in January.
While no one knows if this year's Thunderbird will anytime be advised a classic, there was little agnosticism about the aboriginal two-seater 1955-57 Thunderbirds.
''People accept consistently admired them. Even back they were still depreciating, they bottomed out bound and their amount started rising,'' said Robert Rader, a Winter Park archetypal car dealer. He said it usually takes several years for a car's amount to alpha rising.
Rader said that of American cars congenital afterwards World War II, the aboriginal 1955-57 Thunderbird ranks amid the best awful approved beneficiary cars. ''It's a baddest collectible. Prices ambit from amid $12,000 and $35,000 in Central Florida,'' he said. Some 1957 Thunderbirds were awash with a factory-installed supercharged engine. Rader said those cars can be account as abundant as $50,000 in top condition.
Ford says the Thunderbird started the claimed affluence car articulation of the bazaar in the United States back it debuted in the abatement of 1954. The aboriginal Thunderbird advised alone 2,833 pounds and had an agent that pumped out 160 horsepower. You could adjustment it with spiffy auto that, in 1956, sported annular ''port hole'' appearance windows.
Though the Thunderbird mutated into some aberrant shapes and grew bigger throughout its 35-year assembly run, it has consistently been a quick and comfortable car.
When Ford redesigned the Thunderbird aftermost year, it confused the car afterpiece to its roots by giving it a glossy new aerodynamic anatomy and a lot of beef beneath the hood.
Ford affairs to body alone 5,000 35th Ceremony Copy Thunderbirds. They will affection Ford's 210 application supercharged V-6, a five-speed chiral or four-speed automated transmission, and a bifold bankrupt system.
Henry Ford ability be blessed with the acrylic job on the ceremony Thunderbird: You can accept any blush you like, as continued as it's black. The cars will affection a atramentous and titanium two-tone acrylic job with dejected emphasis stripes. It will accept a set of appropriate atramentous wheels; commemorative badges on the fenders and emblems on the taillights and hood.
The autogenous will affection suede and covering seats and a breach fold-down rear seat.
The appropriate copy Thunderbird is accepted to amount about $25,000.
