Suburbia has always embraced all the little, pretentious ways of making things in your house or driveway appear a little bit better than the neighbors’: In this case, some ridiculous chrome trim gave buyers just enough incentive to splurge, as over 12,000 1963 Landaus were sold. “I can make death cool! I’m the mystical bird they call Thunderbird! I upset everything! You love me for it!” What’s so absurd is that at some kind of pretentious level, it all works. Then came the Landau, sporting a textured-vinyl top and a piece of chrome trim, commonly associated with hearses, that was every bit as ridiculous as that 1956 Continental kit. The combining of such fantasy with sheet metal as bold as the dream of a moon landing by decade’s end created a heady mix. There were no turbocharged Cadillacs, nor were Impalas fitted with ComfortTemp Climate Control. While early-’60s General Motors products tended to throw in a lot of wizardry, it wasn’t limited to one model. At the time, its standard power steering and power brakes were luxuries normally reserved for top-rung models, and other innovative “luxury” highlights swiftly became the wind beneath the ‘Bird’s wings. Not only was the “Bullet Bird” closely related to the definitive car of the 1960s, it came equipped almost as fully as a Continental itself. Plenty of its 93,000 sales in 1960 came at the expense of the Olds Ninety Eight, Buick Invicta and, tellingly, Mercury Park Lane as it burst open the upper echelons of the medium-price market. The Squarebird proved that you didn’t need a premium brand to sell a premium product to the (relative) masses. Say what you will about the heavy-handed George Barris styling, but that blind C-pillar defined hardtop elegance for the better part of a decade. While not the first of the breed (at least in my view I bestow that honor on the ill-fated Studebaker “Loewy Coupes”), it was one of Ford’s two biggest wins of the late ’50s. Next came the genre-defining personal coupe. Nothing says sporty like a Continental kit and opera window, right? Not enough trunk space for a set of golf clubs? Then damn the already-middling handling–throw in at least a hundred pounds more behind the rear axle! The Thunderbird’s ridiculous factor started pretty early, from where I stand. And it shouldn’t come as a surprise that my favorite is the first version to really jump the shark: Landau bars and eight-tracks, anyone? Out of all the cars that make no sense–at least on paper– I’m willing to give the beguiling bird a pass. ( first published ) The Thunderbird: So irrational, so illogical, so often successful.
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