the Ford Thunderbird began life in 1955 as a sports car similar to the Chevrolet Corvette that was introduced for the 1953 model year however its life as a two-place sporty vehicle was relatively shortlived and after the 1955 1956 and 1957 model years the Thunderbird expanded to be a four place car with the so-called squarebird that was introduced in 1958 however despite losing its overall sporty flare at least from a two- Place perspective the Thunderbird generally became a sales success and for many years was seen as Ford's top-of-the-line kind of sporty luxury vehicle however by the time the glamour bird was being introduced in 1967 product planners at Ford were really looking in the rearview mirror at previous General Motors offerings and kind of left wondering if the Thunderbird should Trend in a larger Direction after all the s tornado Buick Riviera and Cadillac El Dorado were all a bit bigger vehicles and were relatively successful in the Marketplace Ford product planners no doubt were thinking that perhaps their own Thunderbird should evolve into more of a personal luxury Coupe and grow larger so that it could attack a larger section of the marketplace as a consequence the so-called glamour bird that would be introduced for 1967 was more refined larger quieter and also frankly drove better than any of its predecessors it also marked Thunderbirds return to a full frame underneath the vehicle and Ford employed a very interesting approach with a super rigid body riding a top a frame that was mounted to the body only in points ahead of as well as aft of the passenger compartment it was a wonderful concept that worked perfectly in practice endowing these thunder birds with a wonderful luxurious and very isolated ride similar to what Ford had introduced for its 1965 full-size lineup and overall this type of Frame and Body philosophy would continue across a number of other Fords in the subsequent years as an example the Continental would employ a similar approach when it was introduced in 1970 and went from being unibody to framed yet again and also the Torino would employ a similar approach when it was introduced for the 1972 model year the overall Frame and Body philosophy one might argue was birthed because of what Pontiac did when it introduced the its 1961 Pontiacs and in that case those Pontiacs had a quite rigid body that was was mounted on a relatively flexible perimeter frame this type of overall philosophy promised unibody strength but also sound isolation and Ford to some degree effectively copied that Pontiac philosophy it wouldn't be the first time however that Ford would copy Pontiac and the glamour bird would actually get some Pontiac flares for the 1970 model year that unfortunately I believe didn't endow it with let's say the most stunning looks that it otherwise could have take a look at this 1967 Thunderbird in the front end and you'll notice it has just a beautiful distinctive front end that's devoid of any bird beaks or points it's a flat grill with an overall egg crate pattern and designed to make the car frankly look quite wide even that Thunderbird logo in the middle of the grill is designed to emphasize the vehicles withth and of course the fender forms actually make the car look even larger with that kind of Bulge out that you see from the dead-on front view that accentuates the car's overall width and interestingly it was perhaps its overall good looks that gave the 1967 Thunderbird an opportunity to outsell most all of its competition at least from General Motors the 67 Thunderbird sold 78,000 units compared to 43,000 units for the Buick Riviera 18,000 units for the Cadillac El Dorado 22,000 units for the Ile tornado and 43,000 units for the Pontiac Grand Prix however despite the Thunderbirds relative sales success in 1967 and by the way which continued on into 1968 when the Thunderbird again outs sold all those Vehicles selling about 65,000 units compared to 50,000 for the Riviera 25,000 for the El Dorado 26,000 for the Toronado and 32,000 for the Grand Prix for Ed to go in an increasingly General Motors e direction if you will on the glamour bird and there was a principal reason for this that was that Ford's chairman Henry Ford II at the time decided to hire away a key executive from General Motors named Simeon or bunky nen who was formerly the head of Pontiac division as well as later Chevrolet Division and at the time he was posted by Henry Ford II was in charge of overseas operations and Henry Ford II thought that he needed a very senior executive who could effectively serve as his number two while he could let's say just take on more responsibilities outside of the company apparently Henry Ford II didn't feel that leak coko was ready at the time and hence post buy n in in 1968 when bony arrived as I mentioned he was previously ponx general manager and in fact had introduced the Pontiac Grand Prix really as a response to the Ford Thunderbird and he did so in 1962 when he was the leader of the Pontiac division however by this point in time when nudson joined Ford he thought that for whatever reason the Thunderbird should emulate more of the Pontiac Grand Prix styling and of course at this point the Pontiac Grand Prix was getting an increasingly pronounced beak that you saw not only in some of the earlier model years like the 1963 Grand Prix but it kind of got increasingly more aqualine as the years went on especially by the time 1969 rolled around as a consequence buy was the one who actually ordered for designers to redo the front end of the 1970 Thunderbird and put this pronounced beak like form on the front of it and I think it's really just an unfortunate styling choice because especially in sport coup form the 19 1970 Thunderbird and the 71 Thunderbird are absolutely beautiful automobiles They Ride great they drive great they look great especially from the rear 3/ quter view but as you rotate around to the front that bird beak really comes into view especially on the dead dead on side profile of the car and it just doesn't quite look right especially when you contrast it against the 1967 and 8 and nine Thunderbirds that really have I think frankly a nice front end associated with them in any event that's what bunky wanted the designers were not happy but they accommodated his let's call it mandate which they really didn't have any choice and so the Thunderbird became endowed with this Pontiac like form interestingly bunkey also dictated a similar form on the front of the 1971 LTD and consequently it also got this pointy nose now as part of the story monkey was hired by Ford in 1968 but by the end of 1969 he was already fired and in fact what really happened here is leay aoka himself as well as other allies of leak coka behind the scenes ended up really just engineering bunkey's exit in fact it's alleged that aoka at one point approached Henry for II and said that if he didn't get rid of Mony nudson then all these people that were key Executives at were going to leave on mass at the same time and apparently Henry for II acquiesced and fired bunkey nudson so while nuden was gone Henry Ford II didn't interestingly appoint aak coka to be the president of the Ford Motor Company for some time after that the position was left vacant and I guess Henry Ford was just trying to test aoka out to see if he was the one who could actually fill the appropriate shoes of the president of the Ford Motor Company he did eventually get the appointment but he was also let go in 1978 in kind of similar circumstances where allegedly Henry Ford told him that he was being let go simply because quote I just don't like you Lee it's an interesting way to go and of course aoko would later go on to lead the Chrysler Corporation especially through its near bankruptcy chapter and would work with the government on the bailout of Chrysler Etc and Lead Chrysler for many years to come but in any case I think it's interesting to think about the history of the 70 and 71 Thunderbird in particular and that is that funy news and when he was at General Motors and the Pontiac general manager actually launched the Grand Prix as a response to the Thunderbird then when he's brought over to Ford he tells the stylist that he wants the Thunderbird to look more like the Grand Prix and put this beak on it and do the same really for the 71 and 72 LTD of course as soon as bunky left the kind of snout if you will uh the Thunderbird as well as the LTD evaporated and by 1972 when the Thunderbird was redesigned it was gone and it had more of a flat front and for 1973 the LTDs front was redesigned and that Beak was really lost so bunky was an interesting fellow and his influence on the Ford motor Motor Company styl included what I just mentioned and he was also arguably responsible for increasing the size of the Mustang and making it significantly larger in fact monkey hired a prominent General Motors stylist named Larry shenoda from General Motors brought him to Ford and shenoda was really responsible for that expanding Mustang and making it a bigger car because they thought that that was the right direction for the vehicle to head one could say well at least argue one way or the other if that was the right direction in any case the bird beak really didn't do anything for Thunderbird sales they remained flat year-over-year in 1970 versus 1969 although strangely by this point the 1969 Grand Prix had been introduced and the Grand Prix sales just took off as a result in 1969 Thunderbird sold about 50,000 units Grand Prix sold 112,000 units so more than double Thunderbird in 1970 when the bird beak Thunderbird would come about Ford sold 50,000 again Thunderbirds Pontiac Grand Prix it had tapered off in sales a bit but still sold 66,000 units and the Grand Prix would continue to outsell the Thunderbird in some of the coming years as well so didn't quite work out perhaps as buy had envisioned but nonetheless the 1970 and 71 Thunderbirds Are Great cars to drive if you can just get over that well let's just call it an interesting aqualine front end let's let's listen in to this dialogue of then Ford styling executive Don Delarosa talking about his interaction with bunky nudes and in his thoughts on this bird beak Thunderbird that he and his team effectively had to graft onto the Thunderbird Don d r roer would later go on to become Chrysler's lead of styling under leak coka who brought him from Ford let's listen in nudson uh caused some uh some uh some design decisions that that were I thought were very unfortunate on our particularly on uh we had some cars that were the timing of of the uh of the design uh process was such that they were easy to uh fall victim to his uh his influence and uh it caused us to uh put a uh peculiar looking front end on the Thunderbird and so forth uh and uh it was an effort on his part to uh I recalling him telling us that you know was should be a should look like a Pontiac I thought thought that was kind of honest and strange and he had just come from yeah so so he thought that you know uh it should look like a Pontiac that's what was what was wrong with us so we didn't know how to do that that so he he caused a very strange looking front to get on the Thunderbird let's now close out with a commercial from 1970 featuring the Thunderbird Taking Flight please fasten your seat Bel sir we're about to take off introducing the great new birds of 1970 Pan's new Boeing 747 and the great new 1970 Thunderbird with its daring new grill executive control panel and an interior where as far as luxury goes the sky the [Music] limit Thunderbird 1970 completely redesigned for a new decade powered by a high performance 429 V8 engine so smooth you'll think you're taking off in your own private executive jet why drive when you can fly
