Ford Thunderbird: Fine Lines

In five decades, there have been many attempts to recapture the glory of the first-generation Thunderbirds, although most have paled in comparison. A half-century ago, The Ford Motor Company's sensational Thunderbird ushered in the modern era of the personal luxury automobile. Although sporty in appearance and injected with an abundance of horsepower, this cushy beauty was more at home cruising the North American boulevards and freeways of the 1950s than handling fast, making tight turns or stopping on the proverbial dime. Those maneuvers were best left to more exotic, albeit harsher-riding European machinery.