You have to admire the brass of the people at Ford as they show off the concept Thunderbird, whose shape, by the way, is pretty much what will actually go on sale early in 2000 as a 2001 model. After all, they reached back over about 40 years of bland-to-ugly cars bearing the T-Bird name to pick out the single shape that people remember and admire, the 2-seat 1955-57 iteration with those famous porthole windows, and then they get quite cranky at the notion that the new car has a retro look.
The look of the new T-Bird is something Ford's insists on calling "modern- heritage." Retro-heritage-whatever, the once and future look of the Thunderbird is one of the best things the Ford Motor Company has done in decades. It's hard to imagine it won't appeal greatly to all those people who watched the original model roll by the front of their public schools 40 years ago, or fell in love with it at the movies when Suzanne Somers flirted with Richard Dreyfuss from one in American Graffiti.
Ford isn't saying much about the mechanics of this car, but it's generally acknowledged that the chassis and powertrain will be shared with the Lincoln LS and Jaguar S-Type models that are due out in a few months. Which likely means 3-litre V-6 and 4-litre V-8 power attached to a 4-speed automatic and handling characteristics more suitable for cruising than racing.
"The new concept car is an indication of where we're headed with the Thunderbird when it goes back into production for the new millennium," says Jac Nasser, Ford's president and chief executive officer. "It's also just one example of the exciting and dynamic new cars we plan to introduce in the future."