THUNDERBIRD

Thunderbird

Along with pics of a 1938 Buick, Joe sent me a car picture recently that stirred old memories.

June 1957 I graduated from the University of Florida and was entering the Navy, slated into Officer Candidate School in Newport, Rhode Island. Starting the first week of July, it would be four months, then whatever the Navy had in mind for me after that and no telling when I might see Panama City again. Life was young and its prospects exciting.

Linda and I had gotten engaged in December, but had not scheduled or begun to plan our wedding. I had asked Mr. Peters if we could get engaged and he had graciously given his consent. Upon graduation, and with Navy plans moving so fast, we decided to be married before I left for Newport. We selected June 29, which was just about three weeks away. When the wedding date was presented to Linda’s father, his reaction was, “What? I agreed to your becoming engaged. Nobody said anything about getting married.” And he was right. In December I had asked him if we could get engaged, deliberately not saying the word “marry,” because I was afraid that would be a deal breaker. But he relented and everything moved in a flash.

At the time, Joe Parrott, who had been in the fish business briefly with my father, was selling cars at Cook Ford on Harrison Avenue, and he always had a demonstrator, which I always coveted. At the time, his demo was a 1957 Ford Thunderbird, red with a white top. The top had one of those tiny round windows, and it could be unclipped and lifted off. It was beyond “to covet,” it was to die for. But I had a hundred dollars cash to my name and a 1948 Dodge that my parents had bought new in May 1948 and gave me September 1956 when I went to my senior year at Gainesville, and the hope of a prospective new Navy ensign’s monthly salary of $222.30. So, no T-Bird. But Joe lent us the T-Bird for our wedding “get-away car.”

Hiding it so it wouldn’t be desecrated with soap “JUST MARRIED” and have shoes tied behind, I gave the key to my brother Walt and he brought it to the wedding reception just in time for us newlyweds to get in and drive away, escaping for our honeymoon -- a week at Katharine Laughlin’s beach cottage.

After graduating from OCS and being commissioned Ensign, USNR, we came home to Panama City for Christmas. As the Dodge was giving us reliability problems, part of the visit was to buy a new car. Joe Parrott was still with Cook Ford, and now his demo was a red 1957 Ford convertible. Had it not been for the continental kit on the back, which to me was super-tacky, the car would have been almost irresistible, except that when I brought it home Linda’s mother exclaimed, “NO CONVERTIBLES.”

Back it went and Joe got us a new 1958 Ford Custom 300 tudor sedan, blue and white. Our first new car. Plain vanilla.

Over the years, Ford offered the Thunderbird in various styles.

In 1967 the Thunderbird was offered as a four door sedan, stylishly like the Lincoln, with “suicide doors.”

We bought one of those the next time we were stationed in Newport, Rhode Island, and drove it some years. Ours was white with a dark blue vinyl roof. Nice. But we had unending electrical problems with it.

Best of course was the original two-passenger coupe. From 1958 and from then on it became a four-passenger coupe or convertible, the style evolving from its beginning in 1955 to final production for 1997. Starting with a flash, it went out a puff of ordinary smoke.

Ford brought the T-Bird back for the 2002 model year and produced it until 2005. It was meant to resemble the original.

With the Mustang, the T-Bird isn’t needed in Ford’s lineup and we may not see it again.