In its final year as a two-seater, the 1957 Thunderbird outsold the Chevrolet Corvette by almost three-to-one. Note that 1956 was the first time the coupes were given a distinctive name - the Hawk - rather than referred to as body styles for Studebaker’s line of Champion, Commander and President family cars. However, that was still good enough to outsell the two-seater Thunderbird for one more year. Unfortunately, Studebaker experienced a perfect storm of difficulties that resulted in coupe output declining to roughly 19,000 units in 1956. Pictured is a 1955 President (top image) and a 1956 Golden Hawk (click on images to go to photo galleries). Sales of Studebaker’s low-slung “Loewy coupes” quickly tapered off despite stylistic updates. At the time that was extraordinary for a halo car lacking the room to be a family hauler. Almost 80,000 units were sold in 1953, its first year on the market. Indeed, Ford’s confidence in investing in a four-passenger T-Bird may have at least partially hinged on the early success of Studebaker’s low-slung two-door hardtop and coupe, which were designed by Raymond Loewy’s consulting firm. A portion of the cover of a 1962 Thunderbird brochure ( Old Car Brochures) Ford succeeds at what Studebaker failed to doĪlthough the Thunderbird is commonly thought of as having pioneered the personal coupe, that distinction should go to Studebaker. Even though the four-seater T-Bird was a parenthetical effort, it was more successful than the launching of the Continental and Edsel brands and moving both the Mercury and Lincoln upmarket. The biggest irony of the Thunderbird is that it made a mockery of Ford’s hugely expensive effort to invade the premium-priced and luxury-car fields in the second half of the 1950s. The 1958-60 T-Bird showed that the public would pay a premium price for a smaller car even during a recession. Perhaps most importantly, the Thunderbird challenged the 1950s Detroit groupthink that the more expensive the car, the bigger it had to be. The early four-seaters were only available as a two-door hardtop and convertible - and in high-end trim. The Thunderbird also defied the then-dominant practice of fielding a broad range of body styles and trim variants. From top image, a 1960, 19 model ( Old Car Brochures). Note how the convertible top was hidden underneath a deck panel. The Thunderbird’s back seat was given an exotic shape that culminated in a curved-back design. This is why the T-Bird is arguably one of the most significant halo cars of all time. The Thunderbird single-handedly spurred a massive product-proliferation spree that resulted in a diversity of personal coupes, from the high-priced Cadillac Eldorado to subcompact “pony cars” such as the Toyota Celica. and foreign automakers.Īlso see ‘1958-60 Lincoln: Failing to beat GM at its own game’ An unusually low height and long-hood, short-deck proportions would be widely copied by U.S. T-Bird unleashes massive product-proliferation spreeĪ key reason the Thunderbird was able to develop an exceptional level of cachet may have been because it had a unique body with more sporting proportions than a typical premium-priced car. The Thunderbird was marketed as a premium-priced car despite being sold at Ford dealers ( Old Car Advertisements). The Thunderbird challenged GM’s hierarchy of brands by competing price-wise against the automaker’s top-end premium-priced cars even though the personal coupe was sold through plebeian Ford dealers. The success of the 1958-60 T-Bird showed that being different was a better strategy ( Old Car Advertisements). In the 1950s Ford spent a fortune vainly trying to better compete against GM’s highly successful five-brand pricing hierarchy. Each of these brands offered distinctive styling and mechanical features, but by the late-50s they shared a common platform. This approach was most highly developed at GM, where a car buyer could show they were moving up in the world by switching from the low-priced Chevrolet to a higher-priced Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Buick and - at the pinnacle - Cadillac. For one thing, 1958-60 Thunderbird was the first Big Three postwar car to undercut the “hierarchy of brands” strategy that then dominated the US auto industry. The early four-seaters were remarkably subversive on a number of levels. 2 automaker could better compete against mighty General Motors if it pioneered new markets rather than trying to directly compete model for model. The four-seater Thunderbird was a surprisingly pivotal car for the Ford Motor Company during the postwar period.
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