It is completely incongruous to the Broughamification of the T-bird that happened in 1967, and would return out of nowhere in 1972. In fact, the whole 1970 reskinning of the Thunderbird comes across as a proposal to keep the 1969 Grand Prix on the larger, swoopier B-Body shell, right down to the semi-fastback roofline that got progressively faster on GM B-Body coupes between 19. Although in hindsight, that “bird beak” truly captured the mythical bird aura of the Thunderbird, it couldn’t have come at a worse time to seem in any way unique.

The “Bunkie Beak” was a watered down cue that looked straight out of the Pontiac studio. The four-door “Personal Luxury Sedan” was a bad enough misstep adopting a series of Pontiac cues, brought to Ford courtesy of Semon “Bunkie” Knudsen, was an almost fatal blow. After the Falcon and Fairlane got lost in the woods, it was the Thunderbird’s turn.

The grandiose G-Body, with its spectacularly long hood, was a runaway success and shifted the game of Personal Luxury away from big bruisers like the Toronado, Riviera and Thunderbird and down a size (and price bracket) to just above the mundane mid-sized sedan and coupe.īut true to Ford’s misstep patterns, it found itself stumbling upon a segment (Personal Luxury was accidentally a Studebaker Hawk creation, Pony Cars an outgrowth of sporty compacts like the Corvair Monza), and capitalizing on great initial success, only to allow product development to languish, and overdoing their entries in a given market to the point they’d wind up the complete opposites of what made them unique or desirable. That biggest challenge came in the form of Pontiac’s last Greatest Hit of the 1960s, the Great Grand Prix re-think ( CC here).

Although slathered with the latest in accessories, like the reintroduced sunroof that attempted to let the sunshine in, your typical sophisticated thirtysomethings of the Age of Aquarius were choosing their personal luxury elsewhere in more daring packaging. The 1967-69 Ford Thunderbirds had decidedly left their youthful flair days behind, ditching the convertible and unibody construction for tomb-like isolation aided by separate body and frame construction. Thanks to a certain former General Motors executive, this Tin Indian doppelganger is actually the 1970 Ford Thunderbird. ( originally posted ) You are totally forgiven if at first glance you think this is a 1968 Pontiac Grand Prix.

Ford thunderbird 70