MK11 Thunderbird: What Might Have Been

"ranwhenparked" (ranwhenparked) 08/04/2019 at 20:03 • Filed to: None

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I vaguely remember having seen this on the History Channel in the early ‘00s (when they still showed nonfiction programming), and thankfully, someone has recently uploaded it to YouTube. It was a 40 minute documentary on the complete history of the Ford Thunderbird, narrated by the late Edward Herrmann, of ‘90s Dodge commercials fame.

Toward the end, they mention that after formally approving the Mk11 T-Bird project for production, Jacques Nasser also required that Ford’s global design studios submit their own proposals for the car, to make sure the development team wasn’t missing anything.

J Mays ended up criticizing the alternative proposals for looking “too Italianate”, too much like an Aston-Martin or Ferrari, or being “modern to a fault”, and the focus groups (which, seemed to be composed entirely of people born before the end of WWII) overwhelming chose the American design team’s original retro concept, which the documentary depicted as a victory for, and vindication of, the project team. Remember, this was all produced before the car actually went on sale, everyone was very upbeat about its prospects, and had no idea it would go on to be an embarrassing flop that would kill the Thunderbird name forever.

I’ve never seen these images anywhere else, and here they are:

Would these have done any better on the market? Tough to say, luxury 2-seat roadsters are a product with an inherently niche appeal, add in mediocre performance, a cheaply finished interior, overly ambitious MSRP, and the fact that this was taking a storied nameplate back into a segment it hadn’t occupied in 45 years (after half a decade off the market entirely), and the fact that this was really when America’s SUV obsession was hitting its stride, and chances are, the 11th gen Thunderbird was always going to fail regardless of what it looked like. But, I do think there were some better ideas here.

Also, this is the early version of the production design the focus groups favored. Mostly the same as what we got, but I think the grille treatment was actually tidier.

Link to YouTube video, for anyone interested :

MrSnrub > ranwhenparked 08/04/2019 at 20:24

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None of those alternates look very good to me other than the third image. Round lights front and back were definitely the way to go. I think the Thunderbird might have succeeded as more of a Corvette competitor, or maybe some kind of upgraded Mustang . Not much of a market for floaty boulevard cruisers outside of the rental market it seems

Goggles Pizzano > ranwhenparked 08/04/2019 at 20:34

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too much like an Aston-Martin or Ferrari.

Not a F errari at the time, but I can see that.

SiennaMan > ranwhenparked 08/04/2019 at 21:36

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It was a car chasing a market that had pretty well already died off, at least in the high msrp low badge prestige place Ford hoped to slot this. One other thing that worked against it in my mind? At a time when rollover safety was a buzzword , anyone taller than 5'11" was going to be catching bugs with their forehead..

Nick Has an Exocet > ranwhenparked 08/04/2019 at 21:44

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I also think it would have been hard to put that intro production in the era for low-dollars.

Shift24 > ranwhenparked 08/04/2019 at 22:02

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This was just Fords version of the SSR and Prowler.

Trying to play off the early 2000s retro styling 

Variance > ranwhenparked 08/04/2019 at 22:42

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I think the st yling was the one thing they actually got right about the car; it was everything else that caused it to flop.

phenotyp > Goggles Pizzano 08/04/2019 at 23:28

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I dunno, I see a fair bit of 550 in that. 

phenotyp > ranwhenparked 08/04/2019 at 23:33

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I remember seeing a lot of rad sketches on the walls and floating around when I was at Ford in 2002. I still have some copies of Camilo Pardo’s and Raphael Rego’s. Raph’s had a nice late-90s techy, deconstructivist sort of feel. I’ll see if I can dig them up tomorrow.

Either way, though. I think the American version got it the most right for the time,  but the timing was all wrong. 

HFV has no HFV. But somehow has 2 motorcycles > Variance 08/05/2019 at 00:07

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I completely agree. I saw a lady driving a nice yellow the other day and I couldn’t help but like it. 

jimz > Shift24 08/05/2019 at 06:11

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Can you blame them, when their other retro attempt (the 2005 Mustang) was a smashing success?

jimz > Variance 08/05/2019 at 06:14

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Well IMO that was due to unrealistic expectations from the “car guy” circles.  They all bitched that it didn’t have like 300 horsepower or something, completely forgetting that the Thunderbird was never a high performance car.  Especially not the ‘55-‘57 it was calling back to.

Shift24 > jimz 08/05/2019 at 09:10

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True, and has worked for Dodge and Chevy in similar ways. And as you said l uckily Ford didn’t give up on the retro styling. 

But of these one off Retro cars, that one is the last one I’d buy.

Goggles Pizzano > phenotyp 08/05/2019 at 14:58

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Now that you mention it, yes I can see that too.

LJ909 > ranwhenparked 10/11/2019 at 21:15

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narrated by the late Edward Herrmann, of ‘90s Dodge commercials fame

Give my man some more credit. Dude was the father from Gilmore Girls and Richie Rich. And a fellow car guy.

But anyway, this post is gold. I had herd about these renders with some having Ferrari influences for the Thunderbird. Its sad though the Thunderbird flopped the way it did.

50ford500 > ranwhenparked 11/01/2019 at 08:49

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I remember when this along with the Ford 49 were all being shown off . I was particularly sad they never did anything with the ‘49 as I have a special place in my heart for the early Shoebox Fords (I own one and have since I was 15 which I rodded out with my Stepdad) though it would probably have been just as tepid if not mores as the T-bird we got. Its fun to think about what might have been.