By 1990, all things automotive were starting to shrug off their ’70s induced malaise as they redeveloped some sporting intentions. Buick hit a grand slam in the ’80s with the Grand National and over at Ford, they had a trick up their sleeve with the Thunderbird Turbo-Coupe. When the 10th generation (’89-’97) T-Bird hit the street, more was better thanks to the addition of a blower. And for your review today, we have a spectacular 1990 Thunderbird Super Coupe. Discovered by Larry D, this fantastic Ford is located in New Baltimore, Michigan and is available, here on eBay for a current bid of $5,650 with eighteen bids tendered so far.
While the tenth generation Thunderbird was arguably the best since the late ’70s and saw total production of close to a million copies, it was the last as it went offline in model year 1997. There was a two-seater reboot in 2002 but it never gelled and was gone by 2005. Production for model-year ’90 was pretty robust with 114K T-Birds finding new driveways.
What makes the Super Coupe super, is its 210 net HP, 3.8-liter supercharged V6 engine. The seller states, “The engine is reliable, turn-key, and accelerates with a lot of power. The Automatic Transmission shifts great through all gears. This car drives out excellent handling the road great and rides smooth“. One nice improvement to the tenth-gen T-Bird is the inclusion of independent rear suspension.
Exterior-wise, what’s not to like? As the seller claims, it’s straight and solid with no sign of crash damage or misaligned body panels. There is the mention of some small blemishes but none are pictorially evident. The lines of this Super Coupe are if anything, understated and it presents a nice clean, restrained, but purposeful look. The mile-deep Vermillion Red finish is an attention-getter, red always is, but the flashiness factor disappears beyond that. Clearly, this Ford has been well-stored.
Claimed to have experienced only 21K miles of use, I’d say the interior backs up that assertion. The light gray fabric upholstery shows like new with no sign of brush-wear – from sliding in and out, discoloration, dirt, etc. Keeping such a light hue interior clean looking is no mean feat! The side bolsters on those bucket seats look as if they could go a long way in keeping one well-planted if some aggressive driving maneuvers were to suddenly manifest themselves. All of that interior goodness is topped off with a sun/moon roof.
Back in 1990, I wouldn’t have given this car a second look. How unfortunate! Everything is relative I guess and what is being foisted upon the car-buying public today is mostly dreck by comparison to this T-Bird. I suppose that it’s true, you don’t know what you have until it’s gone, right?
These Super Coupes were fairly interesting cars for their day. As Jim said, clean styling and a purposeful look. This one looks to have had good care. For whatever reason it doesn’t seem like they have held their value all that well. For me I’d prefer a manual transmission. Could be a good acquisition for not much money.
Current bid is US $9,975.00. Is this Bird moving away from the “not much money” category? It looked a lot nicer at $5,650 than near 10 grand.
Had one this exact model, year, color and trim. Fun for the first 100k miles then get rid of it. The head gaskets blow and then you’re looking at motor mounts, rings, bearings, clutch and every other thing you can imagine that self destructs. Rebuilt mine but the computer controlled, laser guided, nuclear powered systems that governed the thing were never the same.
I had a 94 and can attest to the motor mounts. Mine were bad with about 80k. Other than that though, it was a nice driver.
I had the 5 speed. When I moved from NJ to California, it got a lot of attention since manuals were not available there.
Had a 93 and it was good, until it got to around 120k miles. 3.8L had notorious cylinder head gaskets issues.
Nice ‘Bird! Better than the two normally aspirated 3.8s that I owned, at least performance wise. I wouldn’t even mind this car’s auto tranny.
Those cars are so badass. Had an 89 XR7 Cougar with the same motor. Miss it.
Great looking cars, and good performers, nice touring vehicle.
Ford has had some neat 6 cylinder offers. This Supercoupe, the yamaha Taurus SHO, and the latest sweet 6pot…the mazda/ford 3.7L which really pairs nice, with a manual transmission in the 2011-2017 Mustang.
These cars were a breath of fresh air, showing the end of the choked motor malaise era. I remember a manager where I worked bought one. Big scary woman, I asked her how she liked it.
“Finally a car with balls” she bellowed!
Seems like every comment I leave here mentions either my Dad, a friend, or a girlfriend. Here we go again!
My second car was a silver 84 Thunderbird TRX edition ( looked like a Turbo Coupe but no turbo). As college graduation approached I got some letters from Ford extolling the new Super Coupe. My Dad was looking for a new car as he wanted to store his 428 Cobra Jet Grand Torino Sport and use it as a weekend fun ride. He suggested he buy me an SC for graduation and take my 84. This seemed great to.me naturally.
When we test drove a white 89 SC things changed! Dad bought the SC cause he LOVED it. For graduation he sent me to Paris Copenhagen and London for a month. When I got back I bought a Turbo McLaren Pontiac Grand Prix to keep up with Pop. The 84 TBird I traded in on a Jeep Cherokee to tow my girlfriend’s horse trailer assuming (wrongly) we would get married.
A year later my friend Tony explained that Ami was.sleeping around. He knew this first hand! So I sold the Jeep while she was at a horse show. My Dad loved and kept the SC until 1993 when he traded it in for a.Mazda RX-7 red with black leather. The Grand Torino he kept until the day he died. Great cars, all of them!
Loved the body style. did not think much of the six, even supercharged. The 4.6 and 5.0 cars were an excellent start for a reasonably priced project, and still are. The Mark VIII and the Cougar/Thunderbird have an avid following with good parts access and advice availability. Even with my current fixation on English iron, I will keep my bulletproof Lincoln for cruising. People complain about maintenance, but the newest ones are 24 years old and I don’t spend much more than a week a year keeping it perfect. 1998 Mark VIII LSC that I have less than $5k invested in even with my now nine years of ownership.
Dang — the latest bidding zoom-zoomed (so to speak) up to $9600, with 2 days 10 hours left. The bargin aspect of the < $6K zoom-zoomed away as well ….
Had a dear friend back in the day who owned one in a beautiful emerald green with the beige interior. He loved the car. Hopefully good ole Lou is still around, kicking.
It isn’t exactly fair to suggest that the 11th generation Thunderbirds never “gelled”. The four year run from 2002-2005 was pretty much what Ford intended when the car was conceived. It was always intended to be a limited production run of a niche vehicle. Not everything has the demand of an F150.
According to Hagerty Insurance, “there was enough interest to sell 31,368 copies, on par with the Chevrolet Corvette. But 2003 sales were less than half that, at just 14,678“. So, it was Ford’s intention to have the volume drop by more than half in only the Thunderbird’s second year? Doesn’t sound like gelling to me.
JO
As a GM guy, this is one Ford that I’ve always wanted to own. It’s the best looking Ford of the era and didn’t have all of the styling excesses of the ’87-’93 Mustang GT. Also really loved the understated and classy interior.
While this one is gorgeous, mine would need to be a 5-speed. Also, the AOD was one of the worst automatics ever built, at least from a performance standpoint.
Automatic is a no go for me.
I actually liked the SC model not the base LX
I have never seen one of these in Australia – I suspect there aren’t any. More’s the pity as I reckon they would have been very successful. To my eyes there is a lot of BMW 6 series in the styling, particularly from the rear three quarter angle.
Had one of these ordered new in 94 black with gray interior and a 5 speed. Great car, drove the wheels off of it, not worth a damn in the snow, got 30 mpg AC on at 80mph in the summer!😊 The front end started to lift at about a buck forty five, found out twice and backed out twice!😁😁 Traded it on a MK VIII but missed the handling of the T Bird!! Drive fast and take a few chances😊
Sorry – but these cars have engine problems that cost a fortune to fix.
The later ’94/95 were the more desirable models but these were amazing cars.
The IRS made these cars handle and the whole cars was a well designed package.
I had one ( LX ) in good shape, back in 2006. redid the suspension and had an engine swap ( Head gaskets of course lol ), I never had a problem with the power of a 6cyl ( but then again, I had one of those “boats” from the eighties, with a cruising slant six ), black paint, and only left the badges on the tail lights. Every mechanic that saw it, wanted to know if I wanted to sell it, but never wanted to pay anything, for it lol. Funny how so many ppl hate on them, but mechanics seem to know, when they see a gem.