Driver-Quality Landau: 1963 Ford Thunderbird

It’s rare that I’ll pass up the opportunity to talk about “Bullet Birds,” the futuristic 1961-63 version of Ford’s fabulous Thunderbird. They have long been my favorite T-Bird, enough so that I own a ’63 model, so I’m in a good position to offer some commentary about this driver-quality Landau. The nice thing about any four-seat Thunderbird is that their asking prices don’t seem to match their stature; after all, they were always a special car. On one hand, that means that many people can afford a pretty good one. On the other, it also means that decent drivers sometimes sell in the four-figure range. This one is for sale here on eBay in Fenton, Michigan, and its high bid sits at $5,700 with several days left on the auction (although the reserve has not yet been met).

I love when sellers post door tags and fender tags. Here’s the lowdown on this ‘Bird:

• 63B: Tudor Landau
• M: Corinthian White
• 55: Red Interior
• 04K: Scheduled build date of October 4, 1962
• 61: District Sales Office of Dallas, Texas
• 1: 3.00:1 open differential
• 4: Three-speed Cruise-O-Matic

The VIN tells us that there’s nothing unusual about this T-Bird: It was built at the Lincoln plant in Wixom, Michigan, and it has the basic 300-horsepower 390 under the hood. The unit number is fairly low, which verifies the car’s early October scheduled build date.

Here’s the 390, although there are a few deviations from stock. First off, the 1963 390 did indeed have gold valve covers, but someone went ahead and painted the whole engine gold. Next, the Edelbrock carburetor is a replacement for the original Autolite 4100 four-barrel, which is fine (in my opinion). Finally, someone has removed the car’s air conditioning compressor; you can tell it had one because the power steering pump reservoir is mounted on the driver’s side fenderwell (reservoirs on non-air cars were mounted to the pump itself). Also, this car has air conditioning controls on the dashboard.

The seller has owned the car for two years, and it drives well. It does have an exhaust manifold leak on the passenger side (a common malady on Ford FEs), and getting to the manifolds in the T-Bird’s cramped engine compartment is a little bit of a bear. It also has a power steering whine (along with a leak) and a slight transmission leak.

The seller says that aside from the cracked dash pad (almost standard equipment on Bullet Birds these days) and a small crack in the console, the interior is in “great shape.” The Landau cars had woodgrain trim rather than the brushed trim on non-Landau cars, and this one is interesting in that it was an air-conditioned car with manually operated windows. The car comes with a new dash pad, but Ford changed the design in the middle of the model year in 1962, and the early style is the only one that’s being reproduced. You can use it on later cars, but it requires a modification to the door panels.

I have decided to live with my car’s cracked dash because of all that, not to mention the fact that getting the dash pad out of a 1961-63 T-Bird is, according to everything I’ve seen, an awful job.

The trunk appears to be in decent shape. Ford reshaped the trunk when it redesigned the 1964 models to add some depth; it’s a surprisingly shallow space in ’63 cars.

If you like T-Birds and have been looking for a driver, this one might be a good option is the price stays reasonable. The paint has been redone, and it has some “orange peel on the rear [quarter panels]” if you look hard enough, but that’s the nice thing about a white car—it’s hard to notice that kind of thing. Parts availability is reasonably good from places like Bird Nest and Pat Wilson, so you should be able to find anything you need for it. And nothing will make you feel quite as special for less money than a T-Bird.