Many compare the early Ford Thunderbird to the Chevy Corvette and that’s not a fair comparison. While they both were 2-seaters (at least initially for Ford), the T-Bird was a small, personal luxury car while the ‘Vette was considered a sports car. And the Ford product sold better in its first three years on the market. This 1955 T-Bird is a project that’s located in a small garage or storage space in Sparks, Nevada, and is available here on Facebook Marketplace for $6,500.
Launched in part due to the Chevy Corvette, the first generation of the Ford Thunderbird ran from 1955-57. After that, it grew into a bigger, 4-passenger car that Ford built through 1997 (the 2-seater was revived briefly in 2002-05). The early T-Birds shared some of the design characteristics with the other Fords, like single, circular headlamps and tail lamps and modest tailfins. Ford built 53,166 Thunderbirds between 1955-57, including 16,155 in 1955. Ford executives thought that was about the top-end market demand for a car like this, so they added a back seat in 1958.
The seller’s ’55 model is a project car that looks to have been sitting for a long time. Because the T-Bird is featured in a tight space, we can’t gauge the condition of the body except that it’s very dirty. We’re told that everything is there, but we don’t see a hood. Instead, we see several boxes piled on top of the engine, which is probably the 292 cubic inch Y-block V8 that came from Ford’s Mercury division. The seller says it has an automatic transmission, which would be the Ford-O-Matic 3-speed.
Colors on the Ford are said to be grey on the outside and tan on the inside, but it could very well be white and black/red. The windshield appears to have several thin cracks in it. The car saw relatively little use before it went into hibernation, with an odometer reading of 62,000 miles. This one is the convertible edition, and we assume the canvas material has long since given up the ghost. Although the car is in Nevada, it has a California registration with vintage black license plates.
Hood is laying under the car in the last picture in the listing. Since a soft top frame is worth about half of the asking price this could be a great buy if it’s a rust free calif car.
I’m sure any potential buyer from CA knows to get proof the car has been stored out of state for the full amount of time the plates have been expired. When I was scooping up CA cars to bring to MI, expired plates were always a big bargaining point in the buyer’s favor.
Great find if it is rust free.
its in a car trailer
That’s a steal for as straight and clean looking as it appears