By the late 1960s, the details that made the four-seat Thunderbird special were whittled away one-by-one as the marketplace for luxury cars evolved. By the 1970s, the T-Bird’s comparatively trim size, high transmission tunnel, console, bucket seats, and wild interior gave way to big, overstuffed luxury. It was, however, a process that involved several years of metamorphosis, and the 1968 model shows a car in a middle state. As it turns out, the middle state is a pretty good place to find cheap projects. Barn Finds reader Rocco B. spotted this non-running T-Bird Landau on craigslist in Sacramento, California, with an asking price of $3,900.
The bucket-seat tradition began to give way with the availability of this “Flight-Bench” seat. While the Riviera and the Toronado had already begun the personal-luxury march toward bench seating, Ford was reticent to do so, but it finally conceded defeat in 1968 (although buckets were still more popular in the two-door models). You might notice that although the T-Bird’s interior is still a stylistic treat, it pales in comparison to Thunderbirds from the 1958-66 eras, but this one looks as if it will clean up fairly well. I see a few cracks in the dash pad, and a trim piece seems to be missing from the passenger door.
The rear seat looks fine, and it still maintains the coved appearance introduced with the 1964 models, a nice touch that makes the back seat of your T-Bird look like a couch in an expensive hotel.
The sales brochure mentions that the 315-horsepower 390 was standard equipment, but other dealer sales literature says that instead, you got this new-for-1968 360-horsepower 429 “Thunderjet” big-block. Either way, this car has the 429. The seller has tried to get it running with a new coil and a new battery, but although it will cough and sputter, it will not yet come to life. It has a newer Edelbrock AVS2 on top, which is a pretty good carburetor, so it shouldn’t be too tall a task to get the engine running as long as there aren’t any severe mechanical catastrophes awaiting. Buying a non-running project car is always a risk. This car does have air conditioning, but I think we all know that it’s going to require more than just a charge.
Sadly, the seller “can’t work on it” due to back pain and has to sell the car. Unfortunately, there’s not much to go on in the advertisement aside from what’s been mentioned, but being a Sacramento car means that it’s most likely solid, and the paint doesn’t look bad enough that it wouldn’t clean up reasonably well. If you can get the engine running reasonably easily, it will probably need brake hydraulics and a good detailing, and you might be cruising around for a reasonable price. And for good or for bad, this ’68 will seat six rather than four.
From the pictures it looks like a clean car hopefully it won’t take much to get the engine to fire price isn’t bad
Beautiful car! This era of Thunderbird was special. I love the rear seat. It wrapped around on each end. The design was very appropriate for the time. Landau bars! What’s not to like on this car. It looks like it could stand some care. Maybe A little restoration? Does anyone remember how the rear tail lights blinked sequentially? He’s with such fun cars to watch when they were driving down the street. I turned around and watched them go by. This is a piece of American automotive history. Hopefully, Ford will start building automobiles again soon.
My Mom’s ’67 had the sequential turn signals, which have been brought back in the newest Mustangs! The ’66 and ’67 sequential signals were electromechanical, but by ’68, Ford switched to an all-electronic circuit. My Dad worked for Motorola Semiconductor as a Sales Engineer at the time, and I remember reading a Motorola Application Note about how the new solid-state circuit worked. It used Silicon Controlled Rectifiers (SCR’s), sold by Motorola, of course! The electromechanical circuit worked using a small DC electric motor that drove a cam that activated the switches in sequence to turn on each lamp in turn. The direction of rotation of the motor determined if the sequence was left-to-right (for a right turn), or right-to-left (for a left turn).
I prefer the ’67, without the hideous side marker lamps that look like big zits on the car’s chin! This one would be perfect if it had the missing passenger-side armrest and bucket seats, LOL! GLWTS!
Nice car, body looks to be in good shape, can’t argue with the price. I had the same car, waiting on the title, and my landlord, at the time, called Codes and had it towed on me. Same shape as this one…
Looks like decent car at a reasonable price. just needs some love and interior trim. These 60s T birds and the early 60s Rivieras are two of my all time favorites.
Once you get it all checked out and running correctly you could drive and restore to driver status at the same time.
Wish this was close, I’d pick it up in a flash. Nice car!
Coughing and sputtering is good. A little either then independent fuel source and plugs etc etc and this grand old girl will fire right up.
Condenser in distributer can cause a lot of problems.
I had a beautiful 67 landau. Red with white interior, the steering wheel flipped to the side when the drivers door opened. Had a nice console. Little to no rust. I bought it from my dad’s friend for $250. Ran like a top but hated the cold. While I was away in the Navy my dad gave it to my brother and forged my signature only for him to wreck it while drunk. Then he gave my 66 Impala to him the same way and he wrecked that. I never ever received any money for either.
My Bird was a nice driving cruiser, had the 390 oh to have that time back..
Thank you for your service.
I want to open a nightclub just so I can make all the booths out of T-Bird back seats.
Title status in ad says lien…
I noticed that too with the ad details. What does a lien title entail? Does that mean that a buyer assumes debt?
I saw that too. My guess seller doesn’t have a title but is in process of getting one through a shop lien, maybe?
call roadworthy rescue. looking and working on this would give me back pain too
I was thinking the same thing about Derek getting this started. I heard that Roadworthy Rescues is being discontinued along with some others, not because it isn’t popular. We can still see him on Vice Grip Garage, I think. I look again at some old ones as I forget some things, and with the many, many channels today, sometimes “There’s nothing on TV”.
I’d like to have shot at this. Those 429’s meant business. Perfect motor for this weighty t-bird. I’d bet the carb & fuel system need rebuild. The aluminum carburetor is a bit corroded, probably from sitting. Love the smooth easy lines from the front on back. Would make a nice hotrodded daily driver.
Priced well but on the wrong side of the country …
That 429 is a torquey beast, and if you need more cubic inches (and who doesn’t), a crank swap will turn it into a 460, LOL! The crate versions of these have been bored and stroked out to 572 cubic inches, so there’s probably more in there, if one is so inclined!
I’d be inclined to swap out the carburetor for fuel injection, either a throttle-body unit, of if the budget could stand it, a port injection setup from either Borla or Edelbrock. The Borla setup is designed to mimic the velocity stacks from a Weber multi-carb setup. It looks like eight (8) one-barrel carbs on top of the motor, like a Shelby Cobra! Whee!
Lien usually means that there is a loan out on the item and that the title cannot be transferred until that lien is satisfied.
Very typical on newer cars, but may be a mistake on this vehicle. The seller can straighten out the confusion.
A friend of mine had a rusty suicide 4 door 68 with the 429. We called it the ‘burn out car’ as that’s what we did out on country roads when we were bored. Would go through a gallon of gas in about 2 min of idling, sounded sweet with those cherry bombs though.