If you’re like me, you maintain a list of vehicles in your head that you’d certainly give a whirl if it felt into your lap. The Ford Thunderbird Turbo Coupe is one such a vehicle for me, as I’ve always dug the racy exterior, the turbocharged powerplant, and the availability of the 5-speed manual transmission. The Thunderbird shown here on Facebook Marketplace looks quite tidy and the seller reportedly has too many toys, so it’s time to wind down. The asking price is $6,000 and thanks goes to Barn Finds reader Rocco B. for the find.
I actually thought long and hard about taking on one of these as a project many years ago. It was at my friend’s property in Georgia, and featured the desirable manual gearbox. Ultimately, I passed on the car, but not before I poured over one in a local junkyard to grab some small parts that were specific to the TBird. The body molding with the red stripes, the Marchal fog lamps, the Snowflake wheels – these turbocharged coupes had featured lots of details you didn’t find on other Thunderbirds. The seller notes that his car has been resprayed, which explains the clean finish.
From this angle, you can see the seller has another project waiting in the garage. The interior is clean but also unrestored. The dash pad might be hiding some cracks, but the seller doesn’t mention it. The 5-speed is what you want to find in one of these, and in 1988, the three pedals model will help it reach 60 in a little over 8 seconds. The seller reports that the Thunderbird has only a few outstanding needs, including a muffler and a passenger headlight. Surprisingly, he is just the second owner, which is a detail we rarely see with these Thunderbirds.
In 1988, the Thunderbird Turbo Coupe (and other turbocharged Ford products) benefitted from improvements that included an air-to-air intercooler from the Mustang SVO. A smaller turbocharger helped the car spool up faster, and performance times increased significantly over the prior years’ models. ECU and exhaust improvements also helped, and the turbocharged Thunderbird now produced 190 horsepower and 240 lb.-ft. of torque. The seller doesn’t tell us much about the suspension and whether the slick electro-hydraulic components still work, but the price seems fair for a rust-free car with some minor sorting required.
This looks like a really nice Turbo Coupe that hasn’t been beaten into the ground. I like the dark blue too, not a color you see very often. I’m wondering what’s lurking under that dash cover 🤔? Hopefully it’s just there to protect it. These are very fun to drive with the stick. And the price is very realistic too if it all checks out in person. Nice write up Jeff!!
I’ve always thought the Turbo Coupes were a well-done package. They had sporty styling enhancements and decent performance. The 5-speed is a plus. This example needs a bit of work and attention to detail, but perhaps there are no big issues. And it’s cheap.
Good looking truck too. Late 80s-early 90s Ford had a pretty great lineup of vehicles.
1956 Chevrolet peeking out of the garage.