This 1986 Ford Thunderbird is one of the Vehicles that Killed the Traditional American Car

00:00 Start
00:04 Night Drive
00:22 Startup and headlamps
00:51 Startup and Taillights
01:07 Startup with instrument cluster
01:26 Rabbit acting suspiciously
01:59 Intro - weather, animals
03:37 Start of actual review - Thunderbird history
07:36 Start of actual review of this car - overview
10:55 History of 1986
11:40 Close call with birds
13:55 Beginning of review of this actual car
19:20 The trunk
20:28 Under the hood
24:09 Interior
31:16 Testing the cassette player
32:08 Start of test drive
34:45 Highway drive

The 1983-1988 Thunderbird was the 9th Generation of the famous model, but the first that wasn't a traditional American car - at least not in the sense of design. I would agree that a front engined, rear-wheel-drive car is very apple pie and baseball, but the exterior styling abandoned the squared, Lincolnesque look for something far more round and European, with Ford admittedly using BMW for inspiration.

While I really like the looks of this car, I'm sad that it and a few others were the harbingers of doom for vinyl roofs, opera windows, chrome trim, and other American styling cues of the past. It wasn't too long after this car was made that pretty much every car shared the same basic rounded shape, and the ornate loveliness of our domestic past was tossed on the ash heap of history. Sad stuff.

This car is available at Autohaus of Naples, but will not be on the web site for a while - for information, please call (239) 263-8500.