In the meantime, these Squarebirds will probably be roosting here for the foreseeable future. On the other hand there may be no gas and all of these may have been converted to barbeque pits. I expect this cube will have been long melted down. I wonder what my grandkids will be doing by the time they are my age. I may own a ’57 Chevy but this silver Nissan (below) is what I drive (at 30-35 mpg). I didn’t put my money where my (old car restoring) mouth is. Well, I may be a fan of old cars but here is the dirty little secret that applies to most of us. I think it’s now worth about $8 per 100 lbs. Not long enough to even remove the straps. I can see how far it got before those intentions dissolved. I’m sure the owner had the best of intentions, with visions of a rejuvenated Squarebird with new paint, interior and a rebuilt engine. I’m sure that the engine (a 352) was removed with the best of intentions. Even in Texas where there aren’t many Tin Worms, if you ignore something long enough the Tin Worms will colonize. When you park a car outside long enough it starts to deteriorate. He is probably already upset that he was unable to sell them in 15 years. I did not tell him that looking at them reminded me of seeing the wreckage of the Titanic or walking around in one of the mothball fleets. He said he had sold one and actually seen it running around. I talked to the guy who owns them and he told me their story and how he had gotten a good package deal. When I first saw them, there was a third one roosting with them. They have been setting in the same place for more than 15 years. When I used to commute I would see these cars every day. This beauty started as part of one of those plans. Sometimes we have grand plans for restoring these things. It wasn’t going to set any new land speed records, but it kept up with traffic and would cruise at any sane speed you might choose. Of course when you are comparing it to my 66 VW, anything is comfortable. I promise you, it was a comfortable travel car with as much luxury as I cared to have. I took many a trip from Connecticut to Maine in that car. He would like to thank all you taxpayers that paid for the facilities at the shipyard that he used to rebuild that engine. I had a friend when I was in Submarines that drove a 1958 model. You probably have your favorites, but mine were the 1958-1960 models. That can’t be good, can it? Well, some years just wore the bloat better than others. Tom’s article featuring that bloated baby Lincoln prompted me to look again.įor youngsters from my era who liked the Vettes and the 1955-57 ‘Birds, 1958 was the start of the Thunderbird’s bloat. There are a couple of ’59 T-Birds here locally that I looked at some time ago, but I couldn’t find the passion to generate an article. That may have been a good decision, but that would be an individual call. Ford thought they had a better idea when they stuffed a back seat in the ’58 model. When I saw Tom’s article on the ’74 Thunderbird I was reminded of why I quit liking Thunderbirds in general, and of the last one that I really did like.
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