Fun, fun, fun till her daddy takes the T-bird away

By BOB GREENE

You may have seen the automotive news in recent days:

The Ford Motor Co. reportedly is considering dropping its Thunderbird after the 1997 model year. The T-Bird - 4.2 million of them have been sold since 1955 - is a dismal flop these days. Few people want them - and the only question is why those people who are buying them make the decision to do so.

There is no longer anything special about a Thunderbird. The Thunderbird was once the most exciting car the United States had to offer. All right, a persuasive argument can be made that the Corvette was every bit as cool, or cooler - but there was something about a Thunderbird that made the heart beat a little faster, made the day seem a little brighter, made the sun seem a little higher in the sky. And then Ford did the seemingly impossible - it made the Thunderbird dull and forgettable.

The great years of the Thunderbird were 1955 through 1960. For the first three years, Ford manufactured the tiny two-seaters that most people still think of when they think of classic T-Birds - the cars known as "Little Birds" to Thunderbird aficionados. Then, from 1958 through 1960, Ford modified the car into a four-seater that is known to Thunderbird lovers as the "Square Bird." The Square Bird is what can save the Thunderbird line right now, and make millions upon millions of dollars for Ford, if only the car company's executives will wake up. More on that a few paragraphs down.

But first, some reasons for why the T-Bird went from thrilling to tedious:

The T-Bird is simply the best example of how the American automobile industry put car buyers to sleep. From the days when people eagerly anticipated the unveiling of the each auto company's new models each year, we lapsed into decades in which it was all but impossible to tell one kind of boring, boxy car from another - and who would want to, anyway? Do you remember, in the early 1950s, those black-and-white newsreels of Russian-made cars on the highways around Moscow? Americans would laugh uproariously at those newsreels - at the gray sameness of the Russian government-built cars, at the dreary scene those plodding pillbox cars presented.

So what did we do? We became Russia. In the name of fuel conservation and energy efficiency, the United States went from being the country that produced the most flamboyant and fun-inspiring cars in the world to a country whose highways were jammed with cars even more tired-looking and indistinguishable than anything from those newsreels out of Moscow. And now, in addition to the shoebox-styled sedans on our streets, we have those tall, oversized, Jeep-style things that make the typical suburban family out for a drive seem as if they're expecting to encounter Rommel's troops for a showdown in the desert.

And Ford reportedly is ready to do away with the Thunderbird for good. It's a smart decision - the decision to get rid of the current T-Bird, which doesn't deserve to live. But if Ford uses its corporate head, it can turn this into an eventual victory.

The answer is not to shut down the Thunderbird line. The answer is to keep the name alive - and to bring back the old T-Bird. Exactly as it originally was - make new ones with bodies to the precise specifications of the old ones.

Not the Little Birds - not the T-Birds from 1955 through 1957. They were great-looking cars, but few people would choose to buy them today. The main market for the new incarnation of the Thunderbird will be people who are now in middle age - and there are far too many sore backs out there for Ford to get rich by asking its potential customers to stoop and squeeze into that little two-seater every morning.

No, the Thunderbirds that would once again revolutionize America's car-buying experience are the Square Birds - those once-in-a-lifetime models from 1958, 1959 and 1960. I have loved only one car in my life - and it was a Square Bird. They seat four people, five if you shoehorn someone extra into the back; the doors were designed so that our fathers could easily climb in and out, so there's no reason we can't; and most of all it was an absolute joy to drive and an absolute joy to look at. When the Beach Boys sang "Fun, Fun, Fun," it was no coincidence that the car they were singing about was a Thunderbird.

Imagine that. A car: fun. Ford doesn't even have to spend any money on design. Just dust off the old blueprints, fire up the assembly line, and sit back and wait to count the cash. Seems she forgot all about the library like she told her old man now ...

Chicago Tribune