2005 Ford Thunderbird Preview

Ford's New Classic

Back from the dead, the new Thunderbird is a winner.

The new Ford  Thunderbird, which goes on sale this August, is not a styling exercise, or a made-up retro-mobile like the Chrysler PT Cruiser. It's an instant classic, a real car with great lines, excellent engineering, superior handling and just the right dose of the 1955 T-Bird to make buyers go crazy for it. And, unlike the New Beetle, we think people will stay interested in this car for years to come.

That's giving Ford an awful lot of credit, especially considering how badly the T-Bird was selling (and looking) by the time the last-generation car was finally killed off in 1997.

But the 2002 Thunderbird isn't anything like the oafish beast discontinued five years ago. In fact, in many ways it's nothing like the 1955 original, which -- contrary to popular belief -- wasn't designed to go after the Corvette, but was meant to be a "personal luxury car," meaning it was very fast in a straight line, but not made for competition-level cornering.

This new Ford, however, is something in between a sports car and luxury vehicle, with agile handling even in tight turns, but enough give in the suspension for comfortable everyday driving. It gets a potent, 3.9-liter V-8 cribbed from the Lincoln LS that hardly ever breaks a sweat, and a fully independent suspension tuned especially for duty on this car. We tested the T-Bird on California highways and coastal mountain roads recently, and whether we rushed it along straightaways at 100 miles per hour or swung it hard into hairpin turns, it showed effortless composure, with only a little body shake on rough pavement.

Performance aside, this car is an absolute knockout. At a stop in Santa Cruz, a local retiree named Al Richard walked up to our white tester with two-tone red interior and said, "This is the neatest thing Ford's done in years. It's just simple, elegant, cool." And every time we pulled to a stoplight or got out to stretch our legs, there was a thumbs-up, a grin or a whistle from people of all ages. Even a die-hard 1960 Corvette owner stopped at Big Sur to check out our car, and she pronounced it "magnificent."

Objectively, the design of the T-Bird is actually fairly modern, with even fore/aft weight distribution, a large cockpit for a two-seater (there's much more shoulder and leg room here than in a Mazda Miata, BMW Z3 or Porsche Boxster) and reasonably short overhangs at the wheels. But the hood scoop, egg-crate grille, and round tail lamps that grow out of the long shoulders of the car (which themselves ghost the tail fins of the original) all signal styling of a different era, though none of these cues is heavy-handed or awkwardly derivative. The most important styling signature, though, is the reverse-wedge shape -- the nose of the car arcs higher than the tail, like the original -- which makes the T-Bird less earnest than most modern, neutered-by-wind-tunnel sport tourers.

Is it perfect? No. The base price is $35,495, but if you want the removable top you'll have to fork over $38,995. That's a lot of money for a two-seater. We also dislike the clunky brakes that work decently but don't come on as smoothly as we'd prefer, and were disappointed in the cheap look of some interior materials. Then again, there's nothing else like this car in the world today, which makes this T-Bird very hard not to love.