Chris Read jumped in at the deep end, age 25, when he bought this ’64 Thunderbird as his first old car. It was running, but needed work, so he commenced learning in the best way possible – by fixing it himself! Now he drives it everywhere…
Words and photography: Zack Stiling
The original Ford Thunderbird of 1955 has much to its credit, and everyone knows it. It more or less invented the personal luxury car and gave Ford a dissimilar but much-needed and successful alternative to Chevrolet’s Corvette. Aside from that, it was the epitome of elegance and class – one of the single greatest examples of Fifties American automotive design. It tends to get overlooked, but elegance and class equally abound in the 1964-66 Thunderbird. Its arrow-sharp profile perfectly captured the zeitgeist, of crisp Ivy League tailoring and low, angular designs which would now be termed ‘mid-century modern’. On the highway, it looked like one of its namesake Gerry Anderson rockets, streaking through the stratosphere at hypersonic speed.
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Notwithstanding an entertainingly acerbic review by Car & Driver which dismissed it as “205.5 inches of steel and chrome with one purpose: gratification of the ego… a massive assault in achieving all that is frivolous and Mittyesque in a motor car”, in period, the ’64 was a tremendous hit. Since 1955, the motor trade had come to recognise such a thing as the ‘Thunderbird market’ and the ‘be-gadgeted and bedazzling’, ’64 catered very much for that. Car & Driver was out on a limb; it was not meant to be driven as a sports car, but with the gentle grace of a luxury car, relaxed and comfortable under all conditions.
The Thunderbird market knew what it liked and, consequently, 1964 was its best ever year with 92,465 built. From 1959 to 1967, annual production tended to fluctuate around the 70,000 mark, so 1964 was exceptional. Apart from the fresh restyle which buyers obviously found very appealing, the only new feature for 1964 was the Silent-Flo ventilation system, but there were plenty of other luxury options to appeal to wealthy businessmen and socialites.
For all their good looks and refined qualities, it’s still possible to pick up reasonable ’64s today for not too much money, a fact Chris Read exploited to his fullest advantage. An old American car was something he’d always hankered after, having inherited the interest from his father. He says: “My dad had American cars when I was growing up, such as a Bel Air and a Ford Ranch Wagon. Unfortunately, fuel prices went up at the end of Eighties and he had to change to British cars, but they were still interesting ones, like Ford Granadas. I’d wanted an American car since I was a teenager and my dad had insured me on his Dodge Ram, but I wanted something older.”
Chris didn’t have any particular car in mind, so it was quite a stroke of luck that he ended up with a two-plus-two hardtop which would have been the pinnacle of automotive high fashion when new. He says: “I didn’t know what I was looking for, but I went to a car lot for American cars and was looking at an early Galaxie when my dad said, ‘Look at this ’65 Thunderbird.’ He twisted my arm and I started looking at Thunderbirds, and I found this one online. It was on a farm, in an old cow shed, under a moth-eaten cover, and I put a deposit down. The interior trim was all in the boot, with some spares.”
There were three different Thunderbirds offered for 1964 and the ordinary hardtop model was the most popular, accounting for 60,552 of the year’s sales alongside the more expensive convertible and Landau hardtop. All models were equipped with the 390cu in, 300bhp V8. Today, it may be difficult to appreciate just how exclusive and upmarket a car the Thunderbird was, but with a base price of $4486 for the hardtop, it was $1000 more than the top-tier Mercury, and almost twice as expensive as the first Mustangs. This particular T-bird was imported in 2016 and registered in September 2017. Chris bought it just a few months later having promised himself that he’d have an American car before he turned 26. It drove well enough to get him back home to London, but that’s not to say it drove well. He had only just managed to pull onto his driveway when it gave up and overheated. Needless to say, a crowd of swivel-necked neighbours assembled to see what this strange old car was doing in their neck of the woods…
The steering was shaking all over place due to the steering column being worn, so Chris had it rebuilt by a former Ford Dagenham employee. The overheating was resolved by a thorough overhaul of the cooling system, with a new radiator and thermostat installed along with the addition of an electric fan. Once Chris started to tinker, he was surprised to find that he’d driven home without the distributor cap being clipped down, but the engine had been perfectly smooth all the way.
With the Thunderbird being Chris’s first old car, there would be an element of learning involved, but with guidance from his father and input from other owners, he hasn’t encountered any major trouble and has spent the past five years driving it almost non-stop. From the beginning he was keen to be quite hands-on, so he immediately set about bringing it up to a higher cosmetic standard and converting it to an alternator. The handsome Vintage Burgundy paint is a correct 1964 Thunderbird colour and, so far as Chris knows, it was original to the car, but it was looking pretty tired.
He says of it: “It had a few rust spots and messy bits of bodywork, but overall it was okay. I had to learn a lot myself, but then I discovered various Facebook groups. I was thinking about the car when I was in Venice, so I asked a question on Facebook and loads of people put their two cents in. One guy who was rebuilding a ’65 really helped.” For a few jobs, Chris enlisted the help of girlfriend Isabelle, who was only too happy to assist with retrimming the boot and didn’t mind getting her hands dirty replacing the fuel tank.
He continues: “It was a really uncomfortable drive because the power-steering was bad and it had the wrong front springs. They were too big. Things were bodged so much, so it was a case of ‘unbodging’ bodged work. The aim was to get it running and driving like new and I think I’ve achieved that. The steering now turns when you turn it, and it takes bends like a Thunderbird of that era should. All the electrics are working, and I Dynamatted the inside before I put the interior back. I replaced the rubber seals and weather strips because it was whistling at speed – it’s actually an enjoyable drive now.”
Talking of the steering, an interesting feature of the car is the ‘Swing-Away’ steering wheel, a popular option since 1961 which had become standard by 1964, and which facilitates easier and more elegant entry and exit by doing what it says and swinging 10 inches forward towards the ‘Flight-Deck instrument panel’, as Ford’s marketing men termed it. “Instrumentation and controls have jet-age efficiency and style,” they boasted.
The other point of interest is the Silent-Flo ventilation, a system particularly beneficial to smokers, whereby the driver could operate a switch on the dash and open a vent underneath the rear window, thus permitting the flow of fresh air without having to open the windows. The engine benefitted from a head-off overhaul by Alders Automotive (www.aldersautomotive.co.uk/ Tel. 01323 848448), along with a new carburettor and fuel pump. Chris also saw fit to replace the straight-through exhaust with some stainless pipes. “I live in a cul-de-sac,” he explains. “It’s loud because it’s a V8, but it was louder then.” Unfortunately, the car came from America with no paperwork, save for a sticker in the windscreen indicating that it had last been serviced in Washington, which seemed to contradict the seller’s claim that it was a California car. This doesn’t bother Chris in the slightest: “It’s got no history, but we’ll make some.”
Now, Chris has almost completed the renovation of a 1979 Ford F-150 and, while he doesn’t really want to part with the Thunderbird, he might be persuaded to sell it if something else catches his eye. His boss has proposed swapping it for his Galaxie 500, so that temptation is always there, but he’s certain about one thing: “If I sell it, the money will go straight into another car.” He adds, “I now take my dad to shows because he doesn’t drive anymore. He really likes it and doesn’t want me to sell it. I think he’s more attached to it than I am, and that’s coming from a man who’s owned 56 cars!” Chris and Isabelle are now both very much immersed in vintage Americana, and since they’ve sorted the Thunderbird out it’s more than paid them back, taking them all over the country during the warmer months. It’ll be a sad day if the car goes, but whatever comes next will surely be just as special.
Chris would like to thank all the friends and specialists who helped him on his way, especially Chris and the team at Back to Life Cars, the team at Alders Automotive, Kevin and the UK Thunderbird Club and “Kris the legend (he knows who he is)”.
