Norm Keller inherited a very nice, all-original ’58 T-Bird hardtop from his wife’s parents: white, with a cheery interior trimmed in Fiesta-Ware turquoise.

Flamboyant and fussy beside the clean two-seater, the so-called Squarebird showed considerable restraint compared to a ’58 Buick or Oldsmobile-or, for that matter, a ’58 Corvette. The convertible top itself disappeared into the trunk, leaving no visible trace-and very little baggage space. He carefully coordinated interior and exterior design, visual-ly splitting the ’Bird into right and left modules from dashboard to taillights. To do that, however, the body engineers had to drop the T-Bird’s passengers down low between relatively high doorsills and a massive driveline tunnel.īoyer contemplated this situation, then decided to hide the driveline tunnel inside an aircraft-style console-a cliché today, but a fresh idea in ’58. 118) and nearly four inches lower from road to roof, yet surrendering only a quarter-inch each of ground clearance and rear-seat headroom. Its unibody was a model of efficiency, five inches shorter in wheelbase than a full-size Ford (113 inches vs. Still, the incubation of the four-seater swallowed some $40 million. An all-new, four-seat unibodied ’Bird, on the other hand, could share components with an all-new, unibodied Lincoln and Continental-at an all-new facility in Wixom, Michigan. It was McNamara who saw the numbers wouldn’t add up: Build- ing Little Birds required parts from a full-size Ford body that had been replaced for ’57 and was hampering big Ford production at overcrowded River Rouge. While product manager Thomas Case was still investigating the cost of a ’58 two-seat- er in February ’57, Bill Boyer’s design studio had been pushing clay for a four-seater since mid-’55. McNamara could see even greater potential for a four-seat variation on the theme. Yet almost from the Little Bird’s birth, Ford division general manager Robert S. The two-seat T-bird of 1955-57 sold far better than anyone expected, topping 21,000 units in what would prove its final year.

1958 tbird