Leveraging its ownership of the British brand at the time made sense for Ford from a cost-savings perspective, and it's hard to understand why the Supercharged Concept never made it from the auto show dais to dealer lots. The vehicle's self-explanatory name added another 110 ponies to the mix thanks to its blower, which, like the V8 itself, shared much of its design with Jaguar's similar 4.0-liter supercharged setup found under the hood of its coupes and sedans. The following year Ford answered the bell with a peppier 280hp version of the same motor, as well as the Thunderbird Supercharged Concept. Motivation was provided by a relatively modest 3.9L V8 rated at 252 horses, which didn't exactly light too many fires among buyers seeking a drivetrain that could match the car's extroverted looks. The hiatus was brief for the Thunderbird, which returned as a retro-themed convertible for the 2002 model year.
Tuned to provide over 300 horses, the SVE would have been a formidable addition to the Thunderbird family, but the decision to retire the nameplate in 1997 cut short any potential production plans.
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The Thunderbird SVE also gained a five-speed manual transmission (lost when the supercharged V6 version of the car was retired), as well as a bumper and wheel treatment similar to that found on the Cobra. Eager to give the T-Bird the same talons as its Lincoln cousin, by mid-decade Ford's Special Vehicle Engineering team had shoehorned the mightier motor (which was also available in the Mustang Cobra) under its hood. The Mark VIII was notable for delivering nearly 300hp from a 32-valve, 4.6L DOHC V8, which was a major step up over the 205hp, 16-valve version found in the Thunderbird and the Cougar. The Thunderbird was joined by its Mercury Cougar MN-platform twin, while Lincoln offered the Mark VIII, which rode on a modified version of the same chassis called the FN. In the 1990s Ford built a trio of luxury coupes. These are 5 of our favorite Ford Thunderbird concepts and special editions you may not have known existed.
Some of these one-off autos also tested out potential features for the Thunderbird prior to making the decision to put them into production, and were never given the spotlight they deserved. Whether it was the original roadster, the short-lived '60s sedan, or the full-size personal luxury coupe and convertible it eventually became, the Thunderbird was long a symbol of the best that FoMoCo had to offer.Īlthough its pricing often kept it from leading the sales charts, Ford still went out of its way to keep customers interested with a range of unique T-Bird models that explored the limits of performance or helped bolster the brand's design future on the auto show circuit. The Ford Thunderbird spent many years at the top of the automaker's line up as its flagship.