Humanity's love affair with carmaking is over a century old now, and there seems to be no end in sight. As we progress, cars and what they have to offer progress with us, and there's no telling what the future has to offer. To some though, myself included, the golden age of automobile making does not lie ahead, but already came and went.
It's the 1950s and 1960s I'm talking about, two decades that will forever be listed in the industry's history books. Fueled like everything else by the euphoria of the war's end, and later on by a complete switch in ways of thinking, carmaking enjoyed its best times during these two decades.
It is then that names like the Chevrolet Bel Air, Chevrolet Impala, Plymouth Barracuda, Chevrolet Chevelle, Ford Mustang, Chevrolet Camaro, and many, many others were first used. Many of these cars are no longer around, but we still come across them almost on a daily basis. And it's all because of the spell they still cast on us thanks to their design, their engineering, and what they meant for the world.
Of all the cars mentioned above and the many others I left out, the Ford Thunderbird is my personal favorite. Introduced in 1955, it completely transformed what people thought of car design before the war, and would probably have no problem winning any beauty contest even today, in the age of hypercars.
The Thunderbird was around for a long time, as it wasn't pulled from production for good until 2005. It burned through a total of 11 generations and true, not all of them are the pinnacle of Ford's work. But the first three generations, which cover the period from 1955 to 1963, surely were.
My poison is of course the first gen, but the other two aren't shabby either, and my blood gets pumping when I come across representatives of gen two and three as well. Especially when the example is a rare one.
Photo: Barrett-Jackson
That's what the 1963 model you see here has to offer: the looks of a third-gen Thunderbird, the bling of it being a Sports Roadster, and the rarity of the letter M in its VIN. But let's break that down a bit.
The Sports Roadster is one of the packages offered back then by the Blue Oval for the Thunderbird. It came with several unique features, including wire wheels of Kelsey-Hayes provenance, a removable tonneau cover made in fiberglass, a passenger grab bar and, obviously, all the required badging.
The M-code Thunderbird on the other hand meant first and foremost the car used three two-barrel carburetors over the engine instead of a single four-barrel one. The engine was of course the only version available at the time, the then-new 390ci unit.
The combination of an M-code engine and the Sports Roadster package was rather expensive, even for a luxury car the likes of the Thunderbird. Just to give you an idea, the one you're looking at now had an MSRP of $6,286, which would be $63,209 in today's money.
That meant not many of these things were made. According to Barrett-Jackson, the auction house that's responsible for selling this Thunderbird, just 37 of them were produced in this configuration back then, making it even more special.
The Thunderbird seems to pack most of the gear it originally had on. The original engine is there, complete with the three Holley carbs which helped it develop a total of 340 hp and 430 pounds of torque. The engine runs a 3-speed automatic transmission.
Photo: Barrett-Jackson
No visual enhancements were made to the car's exterior and interior, so we get the original lines on the outside and the standard appointments inside: leather seats, power windows, tinted glass, power seats, and air conditioning, among others.
The 1963 M-code Ford Thunderbird will go under the hammer at the end of September in New Orleans. It's a highly documented machine, certified by the Vintage Thunderbird Club International as an authentic car. We're told the Thunderbird Sports Roadster Society also acknowledged this vehicle as a real Sports Roadster, and the Ford build sheet is thrown into the package.
There is no info on how much the seller expects to get for the Thunderbird. For reference, valuation house Hagerty puts a Concours condition Thunderbird at around $57,000, but that probably doesn't take into account the particularities of this exact model.
Worth knowing is that the auction is a no reserve one, meaning the Ford will sell to the highest bidder, no matter the amount of money offered. And that can only mean one of two things: it will either be a dud, or make a splash and enter the history books.
No matter how it goes we'll keep an eye out for this Thunderbird and update this story as soon as we have a figure.
Daniel loves writing (or so he claims), and he uses this skill to offer readers a "behind the scenes" look at the automotive industry. He also enjoys talking about space exploration and robots, because in his view the only way forward for humanity is away from this planet, in metal bodies. Full profile
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