 Every Thunderbird has a story it could tell... if it could only talk to you. This section will have tales about various Thunderbirds. We are starting with a story about a burgundy 1965 T-Bird Convertible, but we would like to add your story to this section. Email your memories and if possible, jpg pictures as attachments to webmaster@inwthunderbird.org |
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One sunny Sunday morning in 1975 my brother
and I were lounging in the living room reading the Sunday Spokesman
Review newspaper when we spotted an ad for a 1965 T-Bird Convertible
for $1,600. (Remember, this was 1975 and the car was ten years
old.) "Lets go!" Del said and we headed out to find
the Bird. We found the car in a parking lot next to a multi-story condo building on Sumner Avenue, an upscale part of Spokane's South Hill neighborhood. It was burgundy in color with a white top. Up the steps we went and rang the bell to find the owner. The door opened about six inches and the owner identified himself as the seller. He suggested that if we wanted to take it for a drive we could, and handed out the keys through the slightly open door. We agreed, and with keys in hand we trooped back down to the Thunderbird and went for a drive. The car seemed to run out OK. But, the white top was shabby, the paint job was awful (a recent MACCO cheapie job), and the owner had put two spare wheels with snow tires mounted on them in the back seat, where the black tires has discolored the white leatherette with big ugly black crescents. |
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Back
up the steps we when to conclude the deal. The owner still did
not want to let us into his condo, but agreed to sell the car
for $1,200 as I remember it. He signed off on the title and passed
it out the door and we gave him a check. I asked him, "Why do you want to sell the car?" And he responded in a very morose tone, "I won't be needing it anymore." His sad tone of voice left me wondering what exactly he meant by that. I found out about a week later when I read in the newspaper that he had shot himself in the head and committed suicide. He was a psychiatrist. Yes, he was right, he wouldn't be needing it any more. So, off the Thunderbird went to the body shop where it got a complete new refinish in Burgundy, and then a new black top. In retrospect, I think that it would have looked better with a white top, but at the time we were thinking, black. Then a new set of tires and a tune-up completed the work, with the exception of the ugly black discoloration in the white back seat. Later that Summer, I spotted a 1966 Thunderbird Town Landau under some trees behind a little house in Post Falls, Idaho. The car looked pretty rough, but it did have a good white back seat. I bought the car for a few hundred dollars and we towed it home. On closer inspection, the '66 was a horrid mess, but if my memory serves me correctly, that is where we got the good white back seat. The '66 had the optional 428 cu.in. engine. But the total picture for the car was bleak. I finally sold it to a young fellow who was working as a mechanic at Wendle Ford. He only wanted the engine out of it. And he came and towed it away. One discouraging aspect of the '65 rag top was that when we put the top down, there were hydraulic leaks everywhere, and it was a major project to get the top back up again. This was one reason that the car sat in my warehouse for several years, undriven and unused. We had too many other cars to play with to get serious about getting it out for some exercise. A few years later, the telephone rang and a young fellow announced that he had heard that we had a 1965 T-Bird convertible.. That was just what he was looking for, and he wanted to buy it. I explained that we really were not looking to sell it, but that I suppose that anything is for sale if the price is right. He insisted on coming over to see it. So, I met him at my warehouse and he inspected the car, started the engine, and said, "Name your price." I quoted him a price that I thought was sufficiently high, and he said, "I'll take it." He wrote a deposit check for $1,000, and told me that he would be back at 6:00 p.m. the next day to conclude the deal. The next day he no-showed. Sometime later I contacted him by telephone and he said that he was having second thoughts about the car and wanted to look at it again. So, I met him again at the warehouse. This time he started the engine, commented that he thought that it would need a complete new exhaust system, and proceeded to find fault with the car in the most annoying manner. Needless to say I was not happy. I pointed out that we were not seeking to sell the car, that it was him who had been pestering me to sell. We agreed that the deal was off, and that I would give him his deposit check back. The more I thought about this the more disgusted I felt. I had a 5"x7" color print of the car, same as the photo above. I glued his worthless check to the back of the photo with contact cement and mailed it to him. I thought that if he wanted to keep the picture, he was going to have to look at his no-good check also. A few more years passed and once more, the telephone rang and a young fellow announced that he had heard that we owned a 1965 Thunderbird convertible. He had been looking all over for one. In fact he had just made a recent trip to California in an unsuccessful attempt to find one. He had to, just had to, see the car. I explained that we were not looking to sell the car, but that I supposed that anything was for sale if the price was right. I met him at my warehouse. He took one look at the car and said, "Name your price." It seems to me that I told him $5000, and he said, "I'll take it." By now the car had been setting under a dusty tarp for almost ten years. The battery was dead and one tire was flat. I explained that since I had not been looking to sell the car, it would be his responsibility to bring a fresh battery and an air tank to inflate the flat tire. He agreed to be back the next evening and get the car. True to his word, the next evening he was there with a rather scruffy looking friend. They put in the new battery, inflated the flat tire, got it running. While the car was warming up he pulled out a wad of hundred dollar bills that would choke a horse, and proceeded to pay me off. At this point I began thinking... its dark, its raining, these guys look like scum bags. Are they planning to leave here with both the car and the money? Well, I was relieved when I saw the tail lights going down the street. Sure enough, a few weeks later I read in the newspaper that the Thunderbird buyer had been busted for selling drugs. Somehow I just have this sneaking suspicion that laundering the money was a higher priority that finding a Thunderbird. WDM November 2004 |
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