Ford to Show Off Its New T-Bird
Ford Motor Co.’s continuing efforts to persuade American car buyers that it is more than just a truck company takes another step forward today when it unveils a preview edition of its long-awaited 2002 Thunderbird.
The lukewarm consumer acceptance in recent years of some of its cars had industry watchers believing that Ford, like the other domestic auto makers, had lost the ability to make and market small cars. Indeed, the company earns hefty profit on its pickup trucks and sport-utility vehicles and has had a perennial bestseller in the mid-size Taurus, but it has not had a hit small car in years.
That began changing last year with the introduction of the European-designed Ford Focus, already the No. 2-selling small car in the U.S. behind Honda Motor Co.’s Civic.
The T-Bird, although a limited-production vehicle, is expected to further boost the fortunes of Ford’s passenger-car division.
Ford has not priced the new T-Bird, but industry watchers expect it to come in about $30,000 and to be an immediate sellout.
“The whole trick is to make an aspirational car that brings people into your showrooms,” said industry analyst Jim Hossack, calling it “Ford’s PT Cruiser,” a reference to the retro-styled Chrysler delivery truck-cum-minivan that DaimlerChrysler’s dealers cannot keep in stock.
Hossack, vice president of AutoPacific Inc. in Tustin, said his company expects Ford to build about 25,000 Thunderbirds a year, most for sale in the U.S.
The first of the cars, though, are being marketed through Neiman Marcus Group Inc., which earlier collaborated with Ford by offering his-and-hers 1971 Thunderbirds in its 1970 Christmas catalog.
Ford said 200 uniquely outfitted black-and-silver 2002 T-Birds--the preview edition to be shown today--will be offered to gotta-have-it-first customers when the Neiman Marcus catalog starts landing in mailboxes Sept. 25. The price: $41,995.
“The Ford Thunderbird is one of the most treasured automotive nameplates in history,” said J Mays, the auto maker’s vice president for design. “With the Neiman Marcus edition, we wanted to create a very special, very limited number of cars that would stand out as the most cherished of the new Thunderbirds.”
Dearborn, Mich.-based Ford, the world’s No. 2 auto maker, will display the first T-Birds made for the rest of the world at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit in January.
The two-seat, rear-wheel-drive roadsters will be powered by a 3.9-liter, 32-valve V-8 engine mated to a five-speed automatic transmission.
