I have mixed feelings about the 2002-5 Ford Thunderbird. I am glad the automaker brought back the storied nameplate and think that this generation had a few interesting design touches. That said, the car strikes me as bigger than was appropriate for a two seater. That resulted in it looking like an embarrassing caricature of the original T-Bird.
Indeed, this car illustrates quite well the limitations of the “retro” design movement. Ford got some of the basic styling cues right while utterly failing to capture the essential sensibility of a 1955-57 Thunderbird.
One could counter that the Retro-Bird wasn’t all that much bigger than a 1957 model. It was only five inches longer (186.3 inches), which came entirely from a longer wheelbase (107.2 inches). Meanwhile, the width was less than an inch more (72 inches).
To my eyes the wheelbase is what most throws off the car’s proportions. Whereas the original Thunderbird’s doors were nestled close to the back wheels, the Retro-Bird’s doors — and greenhouse — are pushed well forward. In addition, the snout ahead of the cowl is shorter. This goes against the original T-Bird’s long hood, short-deck proportions.
So might the Retro-Bird have worked better if the wheelbase had been cut around five inches behind the seats? Probably. To give you a general sense of what that might have looked like, here is a Motor Trend center spread of the T-Bird where the page fold just so happened to do what ordinarily I would need Photoshop to show you (Allison, 2002).
It still looks a bit portly. For example, I would cut the width by at least two inches. That plausibly could have resulted in the doors not being quite so thick.
Platform sharing led to design compromises
Of course, the Retro-Bird was limited by the components it was required to use — the DEW platform it shared with the Lincoln LS sedan and Jaguar S-Type. The Ford Mustang was also loosely based on it (Wikipedia, 2025). Perhaps not so coincidentally, the Retro-Bird had virtually the same wheelbase as the Mustang.
What I wonder is why Ford didn’t just make the Thunderbird a 2+2 if it was stuck with such a long wheelbase. That almost inevitably would have increased its sales and might have actually looked better.
Perhaps Ford management figured that a four-place T-Bird no longer penciled out and that a more retro two-seater with a removable top would be appealing. Yet somehow the Retro-Bird just didn’t have the same magic as a 1957 model — either on the outside or inside.
Ford head designer J Mays suggested that the design was “pretty darn modern. It’s very clean with little detailing. Ornate is retro.” He categorized the T-Bird as being only “40 percent retro” compared to the Chrysler PT Cruiser being “75 percent” and the Volkswagen New Beetle at “70 percent” (Allison, 2002; p. 43).
Do you agree with Mays’ assessment? I don’t consider ornateness to be a key aspect of retro design, nor do I find the T-Bird more modern than retro. The car’s signature features are very much grounded in the 1950s, such as the round head and taillights, the pontoon-style fender shoulders and the roof porthole.
Why wasn’t the T-Bird moved to Mustang’s platform?
The Retro-Bird may have primarily died because its factory and platform were on the chopping block, but Sajeev Mehta (2023) suggested that Ford could have switched the car to the Mustang’s platform and factory.
“But Ford’s new direction, The Way Forward, had no room for expensive tomfoolery: The company was hemorrhaging cash, putting up the crown jewels as collateral on $23.6 billion in loans, and fighting for its survival a mere three years before its GM and Chrysler counterparts declared bankruptcy,” Mehta (2023) concluded.
That makes some sense, but even if Ford had been doing better financially it might have still pulled the plug. Production peaked in 2002 with over 31,000 T-Birds leaving the factory, but it was all downhill from there: Under 15,000 in 2003, roughly 13,000 in 2004 and a bit over 9,000 in 2005 (Thunderbird Specialities, 2025).
Also see ‘Older Ford Mustangs got too big but not the newer ones?’
As a point of comparison, even in the four-seater’s final year of 1997, production almost hit 74,000 units. This was more than the two-seater’s entire four-year run. When Motor Trend did its first road test of the Retro-Bird it asked whether a two-seater was “(b)rave, crazy, inspired, or stupid?” (Allison, 2002; p. 37). I would take Door No. 4.
NOTES:
Specifications and production figures were from Automobile Catalog (2025), Flammang and Kowalke (1999), and Thunderbird Specialties (2025).
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RE:SOURCES
- Allison, Wes; 2002. “2002 Ford Thunderbird: The next great American Classic?” Motor Trend. July issue: pp. 36-46.
- Automobile Catalog; 2025. “Full detailed specifications listing and photo gallery.” Accessed April 22.
- Flammang, James M. and Ron Kowalke; 1999. Standard Catalog of American Cars, 1976-1999. Third Ed. Krause Publications, Iola, WI.
- Mehta, Sajeev; 2023. “Ford’s 2002–05 Thunderbird could finally fly as a future classic.” Hagerty. Posted Sept. 18.
- Thunderbird Specialities, 2025. “Thunderbird Production – Feature Cars, Colors & Numbers.” Page accessed April 22.
- Wikipedia; 2025. “Ford Thunderbird.” Page last modified February 22.
PHOTOGRAPHY:
- Fordheritagevault.com: 2002 Ford Thunderbird
I think the 2002-05 T bird looks a little more like the early 60s bird than the first generation (except for the two seater part.)