By 1965, the Ford Thunderbird had grown into a luxurious 4,500-lb boulevard cruiser with some memorable gee-whiz features.

As we’ve chronicled before here at Mac’s Motor City Garage, each successive generation of the Ford Thunderbird earns a nickname from the car enthusiast community. First come the 1955-57 two-seater Baby Birds, then the 1958-60 Squarebirds, followed by the 1961-63 Bullet Birds. The fourth-generation models of 1964-66 are known by T-bird fanciers as Flair Birds, though we’re not sure if that name has stuck quite as well as the other Thunderbird handles.
By its fourth generation, the Thunderbird had departed far from its origins to become an all-out luxury car with barely a trace of sports car flavoring—the curb weight was now over 4,500 lbs. With a base price of $4,394, by far the most expensive model in the Ford model line for ’65, the Thunderbird was priced a bit higher than even its upmarket rival, the Buick Riviera. As the pioneer of the personal luxury class, the T-Bird outsold the Riviera by a comfortable margin, too: nearly 75,000 units, compared to not quite 35,000 for the Buick.
The Flair Bird’s marketing tagline, “the private world of Thunderbird,” spoke to the nearly endless list of standard and optional luxury features, but the two most memorable items, even to this day, were the fabulous wrap-around rear passenger seat and, brand new for ’65, the gee-whiz sequential turn signals. As car-crazy little kids in the ’60s, we were impressed by these neat gimmicks. Courtesy of Ford Heritage at the UK’s National Motor Museum, we have this nicely preserved dealer film singing the praises of the Thunderbird for ’65. Video below.

​For 1964, American Motors launched one of the more novel marketing campaigns in Motor City history.

In 1964, the American car industry was going crazy with horsepower. With its Total Performance campaign, Ford was launching full-scale assaults on Le Mans, the Indy 500, drag racing, and NASCAR. Chrysler’s Dodge and Plymouth brands fought for domination in NASCAR and on the drag strips with the 426 Hemi, and while GM was officially out of the racing business, the automaker aggressively pursued the performance consumer market with the Corvette, the Chevy Super Sport models, and two of the cars that kicked off the ’60s muscle car movement, the Pontiac GTO and Olds 442.

​Meanwhile, little American Motors, the smallest member of the Detroit four and famous for zigging when the rest of the Motor CIty was zagging, went in a totally opposite direction. Check out the remarkable 1964 print ad above. Here, the company announced that it was not chasing the muscle market, no sir. “The only race Rambler cares about,” the company crowed, “Is the human race!”. It was a bold stroke.
But that is not to say that American Motors products of the era were bland or lacking in personality In fact, Ramblers were loaded with their own quirky and fascinating character, as we hope to show you here.

​The most popular product in the American Motors lineup for ’64 was its mid-priced, mid-sized entry, the Rambler Classic. Completely restyled the previous year, the Classic line included 550, 660, and 770 trim levels, while the body styles included two and four-door sedans, a four-door wagon, and new for ’64, a two-door pillarless hardtop.
While the exterior sheet metal was fairly fresh, under the skin the Classic shared much with the Ramblers of the ’50s Nash era, with torque-tube drive and long-coil suspension on all four corners  At mid season, a limited-edition Classic 770 hardtop called the Typhoon was rolled out as a promotional tool for the company’s new 232 CID straight six engine. (Read about the Typhoon here.)  The Classic lineup also included a 287 CID V8, but sixes were far more popular among Rambler’s thrifty customer base, accounting for more than 80 percent of Classic sales. Trademark Rambler features on the Classic included the automaker’s famed fold-down front seats, another carryover from the Nash era.

​The top of the line at American Motors for 1964 was the Rambler Ambassador, above. (In these years, the company was called American Motors but the cars were all branded and marketed as Ramblers across the model lines.) The Ambassador was in fact built on the same 112-inch wheelbase unit-construction platform as the Classic, but with additional equipment and a single trim level, the 990. Features included a blacked-out grille that spelled out AMBASSADOR and a 327 CID V8 available in both two-barrel (250 hp) and four-barrel (270 hp) tune.
Options of note on the Ambassador included bucket seats with a fold-down center section and the novel Twin-Stick transmission. Available on all Ramblers, Twin-Stick  used a pair of levers to operate a three-speed overdrive gearbox (more about Twin-Stick here.) Body styles were limited to a four-door sedan, a four-door wagon, and a two-door hardtop.

​The big news for Rambler in 1964 was the compact and sporty American, completely redesigned that year under American Motors design chief Richard A. Teague. The wheelbase was lengthened from 100 to 106 inches to increase rear passenger space and modern ball-joint suspension was added up front. One strangely anachronistic feature was the base powerplant, a 195 CID flathead six, which offered only 90 hp but allowed the company to price the American 220, a stripped-down entry model, at less than $2,000. For those seeking a little more glamour, the snazzy 440 trim level included a handsome two-door hardtop (above) and a convertible (lead photo).
Of course, Rambler owners were known to be practical folk, so it’s not surprising that station wagons (below) were important elements in the Rambler lineup . All three car  lines—American, Classic, and Ambassador—included wagons in ’64, and all were four-doors that offered folding seats, twin-circuit brakes, and other sensible-shoes Rambler features. Of the nearly 380,000 Ramblers registered in 1964, more than 100,000 were station wagons. But even American Motors could not ignore the expanding youth market, and in 1968 the company officially reversed course, embracing racing and performance in a major way.

The Lincoln Continental Mark IV of 1972-76 was the American luxury coupe of the 1970s. Here’s a Lincoln-Mercury dealer film with a closer look at the 1975 product line.

Few products from the Motor City have been as well-defined in the market as the Continental Mark IV. Produced by Ford’s Lincoln-Mercury division from 1972 to 1976. the Mark IV was the sleeker, flashier successor to the successful 1969-71 Mark III. (Read the story behind the Mark III here.) A team of two designers and six modelers under the direction of veteran FoMoCo stylist Wes Dahlberg developed the Mark IV’s imposing profile, which, surprisingly, was only four inches longer (and 200 lbs lighter!) than its predecessor. When Ford president Bunkie Knudsen saw it, he reportedly said, “Gentlemen, that is the next Mark… Don’t change anything.”

Of course, all you hardcore Lincoln enthusiasts know this wasn’t the first Continental Mark IV, as Lincoln also produced a Mark IV in 1959. But when the Mark III was introduced for ’69, the Mark series roman numerals were reset—rather like a TV or movie franchise reboot.

​Anyway, by 1975 the Mark IV was in the fourth year of its five-year product cycle, so Lincoln offered a series of  special trim packages to offer buyers some exclusivity. As showcased in this original Lincoln-Mercury dealer film, these included the Lipstick and Blue Diamond luxury groups. (L-M expanded on this theme in 1976 with its Blass, Cartier, Givency, and Pucci fashion-designer editions.) Of course, the Mark IV will be eternally remembered for its signature styling features: the faux-Rolls grille, spare tire bump, and opera windows, and all three are on prominent display here. Video below.

​Although only offered for two short model years, the Starliner name captivates car enthusiasts even today. When it was introduced for the 1960 model year, the radical fastback roof was unlike anything Ford had offered since 1948, and it was attached to one of the most flamboyant designs ever to come from Dearborn. When it returned for 1961, it was perhaps the only recognizable feature from the year before, and it has been perennially identified with the resurgence of Ford performance in the early '60s—both in its absence for 1962, and in the way it led to the creation of the memorable 1963½ semi-fastback Sports Hardtop.
While the name Starliner sounds like a passenger ship for the cosmos, it was a natural extension of Ford styling and marketing themes of the era. Automobiles were the technological marvels of the early 20th century, but they had become thoroughly commonplace by the post-World-War-II era. In such a mature market, it was natural to attempt to associate cars with increasingly more glamorous feats of engineering: first piston-engine airplanes (think of the grille of a 1949 or '50 Ford), then jet aircraft (the afterburner taillamps and faux side scoops of 1952), and after the October 1957 launch of Sputnik I, outer space.
Ford really liked that "-liner" tag in the 1950s. First came the Crestliner, which arrived for 1950. The Crestliner utilized Ford's conventional pillared sedan body, but with a padded roof and extra trim to create a halo model to compete with the Chevrolet Bel Air hardtop. Although the Victoria hardtop became available with the 1951 line, the Crestliner continued in production alongside.
For 1952, Crestline (the "r" dropped) became the top Ford trim level and encompassed not only Victoria hardtops but convertibles, which Ford for the first time dubbed Sunliner, a name that would last almost a decade. For 1954, another 'liner joined the Crestline series: a variation on the hardtop with a transparent panel above the front seats, called the Skyliner.
Ford was a company in transition in this era, and the Crestline series was replaced for 1955, with the new Fairlane series (named for Henry Ford's estate in Dearborn, Fair Lane) slotted at the top. The Sunliner was a part of this series, as was the Skyliner, where it formed the basis for the memorable Crown Victoria Skyliner of 1955 and '56.

​Ford Motor Company went public in 1956, with the Ford family allowing outside shareholders for the first time since Henry clawed back control from his initial investors in the 1910s. With new voices to be considered, big changes were afoot and among them were much fancier Fords—cars that came at the expense of the traditional badge hierarchy, especially Mercury. One of the first results was the long-wheelbase 1957 Ford Fairlane 500.
The Fairlane 500 series offered considerable luxury for a Ford-branded car and accordingly received both the Sunliner and Skyliner models. The Skyliner badge no longer denoted a transparent roof panel on a hardtop, however. Now, instead, the car's entire steel roof assembly retracted into the trunk area to provide true open-air motoring and completely weather-tight comfort in the same car.
Although it was produced through 1959, the retractable Skyliner was heavy and expensive. It also mandated a roofline that was out of step with styling trends in the late 1950s. Chrysler had introduced its Forward Look line for 1957 with the tagline "Suddenly it's 1960." General Motors responded first, scrapping the last Harley Earl "longer, lower, wider" designs and coming out with the swoopy 1959 body, which included a fastback-style hardtop that was quickly dubbed the "bubble top."
Although the 1959 Ford is now considered a classic and indeed was even selected for a Gold Medal for Exceptional Styling at the World's Fair in Brussels, Belgium, Ford stylists clearly thought something more in the vein of the Forward Look was warranted. After all, Mopar had gotten to 1960 three years early.
When the full-size Ford debuted for 1960 (alongside the new Falcon compact), the derivative styling was obvious. In many ways it resembled a Fordified 1959 Chevrolet. Even the trademark round taillamps had been discarded in favor of a half-moon design, six to a side, which seemed to echo the 1960 Impala. While objectively good looking to many observers, the traditional Ford buyer was repelled, and sales suffered accordingly.
Ford built 464,336 examples of the 1959 Galaxie (the first year for that nameplate, which was created above the Fairlane 500 and used a Thunderbird-style roofline), but the 1960 numbers fell to 289,268, of which 68,641 were the new Starliner hardtop. Ford may have felt the Victoria name, which had previously graced hardtop bodies, warranted replacement given the nature of the new roofline—and the fact that the older body name dated from the carriage era and was first used by Ford on the Model A.

Those who purchased a 1960 Ford got a car that, aside from the driveline, was entirely new. The 1960 Galaxie was longer (213.7 inches on a 119-inch wheelbase), lower, and wider (81.5 inches) than its 1959 counterpart (208 inches long on a 118-inch wheelbase and 76.6 inches wide). The horizontal fins added to the impression of width, and often the breadth is the most memorable feature to those who remember the cars new. The 1960 Ford was also heavy, with a V-8 powered Starliner tipping the scales at 3,667 pounds, versus 3,439 pounds for a 1959 Galaxie Club Victoria. One place the new Ford body did well was at the racetrack. The extra weight didn't help in the NHRA's fledgling stock classes, but the slippery shape was welcomed by teams at NASCAR's oval tracks. Also welcome was the new 360-hp 352-cu.in. FE-series big-block V-8. The FE had debuted for 1958 under the hoods of Ford and Edsel cars with displacements of 332- and 352-cu.in. (Ford) and 361-cu.in. (Edsel), but because of the 1957 AMA racing ban, its performance potential had never been seriously plumbed. Now that was beginning to change.
More pedestrian Starliners could be had with the sedate and thrifty 145-hp, 223-cu.in. six-cylinder; the base, 185-hp, 292-cu.in. Y-block V-8; or the 352 V-8 with 235 or 300 hp. Transmission choices were all column shifted: a basic Borg- Warner three-speed manual, an overdrive version of the same, or the well-respected Ford three-speed automatic.
For 1961, Ford learned from buyer response and kept what worked (the basic chassis, the driveline, and that sharp Starliner roof), discarded what didn't (the excessive size and GM-like styling), and created a Galaxie that looked entirely new from the beltline down. The full-width grille was totally different, the horizontal fins were replaced by the modest canted type first seen in 1957, and the afterburner taillamps were back. On the posh Galaxie line, ribbed-aluminum stone guards (often termed "washboards" by enthusiasts) showed up behind the rear wheels.
The 1961 Starliner was a more manageable size than its 1960 predecessor. The 119-inch wheelbase remained, but overall length was down to 209.9 inches. The newer car was also lighter, at 3,615 pounds with the base Y-block V-8, now down-rated to 175 hp. The Mileage Maker six was also down in power, to 135 hp. The big news, however, was with the FE-series engines. The 352 was now relegated to two-barrel induction, with 220 hp. The basic block had been bored and stroked to displace 390-cu.in. for the hotter engines. More practical lead foots could order the hydraulic-lifter 300-hp Thunderbird V-8, and those willing to periodically adjust mechanical lifters could have the 375-hp Thunderbird Special. A dealer-installed manifold with triple two-barrel carburetors boosted the rating of the 375-hp engine to 401 hp, and proved a credible threat on both the drag strip and the NASCAR tracks.
Sales rebounded for 1961, with a total of 349,665 Galaxies produced, though only 29,669 of those were Starliners, making them rarer than the 1960 edition. Ford evidently blamed its styling, giving the Galaxie line a slab-sided makeover for 1962, which included eliminating the Starliner hardtop to focus solely on the Thunderbird-type formal roof, which had been reintroduced for 1961. Even the Club Victoria name had been revived.
The losers were those on the NASCAR ovals, where the "box top" roofline proved far less aerodynamic and placed the Ford hardtops at a disadvantage, despite a new 405-hp, 406-cu.in. version of the FE V-8. Ford revived the Starliner roof in an attempt to skirt the rules—instead of being permanently attached to a hardtop car, the roof was called the Starlift and intended as a removable hardtop for Sunliner convertibles. NASCAR disallowed it after just one race, and it appears none were ever sold to the public.
Finally, partway through the 1963 model year, Ford found its solution. The 1963½ Sports Hardtop revived the aerodynamic properties of the Starliner, though not its actual shape or the name. The 1965 Mustang fastback roof was closer and if you look at present-production Mustangs, it's clear that the Ford Starliner, while around only briefly, had a lasting effect on Ford styling.
There's more to the Starliner story than just racing glory, however. The styling of the 1960 and '61 Fords, before the Cuban Missile Crisis and President Kennedy's assassination, was the last hurrah of forward-looking '50s optimism in auto design. Those who own them recognize the Starliner as the pinnacle of those trends and cherish them appropriately. Whether you think of them as ground-bound starships or just time machines to the early '60s, there's just something wonderful about a Starliner.

Article courtesy of Hemmings, written by David Conwill.

The original Ford Mustang Mach 1 was a sensation from the time it hit the streets in the 1969 model year.
After a 13-year vacation, Ford has revived the Mach 1 name for a high-performance version of the Mustang that’s due to appear in the showrooms in the spring of 2021. So naturally, we figured it would be fun to roll the clock back to 1969 when the original Mach 1 appeared. Available only in the fastback Sportsroof body style, the ’69 Mach 1 featured special paint, trim, and equipment, as well as a full list of powertrain possibilities, from a 351 Cleveland two-barrel V8 with 250 hp to the fearsome 428 Cobra Jet V8,

​The 428 Cobra Jet, which initially appeared in the Mustang midway through the ’68 model year, was a game changer for the Dearborn carmaker. For all its success in global motorsports in the ’60s, from Indy to Daytona to LeMans, Ford didn’t really have a championship contender down at muscle-car street level. Assembled from existing pieces in the Ford performance parts bins and rated at a demure 335 hp, the Cobra Jet was a solid 13-second performer at the local drag strips, bowing to no one.
In fact, some will say that from many angles, the CJ Mustang was a better everyday street performer than the exotic and expensive Boss 429. Meanwhile, the Mach 1’s attractive appearance and performance package, coupled to an aggressive marketing campaign, made it a fast mover in the Ford showrooms, too. You can catch the excitement in this original 1969 commercial below.