SquareBirds

(Photo by Richard Lentinello.)

The February (????) 2011 issue of my Hemmings Classic Car Magazine does a paean to the 1958-’60 Ford Thunderbirds, the famous SquareBird.
The earliest Thunderbirds, the smallish two-seaters, 1955-1957, were Ford’s response to the Chevrolet Corvette.
My uncle had an early Thunderbird, a ’56 I believe.
His job was selling Fords in a south Jersey Ford dealership.
He was considered a black sheep because he liked Fords.
Our family was deeply conservative, into Chevrolets.
Fords were swashbuckling and symbolized rebellion.
It was that Flat-Head V8 engine introduced by Ford in the 1932 model-year.
It made Fords go like stink, the darling of hot-rodders.
No matter Chevrolet introduced the Small-Block V8 engine in the 1955 model-year, that retired the Ford Flat-Head to pasture.
Chevrolet could not successfully market cars to the younger-set with a conservative image.
Despite the fact the early Thunderbirds were hugely outselling Corvette, they weren’t making Ford any money.
So Ford changed the entire concept of the Thunderbird.
No longer would it be a Corvette wannabee. It now would stand on its own as a styling triumph.
It became a four-seat “personal luxury car,” a concept supposedly first laid down in the 1963 model-year as the Buick Riviera.
That Riv is a classic, but the SquareBird is the first personal-luxury-car.
The “personal-luxury-car” concept was still nascent in 1958, and the SquareBird wasn’t marketed as basic transportation.
It wasn’t the taxicab a full-size ’58 Ford sedan could be.
There were no four-door SquareBirds, nor stationwagons.
It’s over-styled, as cars were in the late ‘50s, but successful and very well done.
Particularly the taillights.
It even made canted tail-fins attractive.
The car pictured is a restored 1960 model; to me the least successful of the SquareBirds, but not by much.
All that’s wrong is that silly grill-insert. It doesn’t need it! —It’s a concession to the requirement for annual model-year differences back then.
The owner claims the SquareBird is one of the most beautiful cars of the ‘50s and ‘60s.
I agree.
The SquareBird that is; especially the ’58 and ’59 models.
During my four-year stint at nearby Houghton College, 1962-1966, there were two guys there, Harry Thomas and Terry McLaughlin (“Mik-LOFF-lyn”), Class of ’65, who both had matching white SquareBirds.
They were a musical folk-duo, “Harry & Terry.”
Harry got his SquareBird first, then Terry, who played Poncho to Harry’s Cisco, got a matching SquareBird.
I remember our reaction that his doing so was silly, yet the SquareBird was a gorgeous car.
But off-the-wall as a conveyance for folkies.
Perhaps Volkswagen Beetles would have been more like it.
I wonder what ever became of Harry & Terry, and their matching white SquareBirds......
Perhaps each went their own way after graduating, but maybe not.
Terry was the follower, so he probably gave up his SquareBird first. He probably traded it for a proper Chevrolet product.
Harry probably kept his SquareBird the longest, and probably traded it for a Mustang.
He was that kind of person.
“Harry & Terry” may have been folk oriented, but a Volkswagen was unsuitable for Harry’s image, that he was a lothario.
Sure; make out in a Volkswagen!
(I also get the feeling if Harry had got Volkswagen, so would Terry.)
“Harry & Terry” were always a joke; folk-wannebees, but with a Houghton schtick.
That is, approved by the college — who could be overly zealous.

• RE: “My uncle.....” —My father’s younger brother — my father was the oldest.
• A “Flat-head” meant side-valve, like a lawnmower engine. The engine-valves were down in the engine-block, next to the cylinder-bore, instead of overhead in the combustion-chamber. —The valves being that way, intake and exhaust passages are contorted.
• The Chevrolet “Small-Block” V8 was introduced at 265 cubic-inches displacement in the 1955 model-year. It continued production for years, first to 283 cubic inches, then 327, then 350. Other displacements were also manufactured. The Chevrolet “Big-Block” V8 was introduced in the 1965 model-year at 396 cubic-inches, and was unrelated to the Small-Block. It was made in various larger displacements: 402, 427 and 454 cubic inches. It’s still made as a truck-motor, but not installed in cars any more; although you can get it as a crate-motor, for self-installation. The “Big-Block” could be immensely powerful, and the “Small-Block” was revolutionary in its time.
• “Houghton College,” in western New York, is from where I graduated with a BA in 1966. I’ve never regretted it, although I graduated as a Ne’er-do-Well, without their blessing. Houghton is an evangelical liberal-arts college.
• “Cisco” is “The Cisco Kid,” a TV western in the ‘50s. His sidekick was “Poncho.”