‘I love this door handle, and the way that it’s integrated into the trim along the side of the car. ‘The details are really good on this car,’ he adds as he heads for the driving seat. ‘It’s a long time ago now but in my mind the Corgi toy Thunderbird I had was a Sports Roadster with the cover on,’ Steve remembers. ‘Good luck going away for the weekend with the roof down – you’d have to stash your luggage on the back seat.’ĭropping the hood reveals the removable double-humped glassfibre tonneau cover that makes the Sports Roadster look like a sleek two-seater when in fact it has space for four. Steve watches in awe as the boot lid opens automatically to allow the roof to fold down into the ‘trunk’, where it takes up virtually all of the space available. It drew a crowd and I got a round of applause,’ Kevin grins as the hood does its thing. ‘I was at a Knebworth show once when the sun came out, so I folded the roof down. #1962 ford thunderbird console lid fullTo give Steve the full Thunderbird experience Kevin drops the power-operated convertible top, an complex sequence of whirring, opening, folding, lowering, collapsing and closing, all coordinated by an array of electric motors and microswitches. ‘The only trouble is with the Kelsey-Hayes wheels they sometimes catch on the wheelarches.’ ‘It’s a big, heavy car for wire wheels,’ says Steve, ‘but they do look the part.’ The wheel covers are common on Thunderbirds but not usually fitted with these wheels. ‘Then they gave a car to Elvis Presley and he crashed it on the first day because he went round a bend and a rear wheel collapsed.’ Fortunately these are the later, thicker-spoke wheels. ‘When they first came out the wheels had thinner spokes,’ Kevin explains. More bling comes in the shape of the chrome-plated 5.5x14in Kelsey-Hayes wire wheels. These Thunderbirds often had an extra stainless steel trim along the body sides but that would be a bit much – the Americans always like that stuff but I prefer it without.’ ‘It makes the chrome stand out beautifully. ‘Most of the ones you see are brighter, brasher colours, but this really suits it.’ He has since restored it to its original colour scheme. Kevin’s Thunderbird started life as a ‘tripleblack’ car, meaning black bodywork, hood and interior, but at some point in its life it was repainted red and white. ‘It looks great even with the roof up, and I really love the colour,’ he says. ‘You drive down the street and people can’t tell what it is, though if you go to a show there will be people who are in the know.’ Steve’s already taking in the shape from its pointed four-headlamp nose to its jet nozzle rear lights. ‘It’s an unusual car,’ says Kevin, matter-of-factly, once introductions have been made. I’ve always wondered if the experience of driving it matched up to that.’ We meet at a café in rural Essex and before long the unmistakable Bill Boyer-penned shape of a third-gen Thunderbird Convertible Sports Roadster cruises into view, with owner Kevin Moss at the controls. ‘When I was a kid all the space exploration was just starting off and the Thunderbird looked like a spaceship. ‘It’s a car I always thought I’d love to have a drive in,’ he says. Six decades later, we’re about to put Steve behind the super-sized steering wheel of that very car to find out if the real thing matches up to the hopes of a Corgi-wielding toddler. Meanwhile an American serviceman stationed in Germany was placing an order for a Thunderbird of his own, a real one this time. ‘When you’re pulling away you can feel how much power the car has got’ It was 1962, and none of it mattered to one young petrolhead nearly as much as his brand new Corgi model of an impossibly glamorous Ford Thunderbird. Kennedy and Khrushchev were facing off over nuclear missiles in Cuba, John Glenn was orbiting the Earth in Friendship 7, and a new beat group called The Beatles were taking the music charts by storm. Reader Steve Richardson gets to grips with a full-size Ford Thunderbird toy car ‘V8 burble, column shift – it’s a perfect piece of period Americana’ A scale-model Ford Thunderbird that Steve Richardson had as boy gave him a life-long yearning to try the real thing.
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