Here's another fine hoopty I don't need that hopefully by blogging about it will exhaust any want I have for it. It's a 1990 Ford Thunderbird Super Coupe for sale at the same dealership I bought that (god awful) 2005 Mustang GT from about a year and a half ago. The big difference is that Mustang was priced right. This is priced at a ghastly $10,500. C'mon, guys. Really?
Seeing how little they budged on the price of the Mustang and with Covid and everything there's no sense in me kicking its tires. Based on it having only gone 49,000 miles in it's thirty years on this earth and its apparent solid condition I might be be willing to spend maybe $7,500 all in but $10.500 plus taxes and all that ancillary tacked on nonsense when you buy a car? Sorry. Not going to happen. By the way, KBB.com values this car, actually, it's so old they don't even go back to 1990 and I had to use a 1992, at around $2,700. A nationwide search of similar Thunderbird's in like condition pegs it around $8,000. Word to the wise, don't take KBB as gospel. Any online research tool that can give you actual nationwide pricing is far more accurate as to what any car is going for. I'm actually surprised a reputable dealer has this up for sale in the first place.
I've always had a soft spot for these 1989-1995 Thunderbird SC's. They're hunky, chunky and absolutely fabulous looking. In the early 2000's I drove a '92 SC with the five speed and I loved the way it rode, handled and accelerated. Comfy too. Great car.
The "Super" in "Super Coupe" refers to an Eaton M90 supercharger Ford strapped on it's "Vulcan", 3.8 liter V-6 engine. Making all of one-hundred and forty-five brake horsepower and two-hundred twenty some pounds of torque in normal guise, the big blower rammed enough additional air in that horsepower spooled up to two-hundred and ten. While horsepower gains were modest by even standards of the day, the biggest difference the blower made was to the seat of your pants when you stomp the gas - three-hundred and fifteen pounds of "right-now" torque up from two-hundred twenty. This thing can move. Up to a point. North of seventy-five it 's all but gutless but what fun getting there.
Problem with these cars was that despite its good looks and refined chassis and power train they were dated even when they were brand new. While Ford didn't have nearly as much riding on this car, it's Mercury Cougar clone or eventually the Lincoln Mark VIII as GM did on their mid size personal luxury cars, they didn't sell well either. Blame shifting consumer tastes as folks whom ten, fifteen years prior may have bought a big, heavy, impractical domestic coupe opted for other fare. The demise of the personal luxury all starting with the "Great Downsizing Epoch" that reduced most of them to stubby characturtures of what they had been. They still had their fans but the die-hards, like moi, we were few and far between.
Super Coupe's were not cheap either. A leather trimmed SC pushing hard against twenty-five grand. A lot of money back then.
Ford didn't do this car any favors come 1992 when they started offering their "Windsor", 4.9 liter V-8 in these things. With just as much horsepower and almost as much torque, while they didn't bedeck those cars in the Super Coupe's handsome (but oh-so-90's cladding, it all but matched the "Super's" performance. And for less money too. Ford swapped out the Windsor for their SOHC V-8 starting in 1994 - same year they upped the horsepower and torque on the Super Coupe. Guess what? No one cared.
With sales slowing to a piddling, Ford ditched the Thunderbird after 1997. Save for the abortive retro-Thunderbird of 2002-2005, which went from oh-so-cool to rolling joke very quickly, Ford hasn't looked back since.
Which makes the asking price for our silver fox here even more vexing. Here's the link if you're so inclined to make an offer on it. Remember what I said about how inflexible they are on pricing. Maybe you'll get it for five hundred bucks less. Never hurts to try.
Oh, and blogging about it hasn't cured me of it. I still want it.
Problem with these cars was that despite its good looks and refined chassis and power train they were dated even when they were brand new. While Ford didn't have nearly as much riding on this car, it's Mercury Cougar clone or eventually the Lincoln Mark VIII as GM did on their mid size personal luxury cars, they didn't sell well either. Blame shifting consumer tastes as folks whom ten, fifteen years prior may have bought a big, heavy, impractical domestic coupe opted for other fare. The demise of the personal luxury all starting with the "Great Downsizing Epoch" that reduced most of them to stubby characturtures of what they had been. They still had their fans but the die-hards, like moi, we were few and far between.
Super Coupe's were not cheap either. A leather trimmed SC pushing hard against twenty-five grand. A lot of money back then.
Ford didn't do this car any favors come 1992 when they started offering their "Windsor", 4.9 liter V-8 in these things. With just as much horsepower and almost as much torque, while they didn't bedeck those cars in the Super Coupe's handsome (but oh-so-90's cladding, it all but matched the "Super's" performance. And for less money too. Ford swapped out the Windsor for their SOHC V-8 starting in 1994 - same year they upped the horsepower and torque on the Super Coupe. Guess what? No one cared.
Which makes the asking price for our silver fox here even more vexing. Here's the link if you're so inclined to make an offer on it. Remember what I said about how inflexible they are on pricing. Maybe you'll get it for five hundred bucks less. Never hurts to try.
Oh, and blogging about it hasn't cured me of it. I still want it.
No comments:
Post a Comment