Junkyard Find: 1965 Ford Thunderbird Landau Hardtop Coupe
Somewhere in the San Francisco Bay Area, someone must be hoarding a big stash of Thunderbirds from the mid-1960s through early 1970s, because I’ve been seeing disconcerting quantities of these cars in East Bay self-service wrecking yards going back at least five years (not to mention the 35 Thunderbirds from the 1970 and 1971 model years that I saw at auction before that).
Mostly they’re so rough that I don’t photograph them (though I did shoot this ’65 Landau about a year ago), which suggests that the T-Bird Hoarder is purging hopeless parts cars, one at a time. Here’s another ’65 Thunderbird Landau, seen in Oakland back in September.
As with the previous ’65 Landau, this one has lots of usable pieces but would be prohibitively expensive to restore.
Extremely nice restored examples of the ’65 Thunderbird Landau Coupe are going for under $20,000. Getting one like today’s Junkyard Find to pretty decent condition, with a 20-footer body and an interior that doesn’t make your passengers want to don hazmat suits, would be likely to cost five figures. A Mustang or GM A-body or Chrysler B-body has vast aftermarket body and trim parts availability, but not a fourth-gen T-Bird. You’d need to pay top dollar for NOS or restored everything to fix up this car.
Out of the night, a new approach to luxury!
For those who choose to Thunderbird, instead of merely to drive.
Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Autoblog, Hagerty, The Truth About Cars and Capital One.
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These make great 428/390 + C6 + 9" donors for less hideous cars.
I think that engine has had the stuffing knocked out of it.