First Ford Thunderbird Fetches $660,000 at Barrett-Jackson
A lot of vehicles at the Barrett-Jackson auction garner attention and fetch ridiculous sums of money, but even the vast majority of them are not as rare a a bird as the Raven Black 1955 Thunderbird that hit the auction block on Saturday. Verified by the Ford Motor Company as the very first Thunderbird to ever roll off the production line in Michigan, this restored T-Bird fetched no less than $660,000.
Final assembly of the car was completed on September 9, 1954 and this Raven Black with black and white interior T-Bird is equipped with the 292 Y Block and Fordomatic transmission. It is also well-equipped with power steering, windows and seats.
Now former owner George Watts found the car in 1965 and restored it to its original condition. Since then the car has been featured in books, magazines, promotions and tv shows. FoMoCo continues to “borrow” the car, often for events at Ford HQ. Generations of Ford execs have had their picture taken next to it, as have the likes of Carroll Shelby and Jay Leno.
[Source: Barrett-Jackson]
With AutoGuide from its launch, Colum previously acted as Editor-in-Chief of Modified Luxury & Exotics magazine where he became a certifiable car snob driving supercars like the Koenigsegg CCX and racing down the autobahn in anything over 500 hp. He has won numerous automotive journalism awards including the Best Video Journalism Award in 2014 and 2015 from the Automotive Journalists Association of Canada (AJAC). Colum founded Geared Content Studios, VerticalScope's in-house branded content division and works to find ways to integrate brands organically into content.
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I discovered your homepage by coincidence. Very interesting posts and well written. I will put your site on my blogroll. :-)
The beauty of a car is in it's timelessness. They tried to replicate the T Bird in the last few years but it just doesn't match this. Thanks