It was sleek, with rounded edges, a beak-like nose, integrated bumper covers and smoothly integrated doors that cut into the roof. Built atop the Fox platform, which also underpinned its 1980-82 predecessor, and boasting similar mechanicals on the outside, the ’83 T-bird couldn’t have been more radically different. But it was the 1983 Thunderbird that really shook things up. The first indicators of this – certainly in production vehicles – could be found in the 1978 Ford Fairmont/Mercury Zephyr and the 1979 Ford Mustang/Mercury Capri, with their angular contours, sensible proportions and Euro touches such as fluted tail-lights and louvred quarter window accents. Telnack, having spent the early Seventies working in Europe, had very different ideas from what was then prevalent design language in Detroit, and, upon his return to Dearborn, began introducing some of these European design concepts to stateside Ford products.

Both designs were penned under the eye of John J ‘Jack’ Telnack, Ford’s vice-president of light car and truck design at the time.

Pundits will argue that the 1986 Ford Taurus was the car that really redefined American car design during the Eighties but I would argue that its Thunderbird stablemate, which debuted three years earlier, was the Detroit automobile that really represented a break from the past.

83 ford thunderbird