For a half of century, the Thunderbird made its mark as Ford’s special personal luxury car. Over this time Ford continually changed the Thunderbird’s persona to fit the ever evolving whims of the car market in order to maximize sales. The two model years that stand out to be among the strangest in its history are the 1970 and 1971 model year offerings. This should not have been the case, since the 1970-1971 Thunderbird was merely a mid-cycle refresh of the fifth generation 1967-1971 Thunderbird which overall was a well-liked car that sold well.

Unfortunately Ford’s updated restyling for the 1970-1971 Thunderbird, caught many by surprise. The overall styling of the very nicely contoured exterior body panels of the popular 1967-1969 Thunderbird were still there with the 1970-1971 Thunderbird. Though some Thunderbird buyers were not too happy with the introduction of the 4-door Thunderbird starting in 1967, the more sporty 2-door was still available and easily out sold the 4-door model. The 1970-1971 Thunderbird carried on the availability of the 4-door version with the same formal roofline and would have the honor of being the last of the 4-door Thunderbirds. Essentially the main exterior updates to the 1970-1971 Thunderbird were its front-end and rear taillight styling. Ford did a great job with its revised 1970-1971 taillight design.

However the same could not be said with its new front-end design which now had exposed headlights and a wild Pontiac style protruding front grille which was referred to at the time as a bird beak. The bird beak front end design worked for Pontiac since it was its brand identity and was contoured in such a fashion to blend with the rest of a Pontiac car’s exterior design. Unfortunately the same could not be said of the Thunderbird since its front beak grille did not blend in with the rest of its exterior styling. It looked like a bad afterthought rather than a well thought out styling exercise. The beak design did carryover to the all-new sixth generation Thunderbird with the 1972 Thunderbird still having a visible beak however it was more understated and blended in very well with the styling of the rest of the exterior panels. The 1972 Thunderbird was a big hit with buyers.

The 1970-1971 Thunderbird’s beak was the brainchild of Bunkie Knudsen who was President of Ford Motor Company and had previously been Executive Vice-President at GM. During the 1950s, it was Knudsen’s boldness as General Manager at Pontiac that remade the image of Pontiac from bland to exciting starting with the 1959 line-up of wide-track Pontiacs which put his career on the fast track at GM. His success was rewarded with the promotion to General Manager of Chevrolet in 1961 and later a promotion to Executive Vice-President at GM. With much fanfare Knudsen took over the helm of the Ford Motor Company in early-1968 only to be fired in September 1969 just as the first batch of the big beak Thunderbirds were arriving at Ford dealers.

The 1970-1971 Thunderbird’s massive beak alone caused the the Thunderbird’s length to grow by almost a foot. Some have considered this Thunderbird to be ugly due to the beak but this is not a fair assessment of this Thunderbird. With its strange beak, the 1970-1971 Thunderbird took on an ugly duckling type persona during its production, fortunately over time this persona has changed. Its looks have aged much better than expected and this former ugly duckling Thunderbird is now viewed as an unique classic luxury car with bold styling.

The big beak Ford Thunderbird was initially a sales success, production for 1970 was 50,364 units which was a slight increase over total 1969 Thunderbird production, however 1971 Thunderbird production dropped to 36,055 units. When looking at the total luxury and options that the 1970-1971 Thunderbird offered along with its very comfortable luxury car ride, it seemed like the perfect car for any luxury car customer back in the day. Not to mention it was also equipped with one of the best engines of the Golden Era, the Thunder Jet 429 cubic-inch big-block V8 which produced 360 gross-horsepower and a fantastic 480 lb-ft of gross torque which gave the heavy 4,500-lb Thunderbird, muscle car like acceleration. The 1970-1971 Thunderbird was available in two trim levels, base-level Thunderbird and Thunderbird Landau. There was also an optional Brougham interior package which gave the Thunderbird, Lincoln level interior luxury appointments. In the final analysis the 1970-1971 Ford Thunderbird was worthy of the Thunderbird badge and made for a great luxury car, don’t let its unique big beak fool you, this car deserves a spot in any classic car fan’s garage.

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