Some Birds Swooped Into Newport

 When General Motors introduced the Chevrolet Corvette in 1953 in an attempt to lure Americans away from the sporty two seater European cars that were becoming popular, rival Ford knew that it had to do something to compete. In 1955 they introduced their own two seater but instead of calling the Thunderbird a sports car, they deemed it a personal luxury car. All along Ford claimed the T-Bird wasn't competing with the Vette but was a new, creative option for sophisticated drivers. While the Thunderbird didn't generate sales equivalent to the Corvette, it's ever changing styling, going from the sporty two seater up to a full size luxury model continued to attract enough buyers to have it run 10 generation through 1997. It was briefly reintroduced in 2002 through 2005 with a retro looking model. The Wheels Back on Monmouth show in Newport saw plenty of T-Birds on hand, including a 1960 convertible which was the last year of the second generation before the cars grew to full four seat sedans. Here are a number of Birds that were on hand that day.