Fresher Than Fresh | This 1990 35th Ann. Thunderbird Super Coupe Skipped All the Dealer Prep
This one is near and dear to my heart. Every time I’ve ordered a new Ford I’ve requested the dealership not PDI (dealer-prep) my new ride. What can I say? I prefer to unwrap my presents myself. So when I spotted this 35th Anniversary 1990 Ford Thunderbird Super Coupe in the National Parts Depot collection I knew I had to learn its story.
From afar the black T-bird appears to have some major paint/clearcoat issues. However, looks are deceiving in this case. What seems to be Florida sun burnt paint is actually a coating applied by Ford during assembly. It was designed to protect the car’s finish during delivery, and was intended to be removed by the dealer during PDI.
That’s where things really start to make sense. In the days before peeling off shrink wrap, your local dealer had the lowest guy on the totem pole doing his best to remove this spray on coating with whatever tools and skills he had at hand. You can imagine how many black cars left the lot covered in swirl marks. Not wanting their brand new car to look like it was just wet-sanded by a blind man, many buys opted to remove the coating themselves. That’s one of the reasons many would opt out of dealer-prep. Don’t get me started on the PDI guys pitching GT350 splitter bolts into the trash. Sometimes it’s better to handle things yourself, even if they seem simple.
As for the rest of the car, this thing is a time capsule. It still smells like a brand new car from the 90s. The seats and floor are still covered with all of the shipping plastics. The surfaces are fingerprint and dust free. The carpet still has small bits of lent from its backing material scattered about its surface, suggesting that it has never been vacuumed. Its cleanliness belies is age. 33 years after it was built it’s factory fresh. It’s perfect.
Having grown up around this era of cars, and seeing them become $500 beaters, it’s easy to forget just how nice they were when new. This one being an Anniversary Edition makes it even nicer. However, one feature than stands out to me is this car’s third pedal. Finding a manual transmission in this era of T-Bird is extremely rare. Finding one in such a high-end model is doubly so. With the low-end torque provided the supercharged 3.8L V6, this thing would probably be pretty fun to drive on a back-country road. Alas, this one’s future will not be found on the streets. It will live on in NPD’s collection as an example of a particular era automotive history. And to borrow a phase, that’s history that deserves to be remembered.
-SID297
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