Back to Back: 1982 and 1983 Ford Thunderbird

[NINETY EIGHT REGENCY]

 

[trinacriabob]

Proof that FoMoCo - and even other automakers - periodically lose their marbles.

[Robert Hall]

Always liked the '83-88 T-Birds...through the '80s, my Mom had an '81,  '84, '87 then an '89..  she liked the '84 a lot IIRC.   She and my Dad were on the new-every-3 yrs cycle w/ Ford/Mercury/Lincoln products from the late 60s into the mid 90s.

Edited January 21 by Robert Hall

[trinacriabob]

4 hours ago, Robert Hall said:

Always liked the '83-88 T-Birds...through the '80s, my Mom had an '81,  '84, '87 then an '89..  she liked the '84 a lot IIRC.   She and my Dad were on the new-every-3 yrs cycle w/ Ford/Mercury/Lincoln products from the late 60s into the mid 90s.

From this large batch, did they ever get a lemon ... or two?

[Robert Hall]

16 minutes ago, trinacriabob said:

From this large batch, did they ever get a lemon ... or two?

I recall them not liking the ‘81 T-Bird very much.  Had that small V8 with low power.  That was coming from a ‘77 T-Bird.  My Dad generally liked his Continentals and Town Cars.  One car he really hated was the ‘82 Chevette Scooter he bought as a ‘dinghy’ for the motorhome.  It had a lot of issues, traded on an ‘84 Ford Escort diesel which was a much better built car (and I ended up driving some in high school and college).   Around the same time, Dad bought a clean used ‘79 Dodge Power Wagon 4x4 shortbed pickup for the farm.  His first truck.  It had some weird issues, mostly the 318 w/ ‘lean burn’ carb.  It tended to stall on left turns…part of why I loathe left turns.  I learned to drive in the truck, the Escort, and my Dad’s ‘85 Town Car.  

Edited January 22 by Robert Hall

[trinacriabob]

I just looked at these in more detail.

For the '82, he said that this was the best handling T-Bird to date.  Well, he mentioned it had rack and pinion steering, which helps immensely.  Then, he praises the next model year ('83) for being even more of a driver's car.

I couldn't believe the engine choices on the '82 - those were small engines:  an in-line 3.3 liter 6 cyl. (FoMoCo's ancient 200 c.i. which even went into Mavericks!), a 3.8 V6 (FoMoCo's version of it, but with a cast iron block and aluminum heads*), and a 4.2 liter V8 (about 255 c.i. and probably a newer addition to the FoMoCo engine stable**).

* - I know this because a friend's parents were driving a 3.8 equipped T-Bird of this series across the panhandle in North Texas, overheated it, and the top of the engine had to be redone ... that could happen with cast iron block & head engines, but possibly take a little more "effort" for it to happen.

** - come to think of it, the Cutlass (Supreme-Calais-etc.) of that same year would have offered GM's 3.8 V6 by Buick, the 260 Olds V8, and a diesel.  The top output available would have been 110 hp!  It wasn't until 1983 that the 307 Olds V8 got dropped into Cutlasses as an option and the 260 V8 ceased to be.

Amazing, all that displacement and not much horsepower to speak of.

Edited January 22 by trinacriabob