All of us know – or have heard about – the apparently healthy, successful person who one day just drops dead unexpectedly.

In a way, this is the story of the Thunderbird. For decades, it was one of Ford’s most successful models and the name remains an automotive icon.

But the car’s as dead as Rudolph Valentino.

The last one rolled off the line a decade ago (2005) after a brief, not-quite-three-year resurrection following a prior ten-year absence from Ford’s model lineup.

Unlike most four-wheeled flops, however, the last T-Bird was neither ugly nor  horribly built. Most people who saw it liked it. At the 2001 New York Auto Show, the assembled automotive press – Amazon Prime (One Year... Check Amazon for Pricing. not an easy bunch – clapped for it. Motor Trend magazine named it “car of the year.” It was a very close contender for North American Car of the Year, a major accolade.

The problem – for Ford – was that not many people bought it.

This happens occasionally.

But, why?   

Well, for openers, the last T-Bird was probably too pricey. Because despite its glamor, it was still a Ford.

A very expensive Ford.

The first year for this abbreviated final generation (the eleventh, if you’re counting) carried a base price of $34,695. That was in 2001. How much is that in 2015 money? Just under $46,000 according to the fed’s CPI inflation calculator. Not many Fords cost close to $50k – to start – back in 2001. You could buy a new Mustang GT that year for just under $25k or about $33,000 in today’s federal funny money.

Ford management probably gave some thought to selling the T-Bird through Lincoln dealerships (as had been done in the past with some success; see, for instance, the de Tomaso Pantera). This might have given the Thunderbird the luxury car patina it so badly needed.

But then, it had always been the Ford Thunderbird.

And after all, GM had no problem selling the Corvette – an exotic (and exotically priced) high-performance sports car through its Chevy stores, the fiberglass-bodied 180-MPH supercar sharing floor space with proletarian Malibus and Cavaliers.

Besides which, Lincoln Thunderbird just sounded awkward.

Of course, they could have just called it Thunderbird, left it at that – and sold it through Lincoln stores.

But they chose instead to sell this not-established car – which had been absent from the marketplace for more than a decade and which had no existing buyer base at all (unlike Corvette) – as a Ford with a Lincoln-esque MSRP.

Meanwhile, you could buy a new Lincoln – or even a Jaguar – for about the same money.

Iceberg ahead. Better do something now.

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The (briefly) resurrected T-Bird might have shared a platform with Lincolns (LS) and mechanical components (its engine) with Jaguar (S-Type) but increasingly status-minded buyers of the early 21st century wanted – demanded  – the premium car badge, the cachet and the dealer experience to go with the premium car MSRP.

While people back in the ’60s and ’70s would pay big bucks for a T-Bird – even if was a Ford – by ’01 that willingness had mostly evaporated. The car’s high price and low status proved to be its Achilles Heel

Well, one of them.

It didn’t help that the T-Bird, despite its nicely executed  “retro-futuristic” bodywork, very obviously shared its interior with the same-year Lincoln LS. The dashboard/gauge package was virtually identical. The steering wheel looked like it could be interchanged from car to car – and probably could have been.

To be fair to Ford, this was (and still is) a common stylistic weakness affecting all modern cars. Or rather, cars built in the Air Bag Era. There is only so much designers can do when they’re required to plant a big plastic blob – the air bag – in the middle of the steering wheel. The freedom to create new/unique horn buttons and trim rims and spokes that once upon a time allowed designers to highly individualize the appearance of a car’s cockpit via the steering wheel has been a dead letter since the federal government decided to force-feed air bags to the public via mandate beginning in the mid-’90s.

Also problematic was the two-seater layout, which greatly reduced the car’s everyday viability. High-performance two-seat roadsters like Corvette (and the Mazda Miata, BMW Z4, Porsche Boxster and so on) can get away with being impractical because they’re high-performance roadsters… or at least, plausible as sports cars.

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