Los Angeles - Every era searches for its own style, something to express the temper of its times. In the 1950s, Americans were brash and energetic, confident that they could bend the twentieth century to their will. You can find the romance of those times in the 1955 Ford Thunderbird--streamlined, dipped in chrome, and rumbling with V-8 power. And in the 2002 Thunderbird, you can see the same confidence, only this time Ford itself is taking center stage.
The Thunderbird first came into being shortly after the Chevrolet Corvette was shown to the public in January 1953. Within months, Frank Hershey's design studio at Ford had begun work on a similar two-seat roadster. Like Chevrolet's, Ford's design reference was the Jaguar XK120, which was then revolutionizing automotive tastes in America. When the 1955 Thunderbird arrived, it delivered American standards of style and luxury in a Jaguar-size package, and it overwhelmed the Corvette in the marketplace.
The '02 Thunderbird owes its creation to much the same kind of story.... Read full article