Second Stint: 1977 Ford Thunderbird – SOLD!

June 27, 2021 Update – The seller’s price drop one week ago likely helped sell the T-Bird, as we just confirmed the seller of this “Classifind” deleted their listing, so we’re now able to call this one “SOLD!” While this one got away, please reach out either by email or call us directly if you’d like to be informed when we come across something similar.

June 16, 2021 Update – We just noticed the seller of this Jade Green Thunderbird lowered the asking price in their original listing by $1,000 to land at $8,500.

Run a classic car website long enough and it’s quite possible you will run across a ride being sold for a second time by its latest caretaker.  That’s what we believe we have here with this pretty Jade Green, 30,000 original mile 1977 Ford Thunderbird originally listed in June 2021 on Craigslist in Emmaus, Pennsylvania. Equipped with the same interior, 351 cubic inch V8, and two thousand more miles in the eastern, Pennsylvania area, we’re fairly certain this is the same 1977 T-Bird we featured in late December 2018 as one of the very first cars we ever wrote about.  Now offered at $8,500 (down from the original ask of $9,500),  the Collector Car Market Review indicates the current asking price falls between this guide’s #2 “Very Good” estimate of $7,800 and its #1 “Excellent” appraisal of $11,700.

When Ford launched its seventh-generation Thunderbird, the new car no longer shared the Lincoln Continental’s full-size architecture. Instead, engineers moved the car to the company’s intermediate Ford LTD II and Mercury Cougar platforms. The change in size shed nearly ten inches of length and nine hundred pounds of weight.  Designers distinguished Thunderbird from the LTD II and Cougar two-door models with a unique wrap-over “basket handle” roofline with opera windows and large rear side quarter windows separated from the rear window by thin C-pillars. Headlamps hidden with retractable covers and full-width dropped center taillamps made a comeback from the late 1960s.

Personalization of your personal luxury car was all the rage by the late 1970s as many consumers tried to order their new cars in ways that would look different from their neighbors.  The new Thunderbird for 1977 did not disappoint as it offered over one hundred interior color and material fabric combinations to choose from.  The Jade Green and houndstooth our feature car came equipped with is a very neat combination that has aged well.

The squarer, sharper styling was popular, as this generation became the best selling in the history of the Ford Thunderbird. Helped by a US$2,700 drop in price from 1976, over 318,000 were sold in 1977 and 352,000 in 1978 (the best single sales year in Thunderbird history), followed by 295,000 in 1979. The styling of its unique wrap-over roofline would carry over in smaller versions of Ford automobiles such as the 1978–1983 Ford Fairmont Futura and the Mercury Zephyr Z-7 coupes which were originally designed as Fairmont-based downsized Thunderbird proposals.

We came across this vintage 1977 Thunderbird commercial highlighting the virtues of the downsized car:

If you get serious about buying this survivor Thunderbird, please let us know if you confirm this is in fact the same car we first featured nearly three years ago.

Here’s the seller’s one-sentence description:

“1977 Thunderbird. 30,000 original miles. Eastern PA. All original. 351 engine. Beautiful garage kept car. Runs and drives like new. $9,500 or reasonable offer.“

Show or go: What would you do with this Jade Thunderbird?  Comment below and let us know!

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