Harry's Thoughts
THE ESSENTIALS
SOLD to Las Vegas!! We are pleased to offer this 2002 Ford Thunderbird with 16,000 original miles in the very rare Inspiration Yellow livery. This T-Bird is as nice as you’ll find and is offered in nearly showroom condition.
Retrofuturism is a movement in the creative arts showing the influence of depictions of the future produced in an earlier era. The original 1955 Ford Thunderbird was styled in this vain, and this super cool 2002 Thunderbird is a tribute to the same expression. Even if esoteric dialogue on art isn’t your thing, you can at least still appreciate this decidedly cool, low millage, clean CARFAX 2002 Thunderbird featured here.
After a five year hiatus, Ford introduced a new Thunderbird for 2002. Returning to the original formula for the Thunderbird, the latest version had a two-seat coupe or convertible layout like the first-generation Thunderbird and retrofuturistic styling to match. The eleventh generation Thunderbird was built at Ford’s Wixom Assembly Plant and was based on the company’s DEW98 platform, which was shared with the Lincoln LS, Jaguar S-Type and XF.
Though the Thunderbird’s exterior styling was unique relative to its platform mates, the instrument panel, steering wheel and other trim pieces were borrowed from Lincoln LS. The sole engine of the Thunderbird was a Jaguar-designed AJ-30 3.9 L DOHC V8, a short-stroke (85mm) variant of the Jaguar AJ-26 4.0 L V8, rated at 252 hp (188 kW) and 267 lb⋅ft (362 N⋅m) of torque. The engine was mated to Ford’s 5R55N 5-speed automatic transmission. This combination was so compelling, it resulted in MotorTrend magazine naming this 2002 Thunderbird “The Car of the Year”.
This particular Thunderbird has enjoyed a very pampered life of garage storage and casual drives on sunny days. It is in excellent mechanical condition and even has a new set of tires (they had to be changed due to such infrequency of use!). The V8 sounds great, pulls strong, and is a perfect cruiser.
We are also big fans of the Inspiration Yellow (C5) Paint and matching black on yellow leather interior (AY). It’s a unique color, was produced in limited numbers, and is a great throwback to the original Thunderbirds of the 50’s. The exterior paint condition is very good to excellent, though we did notice that the door jams have some scuff marks and paint chips. On the inside, again, overall the condition is excellent, as would be expected. The only imperfection we noticed was some minor cracking on the driver’s side leather seat (but this is very minimal).
Equally impressive to the low millage is the meticulous attention to detail the current own has taken to document and track every servicing, repair, and bit of history with this vehicle; this car comes with a very organized folder with all the papers you’d want to see! While there may be many Thunderbirds on the market, we doubt few are as nicely preserved as this one.
This Thunderbird can be viewed in our Phoenix Showroom. For more information, contact Daniel at +1.917.890.4230 or daniel@classicpromenade.com
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