I’ve often fantasized about how things would have evolved, had the first Thunderbird continued and the ’58 model appeared branded as the Edsel. Nothing from the competition ever came remotely close! What a tragedy they stupidly trashed all that work with the dreadful Vacuum Cleaner Era (1967-1972) cars that annihilated the Thunderbird and all its marvelous innovations. Najjar was credited with the elegant polished aluminum door panel trim line which carried through to the quarter panel and up and around the back seat.Īs usual, Ford was cutting edge with Thunderbird styling and interiors from 1958 through 1966. The solution was to make the pleats vertical, neatly hiding the two joints between the three separate back pieces.īy the time of production the multi-piece rear seat problem was completely solved by placing a retractable arm rest between a separate left and right curved back sections. Production was worried about the ability to line up the pattern so that it appeared as one whole unit. A seat bottom, center back cushion structure and the two curved sides. The rear seat had to be built in four sections. However, the coved back seat nearly didn’t make production because of the complexity of incorporating the curve. It was instantly popular and became a styling element Thunderbird used for years following.
65 thunderbird back seat full#
Darden’s unique coved rear seat allowed room for the wheelhouses and was a full width. Back seats on ’58-63 convertibles were rather narrow due to packaging constraints between the rear wheelhouses. According to Farrell, Halderman and Quinlin designed the instrument panel and cluster while Darden was tasked with finding a solution to making the rear seat wider than previous Thunderbird convertibles.
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