ELLSWORTH (AP) – The last Ford Thunderbird ever built was delivered to a Ford family estate on Mount Desert Island on Friday.
The sleek, silver convertible was one of 1,500 special collector’s editions made by Ford Motor Co. this year. It rolled off the production line in July.
“People are saying, I can’t believe it’s the last one,”‘ said Dave Gould of Dave Gould Ford, which took receipt of the car Friday morning. “Everyone knows it will be worth a ton of money someday.”
The car was made for Josephine Ford, the granddaughter of company founder Henry Ford. But the 81-year-old heiress, who owned a summer home in Seal Harbor, died June 1 in Detroit.
The two-seater car instead went to her daughter, also named Josephine. An inscription on the dash reads: “Last 2005 Ford Thunderbird, produced July 1st 2005 for the family of Josephine Ford.”
The custom-made car has a 290-horsepower V-8 engine, and is considered priceless.
The Thunderbird, one of Ford’s most celebrated nameplates, first went on sale in 1954 and soon became part of the American culture. The Beach Boys sang about the “T-bird” in 1964, Suzanne Somers drove one in the 1973 film “American Graffiti,” and Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis took one on a cross-country crime spree in the 1991 movie “Thelma and Louise.”
The Thunderbird went through numerous design changes over the decades before going on hiatus in 1997.
The redesigned 2002 Thunderbird got off to a roaring start when it was brought back into production, but the flurry died down almost as quickly as it emerged. After sales fell to just 11,998 last year, 33 percent fewer than in 2003, the company announced it was retiring the car this year.
Dave Machaiek, curator at the Owls Head Transportation Museum, said it’s special for the last T-bird to be in Maine.
“It’s the end of the era,” he said.
The museum, located in Owls Head outside of Rockland, is home to a 1955 Thunderbird with black-and-white seats. The Thunderbird was Ford’s sport response to Chevy’s muscle car, the Corvette, Machaiek said.
“They are an icon of the “50s,” he said.
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