IN THIS FEATURE Early days Popular personal luxury The Squarebird Projectile styling Growing again Ugly duckling Aerodynamic phase Temporary retirement New Thunderbird

The 1980 Thunderbird was controversial, to say the least; many industry commentators described it as one of the ugliest cars they'd ever seen, and one writer claims that even Ford's chief stylist, Jack Telnack (who arrived at Ford too late to have an influence on the car's looks), said in 1985 that "it was pretty awful, wasn't it?" (The World's Great Cars, ed. Jeremy Coulter). The '80 T-bird, a unitary construction again, was built on the Fairmont saloon chassis. Wide but with a narrow track, it had quirks such as its extended rear wheel arches - the widest point of the car, leading to many paintwork scrapes. Over-fussy in detailing but under-powered - it came with 3277cc or 3687cc straight-sixes or the 5.0 V8 - sales continued to slide, with just 156,800 sold in the three years this model was in production.