First impressions are key. Within the first seven seconds of meeting someone, they’ve already made their mind up about you, regardless of whether or not you have opened up your mouth far enough to stick your foot inside. Your clothes, your overall appearance, your weight, posture, attentiveness…all of that are tells to the trained eye that will set the tone for any future interaction. That’s why your mother always fussed at you to clean up, find some clothes that fit and to smell nice when she heard that you might be going out on a date when you first started courting.

If the same reasoning can be applied to a car, the first seven seconds involving this refrigerator white 1983 Ford Thunderbird read easily: ten-holes, stock paint, stock height, a bit of rust here and there…nothing too bad, but it’s there…and you get the impression that you’re dealing with a thirty-five year survivor, a car that has been kept up but not necessarily kept well. This might have been Grandma’s pride when she bought it, but since then it became Aunt Sheri’s car, then Kevin’s first car when he got to be of age. Now Kevin is driving around in a three-year-old Prius, Sheri is in a Grand Cherokee, and the Thunderbird sits, waiting to be called upon for emergency duty. The rest of the car is so sleepy, in fact, that you just might overlook the mild cowl induction hood that is actually needed. 

Well now…that is a 460 sporting dual quads, and eating up what the engine is putting out is a five-speed manual. That is going out to stock 10-hole Ford wheels. Four lug axles. Yikes. If you have your jokes about Mustangs and Cars and Coffee events cued up, just wait until you see what this T-bird is capable of with some spirited driving. 85 mile and hour speedometer? Our first act would be to see just how fast we could break it.

From the ad: “Bought this car from a man in his late 60s who is good friends with a few race car drivers back in the day like Grumpy Jenkins and others. He had this car for two decades and has decided to let it go. It was built to cruise to shows and to have some fun, and it does that well. The car drives great, I drove it 40 miles on the highway doing 70 with no issues. You can drive this car anywhere. It has about 4,000 easy miles on the drivetrain is what I was told, shifts well in all five gears and the 4.10 posi is fine with no issues.”

One other thing: the current asking price on the listing is $3,500. That’s not an auction bid, that’s the buy-it-now price listing. What the hell are you waiting for?

eBay Link: 1983 Ford Thunderbird