The Blue Bird

[BKBridges]

Not sure where to start on this one... We rescued this 1966 Thunderbird Landau from the elements. Its body was very straight and the interior good. My buddy Tim and I got it running and driving . The next step? Paint. I had this cool CL72 Scrambler motorcycle when I was a kid. It had a nice lace paint job on the tank. I always liked it. In a strange set of circumstances we found a couple of guys that love to paint and pinstripe. We had some good stuff to trade for it (truck etc.) Heres the results: Now we need to get some decent wheels and tires for it. Any good suggestions?

[Deaf Bob]

Sweet lookin bird!

[studemax]

ME LIKEY!

[hauen]

Nice! I'm probably in the minority, but why not some polished up hubcaps? I always liked the ones with the knock-off spinners.

[JOES66FURY]

Wide whites, bullet center caps and maybe a light blue and dark blue fade and highlight on the steel wheels

[BKBridges]

I like your suggestions! Weve got the stock "spinner" caps and they are still in pretty good condition. The Bullet center cap idea has me intrigued though. A friend of mine has a 53 Chev with that set up and it looks pretty old school. We are picking it up from the artists this weekend to do the final assembly. Im not much of a car show guy, but I cant wait to take it to its first outing. Don't think it will be ready in time for the Goodguys show here in Delmar though...Now Im wondering what these guys can do to our 62 coupe deville!

[fast Ed]

The 65-67 Birds are a bit tough to get aftermarket wheels on, because of the chunky K-H front calipers. If you look at the OEM steel wheels, they have a big dish to them to clear the brakes. Many aftermarket wheels in an appropriate size and style for these cars will not fit because they have a fairly shallow mounting pad.

When I got my 66 T-Bird a few years ago, it had chrome reverse wheels (with spacers behind the fronts to clear the brakes) with rusty flat caps.



Swapped the caps out for some bullet caps from Wheel Vintiques, much better IMO: (sorry for crappy cellphone pics)





They were the smaller of the two sizes of the bullet caps, and they just cleared the fender skirts by a bit.


cheers
Ed

[BKBridges]

Those Caps look good! Im thinking that's the way to go on the blue bird. Thanks for the heads up on the caliper interference. Need to dig up some blue door panels somewhere now.

[JOES66FURY]

Here is what I was refering to on the steel wheels....



you dont see this often but with the right lug nuts and center caps this type of paint on a plain old steelwheel really pops....

[trukluvr]

Sweet bird!!

[BKBridges]

Winfield fade wheels... Nice! I just picked up some blue suede pigskin for the armrests and door panels...hope its the right shade!
BKB

[mlcraven]

I've always admired lace and paint fade treatments -- don't see them much anymore in these parts. A very distinctive T-Bird, great cruiser I'm sure.

[BKBridges]

I've always admired lace and paint fade treatments -- don't see them much anymore in these parts. A very distinctive T-Bird, great cruiser I'm sure.

Thanks! Ive only got about 6 hours into it so far (carb rebuild, general clean up and brake repairs...) I need to spend some quality time with it this weekend if I can.

[BKBridges]

Things never go as quickly as youd like, even slower when you are in a hurry... We thrashed wildly to get the blue suede bird to the Delmar good guys show this weekend... And we didn't make it. We got the rear window popped back in Saturday evening, with more detailing to go. My hands are swollen from the upholstery work with punctures and scrapes on most every finger. I spent way too much time on the reclining passenger seat mechanism ( soo cool Roton unit) and the massive amount of chrome and anodized aluminum trim kept us polishing till late at night. I have "foam lung" from breathing the decayed Dunlopillow seat foam during the recovering. We finally got it road worthy and looking like a complete Thunderbird this afternoon. Its first trip out was completely uneventful other than the pneumatic door lock system decided to start working without our intervention... cool. Heres a few pics of the almost final product. It still needs a new carpet set and the headliner vinyl replaced to be a real looker, but what the heck. We did decide to go with the cool stock hubcaps since they were in such good shape. I think this is the first car that weve actually finished more or less in the time frame that we had more or less planned on...other than missing the show.

[DanStokes]

Nice, Bruce! Wife #1 had a grandfather who always drove one of these bad boys and I always liked them. The rehabbed seats look GREAT! A bit here and there and it'll be better than new.

Dan