Ford · 1954–present
Ford Thunderbird
The Ford Thunderbird is a personal luxury car manufactured and marketed by Ford Motor Company for model years 1955 to 2005, with a hiatus from 1998 to 2001. Ultimately gaining a broadly used colloquial nickname, the T-Bird, the model was introduced as a two-seat convertible, subsequently offered variously in a host of body styles including as a four-seat hardtop coupe, four-seat convertible, five-seat convertible and hardtop, four-door pillared hardtop sedan, six-passenger hardtop coupe, and five-passenger pillared coupe, before returning in its final generation, again as a two-seat convertible. At its inception, Ford targeted the two-seat Thunderbird as an upscale model. The 1958 model year design introduced a rear seat and arguably marked the expansion of a market segment that came to be known as personal luxury cars, positioned to emphasize comfort and convenience over handling and high-speed performance.
Text from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).
Generations & variants
Photos
UK vehicles on the road
251 licensed and 91 SORN (342 total) at 2025 Q4.
| Year (latest quarter) | Vehicles |
|---|---|
| 2014 | 129 |
| 2015 | 160 |
| 2016 | 185 |
| 2017 | 205 |
| 2018 | 256 |
| 2019 | 279 |
| 2020 | 299 |
| 2021 | 317 |
| 2022 | 331 |
| 2023 | 326 |
| 2024 | 328 |
| 2025 | 342 |
DfT/DVLA VEH0120 vehicle licensing statistics, source ↗, Open Government Licence v3.0. Small counts are rounded or suppressed at source.
Sources
- Wikidata / Wikipedia profiles — https://models.autoculturesociety.com/cars/Q5467957CC0 / CC BY-SA 4.0
- Wikipedia — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_ThunderbirdCC BY-SA 4.0 · Intro text © Wikipedia contributors; revision 1375343309 · retrieved 2026-10-03
- DfT/DVLA VEH0120 licensing statistics — https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/vehicle-licensing-statistics-data-tablesOpen Government Licence v3.0
- Car Model Index — https://models.autoculturesociety.com/Compiled record. Sources that do not permit reuse are not copied; this index is credited instead.