The original Chevrolet Corvette, which first debuted in January 1953, probably inspired the creation of the Thunderbird. Astonished, Hershey asked if Chevrolet seriously planned to build it. A friend called on him one night and showed him a sketch of the Corvette.
(As our regular readers will recall, it was Hershey who was chiefly responsible for the tail fins of the 1948-49 Cadillacs.) Therefore, when Hershey’s former boss set out to build a fiberglass-bodied sports car, Hershey soon got wind of it. THE CHEVROLET CORVETTEĪlthough Harley Earl had fired Frank Hershey several years earlier for doing non-GM design work - a privilege Earl reserved for himself - Hershey still had close ties to GM Styling. George Walker was not formally in charge of Ford design, but his influence was strongly felt. Elwood Engel worked primarily with Bordinat, while Joe Oros was assigned to work with Hershey. Gene Bordinat headed the Lincoln-Mercury studio and ex-GM stylist Frank Hershey was hired to head the Ford Division studios. By 1952, Ford Styling was headed by Charlie Waterhouse, whose main function was to manage the relationship between Styling and Engineering. Walker’s victory in the design contest was too much for Bob Gregorie, who soon resigned, followed only a few months later by his successor, Tom Hibbard. Many of Ford’s in-house stylists privately resented their presence. By the early fifties, Walker himself was rarely involved in day-to-day activities, but Oros and Engel, his lieutenants, were heavily involved in much of Ford’s design work. They were already subordinate to Engineering and now they had to compete with the highly paid consultants, whose boss had the ear of the company’s executive VP and of Henry Ford II himself. The arrival of Walker’s people did not sit well with Ford’s own stylists. The very similar 1950 model, like this 1950 Ford V8 Custom coupe, was much improved. The 1949 Ford, styled by George Walker’s group, was the car that saved the Ford Motor Company and was hugely popular despite a host of early quality problems. After that, Walker’s firm was hired on an ongoing basis as design consultants. In the fall of 1946, Walker’s team, which included stylists Joe Oros and Elwood Engel, won a competition with Bob Gregorie’s in-house styling team to design the ’49 Ford. Walker had tried to get a Ford contract years before, without success, but he was still enticed by the prospect of landing such a major account. Walker was a big, charismatic man, an ex-football player and bon vivant who could give Harley Earl a run for his money when it came to flamboyant personal style. Walker, who ran a successful design studio in Detroit, with contracts from Nash and International Harvester, among others. Breech decided they needed outside help, so he hired a golfing buddy of his, George W. That decision left an urgent need for a new design for the standard Fords. Breech decided that the big Ford was too big and the Light Car too small, so the former became the new Mercury while the latter was sold to Ford of France to become the Vedette. Bob Gregorie’s staff had already developed not one but two new Fords: a big car and a new “Light Car” compact. The biggest priority for Ford at that time was the 1949 Ford line, which would be the first all-new Ford products since before the war. Ford’s existing styling staff, led by Eugene (Bob) Gregorie, remained intact, although many of them subsequently left, but their ranks were soon filled out with GM alumni like Eugene Bordinat, Don DeLaRossa, Bob Maguire, Dave Ash, and John Oswald.
Breech soon convinced Henry that Ford should emulate General Motors, so they began hiring executives, designers, and engineers from GM. Breech from Bendix as Ford’s new executive vice president. Henry II realized immediately that he needed help to revitalize the company.
It had lost its traditional hold on the low-price market to Chevrolet and it was bleeding money to the tune of $10 million a month. The elder Ford’s cronies were finally swept away, but the Ford Motor Company was in very bad shape. In 1945, Henry Ford II, then 28 years old and newly released from the Navy, took the reins of his grandfather’s ailing company. To understand the origins of the Thunderbird, we must step back to the end of World War II. This week, we try to sort out the origins of the 1955 Ford Thunderbird. In the wake of its success, nearly everyone involved with its conception claimed credit for it, slighting each other and playing up their own contributions. Immediately embraced by everyone but sports car purists and Ford accountants, it remains among the most beloved (and most coveted) of all American cars.
The old adage, “Success has many fathers, but failure is an orphan,” could well have been coined for this week’s subject.