Learn me late '60s Thunderbird

My wife's grandfather has a 1968 Ford Thunderbird two door he never drives. I'm looking like I might purchase it in the near future. Can anyone give me some info on where to get parts and any advice would be great. It has the 429 and the body is perfect except for a dent in the front of the hood. Kinda looking to put a nice exhaust on it, fix the hood and radio and drive as is. Thanks in advance for the advice.

I had a '67 (same body style) with the suicide rear doors. It had the "small motor", the 390, and it got 8mpg - though it probably wasn't in the best tune.

That generation of Thunderbird is a good looking car in my opinion, but under-appreciated and hasn't seemed to have caught on with the collector types. It also lacks the parts support of the '66 and under cars.

They have sequential turn signals that are operated by a little module that consists of an electric motor that turns a cam that presses electrical contacts sequentially. It can be troublesome but I remember that someone made a solid-state replacement unit (though this was 18 years ago).

Like other luxury cars of the era, there are vacuum-operated things that are prone to failure, like the headlights and rear trunk release.

Hopefully yours is one of the rarer ones without the vinyl top. I think they look a lot better that way:

It actually has the vinyl top... I was looking earlier and found places that have parts for almost any years except late 60's. Are there any other cars...like maybe Lincoln...that can swap driveline parts?

Are you interested in doing an engine swap or are you worried about replacement parts? The engines are run-of-the-mill FE series so that shouldn't be an issue parts-wise. I don't remember what transmission they use, only that it is a 3-speed auto...probably something really common.

I'd be more worried about odd trim parts.

Give it a few more years and I bet repro parts will start showing up.

All the mission critical stuff should be readily available anywhere, there are only a handful of 60s American car platforms, many platforms shared stuff. If the car is fairly solid, all the trim is there and the interior is serviceable, you have nothing to worry about parts wise.

There's a tired one on a second rate used car lot by me with a 429. In my opinion the only purpose they have is to donate their engines to vehicles like my '65 F100. My grandmother had a much sexier '66 and I didn't keep that when she quit driving because frankly it was no fun to drive. It was just BIG. It wasn't powerful (390), parts were expensive and it consumed a lot of space.

I just wanted to make sure it was a pretty common engine so I could get stuff like intake and exhaust. I only really want it because it will be cheap...maybe even free...and it has a big motor. It'll be kinda cool with maybe a small drop some nice wheels/tires and exhaust work.

ddavidv wrote: There's a tired one on a second rate used car lot by me with a 429. In my opinion the only purpose they have is to donate their engines to vehicles like my '65 F100. My grandmother had a much sexier '66 and I didn't keep that when she quit driving because frankly it was no fun to drive. It was just BIG. It wasn't powerful (390), parts were expensive and it consumed a lot of space.

Right there with you, for me, the tbird went on an extended vacation after '66......until the turbo coupe and supercoupe came out.......then it died to me.

I much prefer the 64-66, but that 67 above without the vinyl top looks pretty good. I hated the four door models and that hideous one with the beak.

The beak happened when Bunkie Knudsen came over to Ford from Pontiac.