By James McCarter
LA VIEW Publisher
The year 1961 began with Robert Frost reciting The Gift Outright at John F. Kennedy’s inauguration. In April, a group of 200 anti-Castro exiles invaded Cuba at the Bay of Pigs. In May, Navy Cmdr. Alan B. Shepard Jr. became the first U.S. astronaut when he rocketed 116.5 miles high into the earth’s orbit. Later that summer construction began on the Berlin Wall.

And on Wednesday, July 12, 1961, 36-year-old Orville Rowden went to Harold Turner Ford in Birmingham and bought a brand new Ford Thunderbird convertible. He still has it today.

“I was thinking about buying a Cadillac,” recalled Rowden, who at the time was a General Motors employee. “I drove the Thunderbird over to the Cadillac dealer and parked it next to a Cadillac. The Caddy looked so big and boxy compared to the Thunderbird. So I bought the T-bird.”

Both cars were considered pretty glamorous automobiles at the time. But the Cadillac was more staid compared to the Thunderbird. The T-bird was lower, and with the top down it looked like a rocket that was about to launch into space. More than any other car from the period, the T-bird was influenced by what was going on in the world: it looked as though it came right out of a Buck Rodgers serial film.

The Thunderbird was introduced in 1955 as a two-seater sports car designed to compete with the Corvette. Although the 1955-1957 roadsters had been popular, Ford redesigned the 1958 T-bird because many consumers were looking for more passenger and trunk space. The new four-passenger Thunderbird was an instant success and won Motor Trend magazine’s Car of the Year.

The body style remained pretty much the same from 1958 to 1960. Then in 1961 the Thunderbird entered its third generation. The all-new body shell featured a pointed front nose, modest fins above the traditional round taillights, quad headlamps recessed in oblong housings, and much softer roof lines for the hard-top versions.

The interior featured a dashboard that curved around the driver and the passenger and then blended into the door panels. It also introduced the first ever “Swing Away” steering column.
In 1963, Ford offered Thunderbird owners a fiberglass Roadster Tonneau cover, which covered the back seat and created the illusion of a two-seater. Access to the back seat was still available by flipping the front seats forward. Rowden was informed by the Ford dealer that the tonneau cover would fit his 1961 Thunderbird, so he added the unique option to his car.

Over the years Rowden moved a few times. He took the Thunderbird with him in the 1970s when he relocated to Long Lake in Bridgeton, Maine. His neighbor was a young writer named Stephen King who had recently published a book called Carrie.

“He came over and offered to buy the car,” said Rowden. “I told him I wasn’t ready to sell.”
In 1984, Rowden decided to move to Florida. Since his Thunderbird was black with a black interior and didn’t have air conditioning, he figured it would be too hot for the southern climate. So he gave the car to his daughter, Jan.

When Rowden returned to Michigan in 1999 he got the car back from his daughter. It had been sitting for quite a few years and needed some work before it would be road worthy again.

Rowden and his son, David, pulled the big 390-cubic-inch engine and sent it out for rebuilding. They replaced the master cylinder, wheel cylinders and brake lines. The fuel tank had to be reconditioned and the radiator re-cored. Kevin Wilson of Lapeer repainted both sides because of stone chips.

The optional features — power windows, radio and power top — all remain in good working order. The Cruise-O-Matic automatic transmission still shifts smoothly.

If you know of an interesting
automobile please contact Jim
McCarter by e-mail at
jmccarter@laview.net or call
(810) 245-9343.

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