CuriousCarl
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- Last seen
- Joined
- Dec 5, 2021
- Thunderbird Year
- 1955
Hi everyone,
So back in December, I posted a thread (here) asking about an odd continental kit on a ’55. You all were incredibly helpful and I truly appreciated your responses. Well I found out a whole lot more about this strange bird! It is indeed a 1955 and the dealer it was sold to put it in the Pan-Pacific Auto Show (first iteration of the LA Auto Show) but wanted to make it a bit more “showy” so he custom built the continental attachment into the car. The car was then sold to my great-great grandfather and given to my great-great grandmother who’s had it ever since. Apparently it was in the movie “Introducing Dorothy Dandrige” starring Halle Berry that was released in 1999. It has 40.5K original miles. The car also had a write up in Ford Life magazine which I’ve attached pictures of below. It’s actually a pretty cool piece of Thunderbird history! In the article, I’ve boxed out the names (I know you can easily just look up the article but I still wanted to do it just in case).
I really want to restore it to its former glory. I know my great-great grandmother would get a kick out of seeing it in the condition she used to drive it. The only problem is I’m not all that great at automotive restoration or anything automotive really. So that means I’ll have to take it to a specialty TBird restoration. I was wondering if anyone had any insight into the costs of a restoration or even a vague ballpark figure. I know that estimating a restoration cost based on a few pictures and a rough history isn’t exactly an easy task but anything would help me out. I know that it’s been sitting dormant in a garage for the past 25 years. I’ve included the data plate information below. From what I can tell from trying to decipher the data plate, it was built January 12th and was the 40th car shipped to Rockford, Illinois.
Here's the data plate info:
P5FH 13627
40A R B 12AKE40
Thank you all so much for any and all help, insight, comments, advice, etc.
So back in December, I posted a thread (here) asking about an odd continental kit on a ’55. You all were incredibly helpful and I truly appreciated your responses. Well I found out a whole lot more about this strange bird! It is indeed a 1955 and the dealer it was sold to put it in the Pan-Pacific Auto Show (first iteration of the LA Auto Show) but wanted to make it a bit more “showy” so he custom built the continental attachment into the car. The car was then sold to my great-great grandfather and given to my great-great grandmother who’s had it ever since. Apparently it was in the movie “Introducing Dorothy Dandrige” starring Halle Berry that was released in 1999. It has 40.5K original miles. The car also had a write up in Ford Life magazine which I’ve attached pictures of below. It’s actually a pretty cool piece of Thunderbird history! In the article, I’ve boxed out the names (I know you can easily just look up the article but I still wanted to do it just in case).
I really want to restore it to its former glory. I know my great-great grandmother would get a kick out of seeing it in the condition she used to drive it. The only problem is I’m not all that great at automotive restoration or anything automotive really. So that means I’ll have to take it to a specialty TBird restoration. I was wondering if anyone had any insight into the costs of a restoration or even a vague ballpark figure. I know that estimating a restoration cost based on a few pictures and a rough history isn’t exactly an easy task but anything would help me out. I know that it’s been sitting dormant in a garage for the past 25 years. I’ve included the data plate information below. From what I can tell from trying to decipher the data plate, it was built January 12th and was the 40th car shipped to Rockford, Illinois.
Here's the data plate info:
P5FH 13627
40A R B 12AKE40
Thank you all so much for any and all help, insight, comments, advice, etc.