Fun! Fun! Fun!—Jesse Thornburg's 1956 Thunderbird

Story and photography by Stephen Faure

I was getting ready to put together this issue’s Haute Wheels spread and had been collecting tips on cool cars from everyone I ran across. Two different sources told me that Jesse Thornburg has one of the best-restored Thunderbirds around. So I gave Jesse a call, and said, “I hear through the grapevine you’ve got a nice Thunderbird.” Without hesitation, and, as far as I could tell, without exaggeration, he said, “Well, it’s the best in the world!”

It started a long time ago, Jesse says. “I was growing up in North Carolina when Ford put out the first Thunderbird. I was just crazy about them. I never expected to own one.”

Built in response to the success Chevrolet was having with its two-seater Corvette sports car, the Ford Thunderbird is an American icon, immortalized in the Beach Boys song about a fast-driving good-time girl who had “fun, fun, fun ’til her daddy” took the T-Bird away.

The first Thunderbirds were the 1955 models, two-seaters with a powerful V-8 engine, manual or automatic transmission, clean styling and a comfortable interior. The signature “porthole” windows were placed in the sides of the removable hard top. Despite its power, it was not intended to be a sports car and was marketed as a “personal luxury” car.

Jesse’s 1956 model features a larger engine than was available in 1955, and with the ’56 Thunderbird Ford introduced the “Continental” spare—mounting the spare tire on the rear of the car, opening up more trunk space.

The last year of the two-seater Thunderbird was 1957. Ford produced a long line of different four-seat designs until the appearance in 2002 of the “retro” Thunderbirds, which share some of the styling characteristics of the ’55-’57 models, most notably the porthole windows. Jesse also owns one of the retro models, a 2004 that is his everyday ride.

Jesse’s early fascination with cars stayed with him into adulthood. “In college and afterwards I always messed with street rods and street racing.” But he never did get that Thunderbird he always wanted. A trip to an automobile auction in 1985 put into action events that would fill that missing piece in his life.

“My wife and I went to an auction in Tulsa, Okla., back around 1985, and there were a couple of Thunderbirds. We met a gentleman, Amos Minter, who does nothing but restore ’55, ’56 and ’57 Thunderbirds in Dallas,” Jesse recalls. “About three years later, there was a birthday party for me and a few other guys at Beau Chêne. There was a model Thunderbird on my cake, and I thought, ‘Oh, no; I hope she didn’t do something crazy!’ But as a surprise, when we left the clubhouse, this ’56 was in the lot. My wife and daughter had been working with Amos for those three years restoring the car before she gave it to me.”

The car was great, but still not in perfect condition. “It still needed work so I sent it back to Dallas and had the frame-off restoration done.” Jesse explains, “Frame-off restoration is when they completely take the car apart. Any rust or anything else wrong is completely redone. Then it’s put back together to Ford factory specifications at the time it was originally built.” He also has had local restorers work on the car through the years.

After all that work, Jesse makes sure to take special care of his prized possession. “It’s always moved on a trailer and it’s always under a cover in the garage, with a dehumidifier running all the time,” he notes. “These old cars are all made of steel and they rust, which can be a big issue.”

What do you do with such a fine automobile? You show it off. “Competition has been really fun; showing the car has just been a great hobby. You meet a lot of nice people, and it takes your mind off the hard things in life,” Jesse says. He’s shown the car all over the country, winning awards wherever he goes. “It’s won numerous awards. It’s a ‘Senior Car,’ which is the highest rating you can get from the Classic Thunderbird Club International.”

Jesse also belongs to three different Thunderbird clubs: the Acadian Thunderbird Club in New Orleans, the Classic Thunderbird Club International and the Vintage Thunderbird Club International.

“It gets in your blood,” Jesse says. “It’s a lot of fun.”

Fun, fun, fun for Jesse—and no one’s taking this T-Bird away.