Thunderbird Supercoupe

Old NFO posted a story about buying a Taurus SHO.

http://oldnfo.org/2016/04/07/tbt-58/

Fantastic cars. The engines in the early ones were a collaboration with Yamaha engineering and Mercury Marine manufacturing (mainly intake manifolds). Sparked a memory of selling a 1995 40^thAnniversary Thunderbird.

I was having a weird month. Every blasted new car I sold was an “advertised” unit. We were paid $50 for selling one. One Friday morning I sold eight, six while the sales meeting was going on. As a point of pride, I always had a customer on Friday morning so I didn’t have to attend the sales meeting. If I was the only salesman present, I snagged all the early customers. (Why yes, I was a ruthless asshole, thanks for asking)

My manager’s nickname for me was “Grossy”. While I didn’t always sell the most units, ten out of twelve months I would have the highest gross profit numbers. Neither he or I could figure out why I was stuck on “ad units”. The store owner was pissed at me for selling all the units but reminded me if I didn’t produce enough gross I wouldn’t be getting performance bonuses. He made three mistakes. First, he pissed me off. Second, he had put the only 40^th Anniversary Thunderbird we were getting on ice. Stuffed it in a shed to keep for himself. Third, he went on vacation.

In walked a Norwegian fishing boat captain and his first mate/bride down from Dutch Harbor after a successful season. A few hours later he was the proud leasee of a 40^thAnniversary Thunderbird and I had $5,000 in gross profit on my book.

When the owner returned from vacation, he faced the classic Jewish dilemma, free ham! On one hand he didn’t have his collector car. On the other hand he had an enormous profit. He and I had a strained relationship. I was an asshole but as long as my productivity value exceeded my nuisance value, he put up with me.

One month there was a $500 A/R (deductible) on my wash out check.

Me, to my manager, “WTF?”

Manager, “Rich (the owner) thinks you need anger management. That is what the class costs”.

Fast forward a couple of weeks and the owner encountered me on the showroom floor. “When are you going to anger management class”, he asked?

My reply, “Shit, Rich. I thought I had to pay for the class. I didn’t know I had to attend it”, wasn’t well received. And, I never did attend the class.

When my marriage broke up and I ended up as the custodial parent of two tweener boys, I left for a used car lot with a lot fewer hours. Took a big income hit but the time I got to spend with my sons was priceless.

The Thunderbird Super Coupe with the supercharged V-6 engine was a great car. The Anniversary editions were built in the Atlanta plant and had many problems. That Norwegian skipper was one of the unfortunate owners. Ford ended up buying it back under the Washington State Lemon Law. 

When I could, I would steer customers past Atlanta built cars. Same with Kansas City plant trucks. Best quality Ford vehicles came from the Twin Cities plant. Why the difference I don't know but it was real.