The Ford Thunderflite Concept Car, despite the unspoken rule to call this car a concept car, is the 1961 Ford Thunderbird, which was designed by the master of his craft, Dean ‘Dino’ Arnold. The car includes more than a thousand custom parts – and this is a really impressive figure. But, by the way, the nameplates from Thunderbird were honestly preserved and are found both in and on the car everywhere.
Inspired by the spirit of the beloved concept cars of the 50s and 60s, Dino completely reproduced the desire of designers of that time to make something resembling an airplane out of a car body. If you don’t know the full story of the car, then it can really be confused with a real prototype from the last century – the Thunderflite really looks much more like one of those cars than what is usually hidden behind the words ‘custom car’. Of the many little things, the most prominent, of course, are the double bubble top and chrome paint from the House Of Kolors, famous for its chrome. The engine is a five-liter Ford small block (302 cubes). The interior is made from scratch by Deluxe Auto Interiors. Air suspension and automatic transmission are available.
Yes, it’s a show car, but it’s really of outstanding quality. He deservedly won a lot of auto shows, and half a dozen magazines, including Street Rodder and Rod & Custom, decided to write about him at once. His fifteen minutes of fame were really vivid. Unfortunately, since it was auctioned off pretty quickly, and none of the magazines that wrote about it decided to share their article with the world Wide Web, I won’t be able to write more about it. Nevertheless, many photographs have been preserved, and most of them are of amazing quality (4000×3000), so if you wish, you can view any detail of this work of art on wheels.
