Gold Bird History

[Original Goldbird]

I am Tom Tabor Sr 87 year old father of Tom who now owns the bird I purchased new in 1960. You will find me in the technical forum under new member Original Gold bird. I am going to share my 50 year experience with this car with you fellow members but first want to know if this is where I should post it or should it go back to the other forum where there are photos of gold bird. Let me know please and then I will tell all Thanks

[Gold Bird]

Hey Dad, Yes you are in the right spot with anything goes. Could put the post in the technical question area but that should only be used for questions on repairs. Go ahead when you can and tell us some of your cool, interesting stories!

[JohnG]

Tom, this is a perfectly good spot for any of the history of your car!! We look forward to it!

John

[Dan Leavens]

Tom Sr. we are all looking forward to your chronicle of the 50 years, of the Goldbird. In the many years I have been on this site, I am happy to see that we have a father and son as members and with the original classic that you purchased. Doesn't get any better than that.

[Original Goldbird]

History I

I fell in love with the 58 square birds at 1st sight but couldn't afford the $5,000 sticker.I was raised in the depression of the 1930's and taught that I should never borrow money to buy a car so from my 1st car( a 1935 Chevy) to the last each has been purchased for cash.With a combined income for both my wife and me of $100 a week I had to buy used cars rather than new.

Gold Bird first appeared in my life when the wife of the local Ford dealer parked it in front of our store. I told her how much I wanted to own that car and she said she would see if her husband would work out a deal for me. He phoned me and said he only had two 60's left and both were demonstrators with about 1000 miles on each. the other was a hard top in the same color which is named Beachwood Brown. He offered me the convert for $3500.00. On the next Saturday he loaned me the car for the weekend and the following Monday I withdrew the money from our savings account and took delivery in mid October 1960. My father and father in law were very upset with me for spending that much on a car, particularly since son Tom was less than a year old and his sister only four and they feared for the kids safety riding in a convertible. Cars did not have seat belts those days but the dealer ordered lap type belts from Ford and installed them.

A lot more to come if you are interested Tom Tabor

[tbird430]

That was a great "intro" story!! Keep them coming...

[Anders]

Great? It was an awesome start!
More!!!!

[YellowRose]

Gold Bird History

Keep 'em coming, Tom! I am gonna read the next one! This is great to see the history of a car told like this! Fantastic! Rather than creating a new thread each time, you can just add to the original one by posting to it. That way, the whole story will be in the same thread!

[YellowRose]

Gold Bird History II

Today, 03:01 PM
Original Goldbird
Newbie
Join Date: Jun 10 2010
Location: Delray Beach, Florida
Posts: 4


Gold Bird History II
Thanks for comments on History I especially Anders in Sweden. Have never communicated with someone in another country.To everyone else read History I before this.

On the weekend before I purchased gold bird I really enjoyed driving it around town but especially on the freeway where I pushed up to 100mph. It was a chilly but warm Sunday and I tried to open the trunk because I thought the top switch was there like I heard it was in the 58 and 59 models but of course there was no way to manually open the trunk and I didn't realize it was under the dash board. During my 50 years of ownership I often wondered why Ford did not furnish manual trunk access.
Sure could have used that about a month after I bought it.
Put the top down,I loved the look with no boot necessary.
Then I tried to put the top up and no luck.It was stuck in the down position.

Took it to my dealer and they did not know how to get in it either to replace a module. Finally Ford Motor Co sent a man up to Bay City from Dearborn who had to remove the gas tank to get at the cause. They told me he was a midget but I never believed that. In my 50 years of ownership that was the only time I ever had to take gold bird in for a mechanical problem
In a later report I will tell you about big time top problems when the car was about 40 years old.

Watch for History III and others which I will send if members are really interested in these ramblings of an old bird lover

Tom Tabor Sr

Tom, Sr. You can just click on this thread, hit the Post Reply button and add to this. You can call your next Post Gold Bird History III and so forth, if you want to. This way, we will have your history reports on the car all in one thread for the future. This is excellent and I do not know if we have ever had a family report on a car history like this before.

[redneck]

Keep it coming

Tom Sr.:
This is awesome. Keep the stories coming.
Rich in N. Minnesota

[Original Goldbird]

Gold Bird History III

Thanks for suggestions to reply rather then start a new thread. I did start a new thread History II but somehow it got in here too.
Today I am going to share a funny wartime story only vaguely connected to my car. I was an aerial gunner and radio operator in a B 24 with 40 bombing missions with the 15th Air Force out of Italy. One of the other surviving gunners told us that after the war if we ever drove south it would be easy to find him at his home in Moultrie Georgia. His name was John White. He said when you enter Moultrie ask the first person you see "where is the White House?' I replied they will say Washington DC and he said not in Moultrie Georgia they won't. They will direct you to my house.

So shortly after purchasing gold bird in October of 1960 we planned to drive it to our 1st vacation ever in Florida in Feb of 1961. My parents decided to join us but convinced me to take Dad's Oldsmobile with more room for 4 people. On the way we went out of our way to visit Moultrie and I pulled into a gas station and said to the attendant " Don't laugh but I promised a flying buddy that the first person I saw in Moultrie I would ask where is the White House. He replied "Washington Dc.
Never ever found my buddy.


Hope you enjoyed that story. More will follow on GB history later.By the way while I don't know everything about 1960 Birds I do know a lot about the features and what they looked like when new so feel free to ask me any thing you might like to know about yours. Old Tom

[Dan Leavens]

Tom Sr. As others have said keep the stories coming, as I can almost visualize the look on the mans face when you asked " Where is the White House "

Tom Jr. If you haven't thought of it yet perhaps you should print these " mini stories " put them into a binder and place them in the TBird for show. I am sure it will bring the Goldbird to life at the S&S.

[Original Goldbird]

Gold bird history IV

While we were vacationing in Florida my father in law phoned me with possible bad news about our new car. The dealer had not reported many sales which the financial company was loaning him money on his floor plan. They assumed these vehicles were still in his inventory and when didn't pay them at once they sent towing trucks to the garages of the purchasers to re possess the vehicles.
fortunately for us he had reported our purchase and we had a clear title and our bird was safely bedded down in our garage, wheww!
I will keep sending though in the middle of typing this my screen said this thread has more than 10 entries and closed me out. Any suggestions how I should handle that in the future? Old Tom

[YellowRose]

Gold Bird History

Tom, Sr. I do not know why you would get that message. We have some threads that have hundreds of posts in them. Please continue posting here and if it continues, I will ask driller or simpyconnected to look into it. We are enjoying the posts tremendously.

[simplyconnected]

...in the middle of typing this my screen said this thread has more than 10 entries and closed me out...

Sorry that happened to you, Tom. I know of two restrictions to this site:
1. You must type at least ten characters before sending a post,
2. There is a limit of ten pictures you can attach to each post.

Aside from that, each post can contain up to 5,000 characters. - Dave