The 1983-1988 Thunderbird was based on the same rear-wheel-drive Fox platform as the Mustang and Continental, then moved to the bigger and more sophisticated MN12 platform for the 1989 model year. The earlier Thunderbird Turbo Coupe, with turbocharged Pinto engine, was replaced by the Super Coupe, boasting a supercharged 3.8 liter V6. Here’s an evil-looking black ’89 Super Coupe, spotted in a Denver self-serve yard.
The Super Coupe came with an Eaton blower making 12 pounds of boost, feeding an Essex pushrod V6. In 1989, this engine generated 210 horsepower (a junkyard customer has already purchased the Eaton from this car, as junkyard customers tend to do).
The ’89 Ford Taurus SHO was good for 220 very nervous naturally-aspirated horses and weighed a couple hundred pounds less, making it a fair amount quicker (but front-wheel-drive scared away many performance-minded buyers from the Taurus). The price tags on the Super Coupe and SHO were nearly identical in 1989.
Just barely over 100,000 miles on the odometer. There was plenty of life left in at least some of this car’s components.
There are signs of the car’s final owner cutting some maintenance corners, such as the tried-and-true taped-up-taillight repair.
CDs were still somewhat futuristic in 1989, and you won’t see many cars with factory CD players from this era. This player was a $ 491 option, which comes to about $ 1,000 in 2017 dollars.
This car also has the JBL Audio System option. Price tag in 1989: $ 488 ($ 994 in inflation-adjusted bucks). To put those numbers in perspective, I bought a running and driving 1965 Chevy Impala sedan that year for $ 300.
The base price of the 1989 Super Coupe was $ 19,823 (about $ 40,375 in present-day bucks). Compared to the 1989 BMW 635CSi ($ 47,000), Mercedes-Benz 300CE coupe ($ 53,800), Nissan 300ZX 2+2 ($ 23,449), or Toyota Supra ($ 22,360), that was a great price for a quick and sporty rear-wheel-drive coupe. The writers at Motor Trend thought so, and awarded the Super Coupe their 1989 Car of the Year prize.
Further evidence that Ford is winning the world over!
