Perhaps the BEST B1G Forum anywhere, here at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

The T-Bird fiasco was just that no doubt.

A 1956 Corvette was considerably faster than a 1955 T-Bird though.  

https://www.zeroto60times.com/compare-cars/

They don't have year to year comparisons.

I like 'em both.

my favorite car song...........by Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen

Pulled out of San Pedro late one night
The moon and the stars was shinin' bright
We was drivin' up Grapevine Hill
Passing cars like they was standing still

my favorite car song...........by Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen

Pulled out of San Pedro late one night
The moon and the stars was shinin' bright
We was drivin' up Grapevine Hill
Passing cars like they was standing still

Did you know the story of "that hot rod race" at the start of Commander Cody's song?
"Hot Rod Race."

I think that the comparison I read may have been between '55 models.  The Corvette had a 265 V-8 (it was Chevy's first year to have a V-8), while the T-Bird had a 292 "Y-block" V-8.
Only 700-some '55 Corvettes were made, as there were many unsold '54s, with straight-6s, left over.  Meanwhile, Ford sold over 16,000 Thunderbirds.  So a 23:1 sales advantage.
The Thunderbird was intended to compete with the Corvette in the marketplace, but it never placed the emphasis on all-round performance and handling that the Corvette began demonstrating starting in 1956.
To be fair to McNamara, the 4-seater '58 T-Bird outsold the 2-seater '57 model by a large margin.  So, counting only dollars-and-cents, making the switch was a smart move.  What the decision said about Ford Motor Company is a more subjective thing to assess.
But it's that same bean-counter mentality that McNamara took with him when he became JFK's SecDef, and with which he managed the war in Vietnam.
Sometimes cost-efficiency is not the most important thing.  It doesn't matter how much money you saved by micro-management if you lose the war.

I think the difference is that there are some cars that shouldn't be subject to a dollars and cents optimization. 

I'd venture to say that the Corvette is the flagship of the Chevrolet brand. It's the aspirational one. It's the one that people put posters up on their walls. 

Very few people actually BUY one, of course. It's a 2-seater. It's expensive (not compared to some other supercars). It's impractical. 

The Camaro is the accessible one, that has 4 seats, and may not exactly be a truly "practical" car, but it's moreso than a Corvette.

If Ford had kept the Thunderbird as the aspirational one and the Mustang as the accessible one, maybe the Thunderbird would still be around. But they went in the direction of higher sales and killed the brand. 

yes sir!


this is actually my favorite version - a bit more edge to the guitar

Hot Rod Lincoln - PAT TRAVERS - YouTube

Are you familiar with the 1955 original by Charlie Ryan?

Per the Font of All Wisdom and Knowledge:

"Hot Rod Lincoln" is a song by American singer-songwriter Charlie Ryan, first released in 1955. It was written as an answer song to Arkie Shibley's 1950 hit "Hot Rod Race" which describes a race in San Pedro, Los Angeles between two hot rod cars, a Ford and a Mercury, which stay neck-and-neck until both are overtaken by "a kid in a hopped-up Model A". "Hot Rod Lincoln" is sung from the perspective of this third driver, whose own hot rod is a Ford Model A body with a Lincoln V8, overdrive, a four-barrel carburetor, 4:11 gear ratio, and safety tubes.

Ryan's original rockabilly version of the song was released in 1955 through Souvenir Records under the artist name Charley Ryan and the Livingston Bros.[1] A second version was released in 1959 through Four Star Records, credited to Charlie Ryan and the Timberline Riders.[2] Ryan based the description of the eponymous car on his own hot rod, built from a 1948 12-cylinder Lincoln chassis shortened two feet, with a 1930 Ford Model A body fitted to it.[citation needed] Ryan raced his hot rod against a Cadillac sedan driven by a friend in Lewiston, Idaho, driving up the Spiral Highway (former U.S. Route 95 in Idaho) to the top of Lewiston Hill; he incorporated elements from this race in his lyrics to "Hot Rod Lincoln", but changed the setting to Grapevine Hill (a long, nearly straight grade up Grapevine Canyon to Tejon Pass, near the town of Gorman, California) to fit it within the narrative of "Hot Rod Race".

An Allard J2 with a Cadillac engine finished 3rd at Le Mans in 1950.