Thunderbird's nostalgic journey - SFGate
Lawrence H. Kuznetz is a 40-year veteran of the space program with advanced degrees from Columbia University and University of California , Berkeley. He was a flight controller during Apollo, helped build the space shuttles and was Life Science Experiment Manager for the International Space Station. It starts with a trip in a very special car and ends 30 years later with the same trip in the same car, a highly modified 1957 Thunderbird. I remember the night in 1965 when I first saw it. It looked like all the other T-birds I’d been shopping for as a gift to myself for graduating Columbia University. The oxidized white paint and ragged convertible top were the norm, but subtle hints abounded that this was no ordinary bird — a custom tachometer, a pod of SW gauges, racing harnesses, a Muncie 4-speed shifter and 15-inch Goodyear Blue Streaks on... The test drive clinched it. The click-clack from the Ford 4 :11 posi and the rumble of 2 1?2-inch exhausts as the owner backed us out of the driveway was followed by a blur of G-forces that turned us into human slingshots. A year later when my brother Ron wanted a '57 T-bird for his graduation, I gave him mine and drummed up the courage to buy the beast for $2,500. Weeks later the T-bird and I were headed to Houston to work on the Apollo project, my dream job. Source: www.sfgate.com
