Vehicle
Ford Thunderbird
Two entirely different cars under one name, separated by five years of the nameplate not existing at all. The 1989-1997 car is a large rear-drive coupé on the MN12 platform with independent rear suspension, and its Super Coupe carries a supercharged and intercooled 3.8 V6 — an engine unlike anything else Ford was selling, with its own belt, its own intercooler circuit and its own failure modes. The 2002-2005 revival is a two-seat convertible on the DEW98 platform shared with the Lincoln LS and the Jaguar S-Type, powered by a version of Jaguar's AJ V8: so its parts, its diagnostics and its service data belong to that family rather than to any other Ford. Establishing which of the two is in front of you decides everything else.
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Generations
-
Tenth generation 1989–1997
MN12 rear-drive coupé; the Super Coupe's supercharged 3.8 is unlike anything else Ford sold.
- Body styles
- Coupé
- Platform
- Ford MN12
- Engines
-
- 3.8 V6 — ESSEX · petrol · Essex
- 3.8 supercharged V6 — petrol · Super Coupe
- 4.6 V8 — TRITON · petrol · 153 kW (205 hp) · 359 Nm (265 lb-ft) · modular
- 5.0 V8 — petrol
- Transmissions
- 4-speed Ford AOD automatic · 4-speed Ford AOD 4R70W automatic · 5-speed Mazda M5R2 manual
- Drivetrain
- Rear-wheel drive
-
Eleventh generation 2002–2005
A two-seat convertible on DEW98 with a Jaguar-derived V8; Lincoln LS and S-Type material applies.
- Body styles
- Convertible
- Platform
- Ford DEW98
- Engines
-
- 3.9 V8 — petrol · 188–209 kW (252–280 hp) · 362–388 Nm (267–286 lb-ft) · Jaguar AJ-derived
- Transmissions
- 5-speed automatic
- Drivetrain
- Rear-wheel drive
Service information
Information, not instruction
CarGeek is a reference, not a service manual. Its pages are written from public sources and from what other people have found, never from a manufacturer's own service information, so they can be wrong or incomplete for your particular vehicle. Some of what they describe carries real risk: high voltage, fuel under pressure, stored energy, hot and moving parts.
Have anything you intend to act on checked by a trained person against the manufacturer's own procedure for your vehicle. Nothing here replaces that procedure.
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