The Legend of ThunderFlite

Suzie and Dean Arnold have been building custom cars, hot rods and show cars together during the thirty years of their marriage. Suzie ran the office while Dean engineered, built and painted the cars.

Dean’s custom work, his attention to detail and craftsmanship and especially his paint work has won numerous awards and received much media attention. The Arnold’s came up with the idea of building a flamboyant 1960’s style hot rod and decided to use a 1961 Thunderbird as the base car.

After doing the initial sketches and sheet metal work, Dean decided to get Don Johnson involved in the project.

Don Johnson, of D.A. Johnson Design, is an independent consultant specializing in automotive and yacht design and illustration. Working with a large variety of clients ranging from major corporations to small companies, Johnson has designed numerous one-of-a-kind autos that have received much media attention.

Dean Arnold and Don Johnson have worked together on a variety of limited production and one-off cars. Don designs them; Dean builds them. Arnold commissioned Johnson to provide design input before the final phases of the bodywork began.

Johnson began a series of design studies focusing on details that would enhance the original hot rod design of Suzie and Dean. The more he did the more excited he became about the project. Slowly the concept evolved. What if this were to be a restoration of a 1950’s show car that Ford might have built?

Post-war America in the 1940’s, 50’s and early 60’s was obsessed with the bright future promised to lie ahead after the previous decades of the depression and World War II. Fighter Jets were now military standard breaking the sound barrier many times over. Passenger jets were still new and rare, getting bigger and more luxurious with each new plane while flying faster and faster and being served by futuristic terminals.

Satellites were starting to dot the heavens and the public was abuzz with talk of space stations and even travel to the moon. All previously reserved for science fiction.

It was within this atmosphere that the auto companies’ new offerings became more and more aircraft-like. Designs became more aerodynamic and sleeker, more flamboyant and daring. Interiors were aircraft inspired and fins came in all imaginable shapes and, of course, grew larger and larger.

More and more glass was used in the window areas and roof pillars became thinner to give the impression of jet canopies. Sales grew each year. The public loved it!

What better way for the auto companies to draw buyers into the auto shows and dealer showrooms than with “Dream Cars” or “Cars of the Future.” Each manufacturer wanted to convince the public they had the most modern cars and were therefore the best. Competition to build the most talked about dream cars was staggering.

Ford Motor Division decides in the late 50’s to build a car of tomorrow that would prepare buyers for the radically new Thunderbirds of the 1960s. Sleek and clean on the outside, it featured fenders enclosing all four tires to give a fuselage look to the body and naturally fins were everywhere. The seats were thin and sculpted to look like they came out of a jet fighter. The gauges and other controls also were jet inspired. The car was topped with twin all-glass aircraft canopies and the overall effect was stunning.

The industry realized that styling was changing radically and cars needed a new styling direction. Fins were being slashed off of cars by 1960 and for Ford to show a Dream Car showing ideas for tomorrow’s cars with so many fins would simply be stating Ford’s were out of style. It was decided not to show “ThunderFlite”. It was mothballed, put into a warehouse and forgotten.

Years went by and a legend developed that the car still existed. Later the car slipped into private owners’ hands. Suzie and Dean Arnold heard that it still existed, tracked it down and decided to restore it to the level at which it was meant to be shown some fifty years ago.