AUTOS: The T-Bird Grows Up

As a black Thunderbird rolled off a Ford plant assembly line, a worker affectionately scrawled in soap on the hood: "Bye, bye, baby." It signaled the end of the two-seater T-bird; this week Ford put out the car's 1958 successor, the ballyhooed four-seater. Ford's affection for the T-bird sprang from its surprising success. Ford expected to lose some $10 million on the car but make it up in added prestige for standard Fords. Instead, it sold twice as well as expected (53,166 produced in all), and made a profit to boot. The sleek new T-bird will be another entry in Ford's luxury-class race against General Motors' Cadillac, has been restyled for $30 million to look like a small version of the Continental Mark II. It comes with a standard 3OO-h.p. Thunderbird V-8 engine. The wheelbase has grown by a full 11 in. to 113 in., and the overall length by 2 ft. Also changed is the price tag, by about $200 over the 1957 list of $3,158 for a hardtop. Ford's sales goal for the grownup Thunderbird: between 35,000 and 50,000 a year.

Cashing in on booming small-car sales of its 108-in. -wheelbase Ramblers, American Motors has made an even smaller, 100-in.-wheelbase 1958 Rambler American. Aside from a redesigned grille and trim, the car is a reissue of the first economical (up to 35 miles per gallon) five-passenger, two-door Rambler sedan introduced in 1951, dropped by 1956. Plain and simple, the 90-h.p. American even comes with a do-it-yourself instruction book to cut repair bills. American Motors' President George Romney says it will compete directly with the $1,795 Studebaker-Packard Scotsman and foreign cars, will have "the lowest advertised delivered price of any automobile built in the U.S."