Here’s a rare look at a unique and seldom-seen prototype, the 1962 Budd XT-Bird, courtesy of The Henry Ford. 

Back in June here at Mac’s Motor City Garage, we featured the Henry Ford Museum’s Budd-American Motors XR-400 prototype, including a road-test video hosted by museum curator Matt Anderson. (Check out the story here.) Now Mr. Anderson and the museum have produced another awesome video starring the XR-400’s seldom-seen Budd sibling, the XT-Bird.

To make a long story short, the XT-Bird was essentially a ’55-’57 Thunderbird body shell mounted on the unit-construction floor plan and chassis of a 1961 Ford Falcon. Budd, a specialist in body stampings, had supplied the exterior sheet metal for the original two-seat Thunderbird, and was hoping to revive the contract with an updated version. Customer surveys indicated that car buyers retained some warm feelings for the T-Bird two-seater, and  Budd constructed the XT-Bird for a formal presentation to Ford executives, including North American product boss Lee Iacocca.

As the video shows, the prototype features a complete Thunderbird instrument panel and a ’55-’56-type front end, while the rear-end styling is an interesting mashup of T-Bird and Falcon elements. But as we know today, Ford already had another Falcon-based sporty car under development—and it included a rear seat and therefore a much larger potential audience. Iacocca and crew gave the green light to the car that became the Mustang, and it proved to be the far wiser choice. All that remains of the XT-Bird project is this single intriguing prototype, which is now in the collection of the Henry Ford. Video below.