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A Thunderbird, saved from oblivion. Hans Arend de Wit |
 Walking down the beach path I thought of my first car, which was a light blue Mini, and I automatically remembered the first tour I made with my precious automobile to the coast with my parents and my sister. We drank coffee in Riche, a beach restaurant in Zandvoort. I felt rich. On this marvelous Summer’s day almost fifty years later, we walked to the restaurant Het Strand on the beach of Texel. The sounds of the yells of the seagulls were drowned by the thumping sound of a V8. A light blue ’60 Ford Thunderbird, a man of about my age and a woman not much younger. Light green the importer will have called the color of the Bird. |
 We spontaneously talked about the car, and the couple appeared to live in Amsterdam, Jan and Martha. On the terrace Martha told us that when she was a young girl she fell in love with an American, who was deep into computers, working for one of major chipmakers. The car we bought, she said, was a Thunderbird, a dream of a car, same color as this one, which soon became a bit small when our family grew bigger, for a Thunderbird was built on a medium sized platform, which is small for a family car. So we bought a larger car. A Galaxie, I said. Yes, she said, but how could you know? Back in Holland I remarried, Martha told us, and I regularly, as on this great day, tour around with my present husband, yes with the same T-bird as then, and in the same color. When we spotted her in front of a specialized dealership in the East of the country we didn’t hesitate long. And in Holland it ain’t a small car anymore. She still is a dream. We have the time and the means to leave town and fly with our bird to wherever we want. |
 The following day we went back to the beach again. It had been sunny all morning, and it had been ebb tide, with a wide flat beach, but now the tide was coming in. It was quiet, on the sea only a few ships in the distance. On the terrace the Thunderbird couple greeted us, looking a bit timid, and pointed at their light green bird in the distance on the beach. The beach looked so nice and inviting to make a ride as we so often did in California, Martha said. So we followed a car that went down the ramp. I now understand that the structure of sand may be different from the beach in California. Although it looked hard and solid it immediately began to suck at the tires. The tide’s coming in quicker than we thought. The boy of the terrace called a tow truck. He got stuck with his own car once, he said. Would you like a glass of champagne? Martha asked. |
 It took some time before a halftrack arrived from the nearest village. Meanwhile we discovered mutual acquaintances that had practically lived next to their door on the canal in Amsterdam. In the same sense of their adventure I told a story of a guy who had discovered two Delorians in New Jersey and made a trial run in one of them with his girlfriend, but he drove too fast and couldn’t keep the rear heavy rear from breaking away in a bend and flew into a swampy field, rear side first. The silver beauty started to sink, but could be saved in time after the guy had phoned the salesman, who soon came down in a tow truck. You’re lucky you have a mobile phone, the man said, and I had the luck that I had could come down with this truck. |
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A gathering of Thunderbirds, in front the first, iconic Bird, with portholes in the hardtop, a style element that returned in more recent models. In the back the 1960 model. |
 A day after the T-Bird Meeting Guy spotted this immaculate 1962 model in the PC shopping street the PC. |