Ford Printed Material
Reply #22 –
Pic #1 is what I bought off of eBay, and was described as a "Partial Press Packet" for 1987. Not shown is the table-top card with the TC and CotY on one side, with the 87 GT Mustang on the reverse. What is shown is a Road&Track Performance Cars 1987 Guide (which touts the TC), the complete Motor Trend 1987 Issue with the Car of the Year article, the Ford reprinted CotY article/issue (contains just the CotY article and a section on Ford Chair Donald Peterson being Man of the Year). And of course, a set of Motor Trend 1987 CotY decals for the windows of a TBird (I have 2 sets).
Pic #2 is the cover of the most interesting thing I have. It's a Ford "Turbo Coupe Instruction Manual". It's from 1983 and is 102 pages. Pic #3 shows the Table of Contents. There are a few pages that fold-out, and minute detail is given on every little thing. Graphs are included on the TC and it's competitors, their market segment, and demographics. (Some of the interesting shots include a rear axle with the 9" vented drums and no sway bar, a "TA" EEC, and an EXTERNAL fuel pump mounted in the rear with a heat shield) Each section ends with a quiz. Yes, a quiz. There's also a final test at the back of the book.
Nice collection Mike.
The items pictured here are actually sales tools that were sent to the dealers. It's fairly common for Ford to re-print the C&D, MT, R&T, Autoweek, etc. articles about a "halo" car such as the TC and these "packets" were sent to the dealers to help build the hype about them in the showroom.
The packet you have for the '87 is pretty cool with the Car of the Year stand-ups and such. In fact the dealer that the COTY packet was was sent to didn't fulfill his obligation with Ford. They were supposed to have put those decals on a TurboCoupe they had on the lot. ;)
The Turbo Coupe Instruction Manual was originally given out to salesman at what is generally referred to as a "ride & drive". Ford will ask the dealership to send a sales representative or two to a location where they will be schooled on a new vehicle that is coming out or a vehicle that has had a significant upgrade. These books were part of the “curriculum”. After that Ford must have sent many of these to the dealerships anyway because I have seen too many of them that are clean with no markings in them and appear to have not been used. Still it is a cool thing to have and is one of the highlights of my collection as well.
BTW, there is also an SVO Mustang Instruction Manual out there that is very much the same as the Turbo Coupe one. My boss at the dealership I worked at got one when he went to training for the SVO. I have been on the lookout for one of those for 18 years.
Regarding the orange 1984 Thunderbird item, it appears to be the same as the 1984 brochure which is actually red. Can you tell me how many pages there are and what the item number and date is on the back cover? It would be right below the “Get it together – Buck up” slogan.
I don’t see anything that would be considered a true “press kit”, everything appears to be dealership brochures & training materials. Don’t feel like you got cheated by the seller though, what you have is more valuable than most press kits. I’ll post pictures of a few of my press kits. They are actually quite dull and boring to look at which is why they generally aren’t worth much in the open market.
Brent
Topic: Ford Printed Material (Read 6936 times)
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