You're probably right about that. It's a shame Ford really dropped the ball with the 2002-2005 attempt to reboot the Thunderbird. About the only positive thing that can be said for it is that it did pave the way for the retro-look of the 2005 fifth generation Mustangs, but apart from that, probably killed the Thunderbird name for a long time.
It seems like for engineers, marketers and upper management invested a lot of time, energy and money with the intent of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
I never could fathom why anyone would want to mess with a wildly successful product.
And yet they do it all the time and it's never an improvement. It always ruins it.
Why did the 2002-2005 T-bird reboot fail? I thought it was a good looking car.