Posting Your Car on Fire on Marketplace Is a Surprisingly Great Way to Sell It

Sometimes, getting the full details about a car listed on Facebook Marketplace requires a great deal of back-and-forth with the seller. Other times, it’s all in the pictures. Someone who recently sold a 1987 Ford Thunderbird went right to the point by sharing a photo of the car on fire.

The pictures sum up the car’s life in three chapters: before the fire, during the fire (!), and after the fire. Listed two weeks ago for $1,250 in Ohio, and now marked as sold, this ninth-gen T-Bird was a real head-turner until not too long ago. It’s powered by the venerable 3.8-liter Essex V6, it doesn’t look like it’s been significantly modified, and it reportedly has about 41,000 miles, which is relatively low for a 38-year-old coupe.

An electrical fire that started near the firewall engulfed the engine bay; the ad’s lead image shows the car parked on the side of a road with foot-tall flames roasting the hood insulation pad. The final set of pictures depict the T-Bird beached in a driveway with a tarp over the windshield.

Using a picture of a car on fire to illustrate an ad might seem counter-intuitive, but we’d argue that it’s actually pretty damn smart. It’s a great way to draw eyeballs to a listing, showing prospective buyers exactly what they’re getting into. The car caught fire; you can’t hide that, so you might as well use it to your advantage. Using a picture of the car taken before the fire would’ve been more than a little misleading, while using one of the car afterward that says “Here are the charred remains of my now salvage-titled T-Bird” would’ve been factual but boring.

Whether this Thunderbird is salvageable depends on the scope of the project you’re willing to take on. Everything in the engine bay looks like it was left in the oven for too long. The engine likely needs to be replaced, the wiring loom is a gooey mess, and the flames stripped the paint from the firewall. The fire also damaged the windshield and the dashboard, and the seller claims the front seats simply need to be cleaned. The fire was put out before burning the whole car, however, so the lights, grille, bumpers, and wheels look like they could go on another car.

Someone brave, skilled, and patient enough could probably save this thing. The seller suggests dropping in a 5.0-liter Coyote V8, which is readily available used or new from Ford’s catalog of crate engines. Nab a V8 from, say, a 2013 Mustang and you’ll dial in figures of 420 horsepower and 390 lb-ft of torque. For context, a stock Thunderbird 3.8 puts about 120 hp and 205 lb-ft of torque under your right foot.

If a Coyote swap is too complicated, too expensive, or both, how about resurrecting this coupe as a LeMons racer? Finding a used 3.8-liter V6 is pretty easy; Ford built this engine for decades and used it in several models such as the Mustang and the Taurus. Rig up a basic wiring harness, replace the windshield, leave the body exactly as-is (burn marks and all), run it with a thunder-themed livery, and you’ll be the star of the show.

What would you do with this T-Bird?

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