The brawny, thick steering wheel, with cruise control buttons built into the spokes, feels terrific in your hands, even after an all-day white-knuckle high-speed cruise; and there is a standard power tilt and telescope feature to help you feel at one with the car.

Instruments are beautifully rendered in the T-Bird. Long, Sea Foam Green needles point the way instead of red, white or black indicators. The shape of the instrument binnacle reflects the gentle dome shape of the '55-56 original. The door panels feature the spread-wing Thunderbird emblem.

The center stack, that portion of the instrument panel at the center of the dash that carries the vents, the sound-system controls and the heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) controls, is taken almost directly from the Lincoln LS. It's made up of five different small panels, though it appears that one nicely done cover panel for all five elements would have sufficed. The stereo is well designed, and the HVAC controls use big buttons that are easy to operate.

In such a small interior, everything falls readily to hand. You don't have to stretch to reach anything. For couples, especially, the interior is intimate and romantic.