Phil Hoon, 65, an attorney from Chestertown, Md., on his 1955 Ford Thunderbird, as told to A.J. Baime.

In 1954, Ford Motor Company debuted the Thunderbird as a 1955 model. My grandfather was a Ford dealer at the time in the small town of Chestertown on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, where I still live. His dealership got one T-Bird the...