I have always liked the LED taillights on the later model Thunderbirds because of the night visibility and the effect that looked more like a Thunderbird to me than the earlier reflector panels. I decided to add the LED taillights to my 35th Anniversary and store the original pieces for later along with the original black wheels. It's a personal choice and many have asked how I did it and what it looked like. Shown above is a picture of my 35th as it is now.

Replacing your stock taillights with the later model LED type is a simple bolt on swap. I was lucky enough to locate a complete 95 black Thunderbird in a salvage yard locally and procured the trunk lid and taillight corner lenses. The main things to remember when you do this is :

1. DON'T forget to swap the trunk lid key lock and cylinder. I forgot about that and locked the trunk. Had to go through the back seat. I'm glad they were folddown seats and I pulled the cable to unlock the trunk.

2. There are different wiring connectors for different Thunderbirds. Some will mate up and some may not.

The connector on the wiring harness of the 95 did not match up exactly to the connector of my 90 so I had to use jumper wires for each of the connector wires in between each of the connectors as shown in the diagram above. I then wrapped the makeshift wiring harness with electrical tape up to and including both connectors. Now not only the look is updated but night visibility is improved for safety.