Marilyn Monroe’s production company bought her a Raven Black 1956 Ford Thunderbird in December 1955, and she kept it until 1962. The Marilyn Monroe Thunderbird came from a dealer in Westport, Connecticut, only weeks before she married Arthur Miller. Over the next six years, it became the car she drove for pleasure, with friends and with her new husband.
Plenty of stars owned flashier cars. However, few cars are as closely tied to one person’s private life as this one. It was the car she drove for fun, with the top down and a friend in the passenger seat.
Here is how she got it, what it was, who she gave it to and what happened to it after she let it go.
How the Marilyn Monroe Thunderbird was bought
The purchase was a business deal on paper. According to Hagerty’s history of the car, Milton Greene bought the convertible on December 20, 1955, from Westport Motors in Westport, Connecticut. Greene was Monroe’s photographer and her business partner, and he made the purchase in the name of Marilyn Monroe Productions.
Hagerty says Greene then gave the car to Monroe as a Christmas present. Other accounts are more careful. For example, Motorious calls the gift story a rumor it can’t confirm, while still placing the sale on December 20 with the company as buyer. Either way, the title went to her firm, not to a studio.
The timing matters. At that point, Monroe was living in New York and taking acting lessons from Lee Strasberg. She was also in a contract dispute with 20th Century Fox, which, according to Hagerty, was settled on December 31, 1955. In other words, the T-Bird arrived during the weeks she was taking control of her own career.
What she was driving
The 1956 Thunderbird was in only its second model year. Monroe’s convertible came in Raven Black with a black-and-white interior. It had a canvas soft top plus a removable hardtop with round “porthole” windows.
Power came from a 312-cubic-inch V8 rated at 225 horsepower, according to Hagerty, with a Ford-O-Matic automatic transmission. The car also had a Continental kit, which mounts the spare tire outside the trunk. Hagerty puts its top speed at more than 110 mph.
Separately, the ClassicCars.com Journal adds that the car had a Holley four-barrel carburetor. It also lists power steering, brakes, windows and seats. For a star who liked to drive herself, that was a comfortable and easy car to own.
Her years with the T-Bird
Monroe married playwright Arthur Miller in late June 1956. Hagerty says published reports suggest the couple drove the Thunderbird to both their civil ceremony and their private wedding two days later. Meanwhile, photographers often caught the pair in the car.
The best picture of how she used it comes from Amy Greene, Milton Greene’s wife. She remembered riding with Monroe, and in a line Hagerty quotes from Anthony Summers’ 1985 biography Goddess, she said, “Marilyn liked to drive.” Motorious adds that the two women liked the wind in their hair and the warmth of the heater at the same time.
Motorious also reports that the T-Bird was the only car Monroe ever owned. That makes it more than a celebrity accessory. In our view, it was the one machine she picked for herself and kept the longest.
Why she gave it away in 1962
Monroe kept the car for about six years. Then, in 1962, she gave it to Lee Strasberg’s son as an 18th birthday present. Sources disagree on his first name. Hagerty and the ClassicCars.com Journal call him John, while Motorious calls him Jason.
According to Motorious, the boy’s mother, Paula Strasberg, asked Monroe to hold on to the keys for a few years. Nevertheless, Monroe transferred the title that spring. A few months later, in August 1962, she died at 36.
After that, the trail goes cold for decades. Motorious says the Strasberg son kept the car until 1970, when he traded it in. Two or three Thunderbird collectors owned it after him. Eventually, Hagerty reports, a later owner tracked the car down using documents bought from the Strasberg estate.
Where Monroe’s Thunderbird is now
That owner had the car restored frame-off by Prestige Thunderbird, Inc., of Santa Fe Springs, California. Motorious says the restorers kept some original touch surfaces in the cabin because of the car’s history. According to the ClassicCars.com Journal, the odometer showed 30,399 miles, and the paperwork included a declaration of ownership and an insurance letter.
Julien’s Auctions then offered the Thunderbird in Los Angeles in November 2018. Before the sale, Hagerty auction editor Andrew Newton said, “The vast majority of the value with this T-Bird is the Marilyn Monroe connection.” The buyer has never been named, and Motorious says the car has not been seen in public since. According to Hagerty’s editor’s note, Monroe’s Raven Black 1956 Thunderbird sold for $490,000.
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