By A.J. Baime | Photographs by Akilah Townsend for WSJ

Jonathan "J.B." Berger, a 59-year-old vice president at Newfields, a cultural center that houses the Indianapolis Museum of Art and its surrounding gardens, on his 1965 Ford Thunderbird, as told to A.J. Baime.

I am an artist and a career museum person, and I believe in the power of objects to capture meaning and to tell stories. The story of how I bought my 1965 Ford Thunderbird is nothing glamorous. I found it on the internet over 10 years ago. But the story it tells is, to me, very powerful.

For starters, I grew up in rural Indiana and my father always drove white Fords with red interiors. Cars were so often a part of our conversations. He served in the Army in Korea, and after, he went to work on a farm grain elevator. I was the youngest of four and we were very poor. The first car I remember him driving was a white Ford Galaxie, very basic. Because that is all he could afford.

I always wondered what he would have bought if he could buy the car he really wanted, the year I was born in 1965. And when I found this white Thunderbird, with red interior, it struck me: This was the car he would have wanted.

I will never forget the day I brought it to our family's house for the first time. We drove through the Indiana cornfields where he had worked and lived his entire life. The smile on his face I will never forget. To me, this Thunderbird tells that story.

When this car was made, America was at a peak of prestige. Many people, like my father, would only buy American cars, because people believed that an American car, and American anything, was the best that money could buy. To me, this car embodies that prestige and that ethos.

I also just love the way it looks. I have always felt that if something is designed well, it makes people feel good. This car was part of the new Space Age, when cars were designed to be "out of this world." It was yesterday's "Tomorrowland," a manifestation of what people were imagining the future was going to be like, at the time I was born.

Lastly, I love the way driving this car puts me in that era. It has a 390 cubic-inch V-8 engine, and if I put my foot into it, it'll go. I installed seat belts so I can put my 2- 1/2 -year-old daughter's car seat in back for slow back road drives. I play vintage music and sometimes I wear classic Elvis sunglasses. My wife, Jena, sits in the front seat with her hair up, looking equally the part.

To me, this car is a rolling museum. My role is to drive it so people can see it out on the road.

Write to A.J. Baime at myride@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

November 09, 2025 08:00 ET (13:00 GMT)

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