Mustang Club of Maryland

Mustang, the Ultimate Pony Car, Turns 45
By Chuck Squatriglia

When Ford unveiled the Mustang 45 years ago today, company execs figured they’d sell maybe 100,000 a year. They sold 22,000 on the first day.
The Mustang was more than a success. It was a phenomenon. Ford sold 1 million in the first 18 months, making the Mustang its most successful launch since the Model A.

"When the Mustang was unveiled, the reaction was so positive that there was no doubt it was going to be a success," chief designer Joe Oros said recently.

The Mustang created an entirely new genre called the pony car. Relatively small, relatively light and often absurdly powerful, pony cars were uniquely American. By 1967, everyone in Detroit offered one.

Pony cars like the Chevrolet Camaro and Dodge Challenger have come and gone and come back again, but only the Mustang has galloped along uninterrupted since its introduction. Ford has sold more than 9 million Mustangs. Here’s a look at some of the best and a few of the worst.

1964½ Coupe
The shot that started the pony-car revolution. The Mustang sold for a dirt-cheap $2,368 (about $16,000 in today's moolah), which bought you a hardtop coupe with a straight-six and a three-speed manual. But with the longest list of options Detroit had ever offered, you could get yours pretty much any way you wanted.

1966 Shelby GT350-H
Ford joined legendary gearhead Carroll Shelby to develop the high-performance Shelby GT models. Shelby, in turn, struck a deal with Hertz to build 1,000 rental cars based on the GT350. The GT350-H became known as the "rent-a-racer," because they often appeared in Sports Car Club of America events. So many of them came back with burned out clutches that Shelby ditched the four-speed manual transmission for an automatic.

1968 Bullitt Fastback
The Mustang became a pop cultural icon when it appeared in one of the first – and one of the best – movie car chases ever: Steve McQueen’s dash through San Francisco in Bullitt. The car (actually, Ford provided two) was a 1968 GT with a 390-cubic-inch engine and beefed-up suspension and brakes. It topped 110 mph during filming, which took more than three weeks and yielded 9 minutes, 42 seconds of automotive awesomeness.

1971 Boss 351
Mustangs grew bigger and heavier every year, and the '71 to '73 models were the biggest of the lot. Ford introduced the Boss performance package in 1969, creating the Boss 302 to compete in the Trans Am Series, and the Boss 429 for NASCAR. The 351 sort of split the difference in 1971, and some consider it Ford’s muscle-car masterpiece.

1974 Mustang II
The oil embargo, skyrocketing insurance costs and ever-tighter emissions controls forced Ford to radically rework the Mustang. The result was a gelding based on the Pinto. Although much-maligned over the years by purists, Ford sold nearly 386,000 of them in 1974 alone, and Motor Trend named it car of the year.

1976 Cobra II
Hoping to boost sales, Ford slathered the Mustang II with a fake hood scoop, useless spoilers and more stripes than a prison chain gang. Ford called it the Cobra II, but it had less bite than a garter snake.

1979 Pace Car
Ford gave the third-gen Mustang a sleeker, more European look in 1979 to create a car that was bigger – but lighter – than the model that preceded it. Ford sold 370,000 of them in the first year, and the Mustang served as the pace car for the Indianapolis 500. Ford commemorated the honor with a run of about 11,000 “Pace Car” editions.

1984 SVO
Ford launched the Special Vehicle Operations Department in 1981 to oversee racing and build limited-edition, high-performance cars. The first was the 1984 Mustang SVO, a four-cylinder turbocharged model with nimble handling and decent power. It would smoke the Mustang GT in the curves, but it cost several grand more and didn’t sell well. Ford retired it after the 1986 model year.

1993 LX Convertible
The third-generation Mustang got a serious face lift in 1987, trading sharp angles for rounded edges and a more aerodynamic look. The cars grew increasingly powerful, but by 1990 Ford was looking ahead to the next generation and made few changes before retiring the third-gen 'stang in 1993 after an unprecedented 15-year run.

1994 Cobra
By the early 1990s, some at Ford felt the Mustang should be put out to pasture. Instead, the company updated the original’s styling. The car was a hit, and Ford couldn’t build 'em fast enough. The car got a minor restyling that gave it a more aggressive look. Performance climbed as well, topping out at 390 horsepower for the 2004 Cobra.

2008 Shelby GT500-KR
Ford had a long history of building insanely powerful Mustangs, and the Shelbys of the early '60s are among the best. Ford paid homage to them in 2007 with the Shelby GT500, and then upped the ante a year later with the GT500-KR. The supercharged beast produced 540 horsepower, making it the most powerful Mustang ever. With a list price just shy of $80,000, it was also the most expensive.

2010 GT
Ford, like Chevrolet with the new Camaro and Dodge with the new Challenger, went back to the future for the latest iteration of its venerable pony car. The 2010 Mustang draws styling cues from the classic models of the 1960s. The Shelby GT500 draws even more deeply from that well, proving that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

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The story of the Mustang is the stuff of legends.

Wanting to capitalize on the emerging youth market of the 1960's, Lee Iacocca, Don Frey and other young auto execs took on the task of developing a new, sporty car that would be affordable and exciting to young buyers.

Using the existing Falcon frame and borrowing many parts from the Falcon parts bin, they designed a sporty new car that took the industry by surprise. They needed to utilize the Falcon and it's available parts in order to get approval from Henry Ford II after the Edsel debacle.

After a meticulously planned showing at the New York Worlds Fair in 1964 and a genius advertising campaign the response to the new Mustang was unprecedented.

As mentioned before, Ford was optimistically hoping to sell 100,000 cars the first year but wound up selling well over 400,000 cars, an industry record.

The success of the Mustang spawned the Pony Car market as the Camaro, the Firebird, the Barracuda, and AMC's Javelin entered the market, eager to capture some of these new young buyers.

Still the Mustang continued to be a success even during those dark times for the US auto industry in the early 70's when the country experienced their first gas crisis and new efforts to control pollution.

The downsized Mustangs of the early 70's are sometimes criticized by Mustang enthusiasts because they dropped the popular V8 engines and the cars were more like the Pinto. The truth is that these cars were perfect for that particular time and probably saved the Mustang brand from extinction.

Throughout the good times and the bad the Mustang has stayed the course and is now better than ever!

Congratulations on your 45th anniversary and looking forward toward your 50th!

Midnight Blue