Ford had hoped to sell 88,000 Mustangs in it's first year to break even. Lee Iacocca was so confident that the Mustang would be a hit he authorized the San Jose Assembly Plant in California to be set up for Mustang production to feed the West Coast.
Iacocca and Ford were banking on the Baby Boomers to buy into the Mustang. The market had been primed by the car magazines who were tantalizing the young buyers with stories about Ford's new sport car, the Mustang.
On the first day that the Mustang was available for sale Ford dealers sold over 22,000 cars and 120,000 Mustangs before 1965 production began! Priced at $2,368, the Mustang was in reach of nearly all buyers and most cars sold with over $1,000 of added options. Surprisingly Ford sold almost as many Mustangs to women as men.
Mustang mania had begun and soon came stories of Ford dealers having to lock their doors to keep people from storming their showrooms as they were selling the few Mustangs they had in stock. Then came the story about a buyer in Texas who won a lottery to buy a Mustang and then slept in his new Mustang until the next day when his check cleared for fear of someone else trying to buy the car.
Restaurants were asking people to sample their hotcakes as they were selling like Mustangs. It was an industry first and something that has never been repeated. Dealers were placing orders with the factory and often buying from other dealers at over invoice pricing just to have cars on their lots to sell. Demand was that great.
The entire Mustang project was created by a handful of executives who were very much placing their careers in jeopardy by working on this "off the books" project on their own time until they had something to present to Henry Ford II. After the fiasco with the Edsel, Henry Ford II was not very receptive to any new, untried ideas. Ford had lost money on the Edsel and their reputation was soiled. So no matter how much Lee Iacocca and Don Frey and the other Ford executives believed in the Mustang, they still had to sell Henry Ford II on the concept.
After working on the Mustang project for several years Henry Ford II got wind of the project and must have felt pretty confident in this new concept sport car. Don Frey remarked that he ran into Henry Ford II one day and Ford told him "I'm tired of hearing about this car your working on. I'm going to approve this car today!" Than Ford asked Lee Iacocca if he could sell the car and Iacocca told him he could. At that point Henry Ford II just smiled at him and said, "You'd better."
And now you know the rest of the story!
Midnight Blue
MCOM Treasurer-Historian
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