A Lasting Affair That Began in a Motel

By Bill McLauchlan

Yesterday I brought you the inside skinny on the forthcoming 2105 Mustang, due to go on sale next April as Ford marks the 50th anniversary of the car’s first public appearance.
That got me thinking about how it all began for the hugely popular nameplate as it closes in on a half-century of continuous production.

I suppose you could say, like many an offspring in those days, the Mustang was conceived in a motel. I kid you not. Life began back in 1960 when some senior Ford executives, chaired by Lee Iacocca, gathered for a weekly get together at the Fairlane Inn Motel in Dearborn, Michigan.

Among the subjects under discussion was how to compete with Chevrolet’s Corvair Monza. Iacocca felt young buyers liked its sporting image, something his company’s frumpy Falcon didn’t possess. The outcome was an order to come up with an affordable competitor for the Monza.

The seed was planted with the Mustang I, a two-seat prototype turned out in 1962 but it didn’t get any further. A year later I clapped eyes on its successor, the Mustang II, a four-passenger running prototype that Ford demonstrated prior to the U.S. Grand Prix at the Watkins Glen circuit in upstate New York. It, too, was a non-starter.

Meanwhile, in mid-’62, a Product Planning Committee had assembled in a courtyard at Ford’s styling centre to assess seven full-size mockup designs. One of those, by designer Joe Oros and his staff, was anointed as the chosen one. Tagged with the “Cougar” label, this mockup presented two different styling treatments in one – the right side was Falcon-like but the left side featured everything the Committee was looking for.

So, a fresh design started the gestation period but now it had to evolve into a car. Engineering was given a clay model and told to come up with a car to sell for no more than $2,500 in base trim.

As Ford’s new baby grew its Engineering midwives drew on existing components to help keep costs down. Engines, suspension, brakes, differentials, etc came mainly from the Falcon nursery with a sprinkling of Falcon Spring, Comet Caliente, Fairlane and Galaxie parts added to the mix.

Finally, on April 13, 1964, eighteen months after Oros’ design was accepted, the Mustang came into the world publicly at the New York World’s Fair. On the same day, though it wouldn’t officially go on sale until April 17th, the wraps came off in dealer showrooms nationwide and some four million people came through the doors to order 22,000 Mustangs. Ford had fathered a healthy hit.

© Wieck    Former airline Captain Stanley Tucker of St. Johns, Nfld. bought the first production Mustang, never meant for public sale.  

Eight months after its birth, the 250,000th Mustang was sold with more than a million sales in its first two years. Since then it has racked up more than nine million sold as it moves gracefully into its middle-age years.

© Wieck

Parnelli Jones' Boss 302 dominated on track in 1970.   

Underlining its on-going popularity the Mustang, complete with retro design cues, has matured from those early days with varying degrees of success. It made its race track debut within a month of its introduction as pace car for the 1964 Indianapolis 500. Many will fondly remember the handsome 2+2 fastback that first appeared for the ’65 model year. I well remember watching the legendary Boss 302 Mustang trounce the opposition during the 1970 Trans-Am series with Parnelli Jones and George Follmer taking six wins from 11 races in their Bud Moore-prepared cars. Then there were the famed Shelby Mustangs created for racing but sold in street versions, the GT350 introduced in September 1964 (Hertz even ordered 1,000 of them as rental cars in ’65) and the GT500 that appeared in 1967 before production halted a couple of years later.

A less than successful stage in life, however, developed when the Pinto-based Mustang II (below) was spawned for the 1974 model year, a mousy-looking, tawdry and smaller concession to the demands of rising fuel prices, emission regulations and a waning interest in muscle cars. Fortunately, those days are well behind the current Mustang generation.

© Wieck
Mustang II for 1974 lacked original model's popular appeal.

The waves made by the Mustang have resounded well beyond the automotive world, too. It quickly became a film star, appearing in various early James Bond movies including Goldfinger and Diamonds are Forever and, perhaps most memorably, when driven by Steve McQueen in Bullitt. It also featured in chart-topping songs such as the Wilson Pickett classic Mustang Sally.

Born to meet a new demand developing in the marketplace the Mustang did just that. But the marketplace can be a fickle lover. That its affair with the Ponycar has endured for half a century is remarkable in itself. And, with an all-new 2015 love child due for delivery in a few months, Ford is betting it’ll be just what the public wants as their family transport.