Iococca’s other big claim to fame was his *fathering* of the Mustang while at Ford. Even there his role was that of a con-man. The idea of a pony car was percolating around the auto industry for several year. In Philadelphia the Budd Company — which did body stampings for Ford & American motors — had built mockups for AMC & Ford. They called the Ford version the “X-Bird”.
A Ford delegation came thru to look at the “X-Bird”. Nothing happened initially. Ford hadn’t attempted a new, from-paper design since the Edsel and Henry Ford II wasn’t about to approve a new car model. A couple of years later Iococca basically told Ford what a new car would cost to design & tool, then cut that figure in half. Ford didn’t think he could do it, but the low-ball number got him to agree.
Essentially the ‘64 Mustang was a re-skinning of the Ford Falcon model, so essentially the “new model” was just a shell.
Initially, there were plans to use the British Ford V4 engine in the first Mustangs, but they went with the more familiar 170 cu in 6 as the base engine.
The Falcon was a neat car. I would have liked to have had a convertible. Ford had a weird thing going on for a while, where they'd come out with a great car concept, then over the years, destroy the concept. They turned the Thunderbird from the premiere two seater American sports car into a bloated family car, and the Mustang from being a cool pony car into a one lunged econobox.
They seem to have learned from that mistake, as the new Mustang is a return to the original roots.