Posted on 10/05/2004 9:41:38 AM PDT by yankeedame
Can the Pony Ride Again?
Jerry Flint,
10.18.04, 12:00 AM ET
Remember 1965? We had Vietnam and watts, free love, Vatican II, the Beatles, Joan Baez. And we had the Mustang. Back then cars were really important, and the Ford 1965 Mustang, introduced at the New York World's Fair in April 1964, created a wave of car excitement in America never seen before or since. The Mustang and its evangelist, Lee Iacocca, were on the covers of Time and Newsweek the same week.
Mustang made Iacocca the most famous executive in America. Later he was president of Ford and then savior of Chrysler, but above all, he was the Mustang man.
Mustang had a personality. It wasn't "longer, lower, wider," the Detroit mantra back then. It had no tail fins. It was no Grand Prix racer, and it couldn't carry six bags of fertilizer for the new lawn.
Iacocca had discovered a great secret. We wanted our cars to be fun. They didn't have to be perfect. They just had to be fun, and the Mustang brought fun back to the American street.
Ford sold 542,000 through the end of 1965. Only the big pickups sell more today. Other pony cars came and went: Chevy's Camaro and Pontiac Firebird, the Plymouth Barracuda and American Motors' Javelin, but nothing--from Detroit or Japan or Germany--ever caught Mustang.
Eventually Ford mucked it up. There were fat Mustangs and even ugly Mustangs. Once Ford executives tried to kill the pony, and an honest-to-God citizens' revolt forced them to keep it.
Now here comes a new Mustang, available mid-October. I was told that on the first day design chief J Mays gathered his staff, someone suggested a research effort to find out what to build. And Mays said something like, "No studies. If we don't know what a Mustang is, we should be working someplace else."
The new Mustang looks like a Mustang. It's got two terrific new engines, a six-cylinder with 210 horsepower and a V-8 with 300, and they both go like stink. The interior is lots better than the old one.
Problems? Well, I think the interior and the dash should have used more color, and the instruments are really hard to see in bright sunlight.
But the real threat to Mustang's future success is the conflict between the buyers and the builders. The Mustang is a "girl's car." Most Mustangs had six cylinders, and many buyers have been women. Why? Because it was a good-looking car for not much money, and young women had good taste and not much money. But the boys who built it wanted it hot, with bigger V-8s and more speed. They called the car the Boss, the Cobra, the Mach 1. More weight and cost chased away the customers who bought the car.
Could it happen again? Absolutely. The designers can't wait to turn up the power.
At least Iacocca knew he needed a low price--$2,368 was the base. The new 2005 Mustang starts at $19,410 for the V-6 coupe at 210hp (the '65 had 101). The V-8, with 300hp, starts at $25,000, and you can run it up to $30,000 with extras. These are reasonable base prices, too, but Ford has to be careful it doesn't fill the dealers' lots with option-laden models that cost too much and turn off potential customers. (That's what Chrysler did initially with its Pacifica.)
So how many will Ford sell? Not as many as in 1965, but more than the 140,000 sold last year. They are built in a factory just outside Dearborn, Mich. that also makes Mazdas. So figure 150,000 Mustangs can be built on two shifts with no overtime. Ford could probably sell 200,000 if it can build them.
The beginning paragraph of that Time magazine cover story 40 years ago told of Iacocca rolling through suburban Detroit in an unmarked preproduction model. But people knew what it was. The driver of a Volkswagen gave it the V-for-victory sign. The driver of a Chevy Impala pulled up and mouthed through closed windows, "Is that it?" The white car approached a school bus, the windows flew up, and the children inside chanted "Mustang! Mustang! Mustang!"
Well, this isn't 1964, and we don't get that excited about cars anymore. But this new one is a Mustang for sure, and it might just be the car that makes driving fun again. One more thing: This pony isn't German or Japanese. It's pure Detroit.
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Jerry Flint, a former Forbes Senior Editor, has covered the automobile industry since 1958. Visit his homepage at www.forbes.com/flint.
The missus current car likely needs a transmission flush and refill.
Unfortunately, it's a 94 model year car with stuff in places I can't even get to.
*ugh*
But.. the transmission could also be having a minor electronics problem.
Easy to fix.. if you know which electronic part out of 15 electronic controls and devices to look at that all could make it behave the same way.
;-)
The down side of VW ownership -the Tiptronic adaptive learning transmission.
It 'learns' the driving style of the driver.. and never forgets it.
So the next person to drive it experiences rough shifting and other strange behavior because the transmission control unit refuses to forget the driver profile stored in memory.
There's one way to 'reset to basic settings' listed in the Bentley repair manual, but some of the TCU's won't reset without the mechanic's diagnostic device plugged into the diagnostic port.
(I so far have only experienced loss of performance due to needing a tune-up and having blown a hole in the exhaust... but hitting a critter at high speed with the undercarraige of my car.)
I sense a disturbance in The Force. May have been caused by a ZOT.
"but hitting a critter" should read as "BY hitting a critter.."
Me and my typos.
We had a Mustang II in the 70's. Someone hit the passenger side and destroyed it. What a piece of crap.
Hopefully it wasn't one of the striped critters.
The only trouble I've had with either one of mine is that the power window on the driver's side broke. Thank God that I haven't had any mechanical problems. I've really enjoyed them. I've made a trip back to VA, down to GA, back to NM, and also 2 trips to Los Angeles and back with no problems. It gets great mileage and rides very well too. I'm sold on them, and until/if I move back to the city, I will keep driving them.
It was one of Punxy Phil's relatives.
He was too busy seeing his shadow in the road to notice me buzzing along like the White Zombie song 'Black Sunshine'.
And when we finally saw each other, it was way too late to take evasive action.
So I got to hear that basketball dribble sound all the way down my exhaust system.
The car was okay afterwards, until my father borrowed the car for a long distance dribve back to Ohio, then the damaged section let go.
Blew the weld around the muffler hanger open.
Dents and dings all the way down the pipage.
dribve??
Typo demon alert!
Check your keyboards.
I have a 1995 Mustang GT Cnvt. and a 2002 Explorer. Both are great cars and the GT is a great value considering the cost of other comparable cars. I put some chrome wheels on there, black tint, pin stripes, get many many looks!
I bet you do get a lot of looks. Especially that convertible. I love my Explorer. It's a great ride. I live out in the country in the mountains now and we usually get a lot of snow, so I really NEED a 4w drive.
A roomie of mine had one of those, but without the hepcat T-roof.
It well and truly SUCKED (not that a different roof would've changed that).
Basically a spruced up Pinto. I gotta be honest, though, and say that I've always liked the way the Mustang II looked. Compact and muscular, much better than the ridiculous full-sized Mustang of the day, which was like a cross between a barge and a banana. Too bad the Mustang II didn't have the performance to match the visuals (Ford did make a model with a V8 -- but they strangled with all the emissions stuff).
We replaced an O2 sensor a couple of times on the 98. Other than that, the truck was rock solid. It was our first Ford. Previously, we'd been GM people.
the Mustang II isn't even a mustang in my mind =)
Now wasn't that the era of the K car and the Gas crunch?
Found on Road Dead
Fix Or Repair Daily
Just outside Woodhaven, maybe?
Yeah yeah -- the Mustang II will never please the purists (or for that matter anyone who isn't real impressed with the Pinto platform, which is probably about everyone ;).
K-car ((shudder)), arguably the low point of the American automobile industry.
FYI. The T-Birds are still being mfgd. for another 1 1/2 years or so.......
The Mustang GT is so bad in the snow! Its useless and dangerous. But, with the top down, the chrome wheels, the boot cover, it is a great car. 80,000 miles and still rumbles.
The Explorer, dollar for dollar, is a great car too. My girlfriend has a Lexus 300 which was a lot more expensive, and I have much more room, power, etc.
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