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 article says the first Mustang was 1965. I think it was actually a 1964 1/2.
Nice looking car!
Alas, no. Actually, while the magazine article came with a pic of the cars (both the classic and the new version) it wasn't part of the on-line article. The picture I posted I pulled off of Google.
Perchange some gallent fellow FReeper can step in and save the day?
I know of several, some of which if post would attract attention from the mods.
* s h u d d e r *
I've owned a couple of Fords, about as reliable as any American car I've ever owned, so spare me the jokes about ANY car manufacturer. (Except Yugos...)
F***ing Old Rebuilt Dodge?
Not a Ford guy, myself, but I have to say Ford got it pretty dang close to right with this one.
I drive a '95 Subaru Legacy that I've had for the past six years. It's never needed repairs; not once. That's fun.
The 1965 mustang was my first car. I named is Ralphie Mustang. (sigh) A thief took it one Saturday night. Never saw it again.
Ping!
"Nice looking car!"
Yeah, I think so, too. It has the look of the classic Mustang, but with modern aesthetics. I'm quite certain it's going to drive a heckuva lot better than the old one did, too. I mean, the original Mustang was really a re-bodied Falcon, and the Falcon was a dog on the road.
Cars just work better now. Thank goodness they made this one rear-wheel-drive. I can see the rubber burning.
Forget
Out
Runnin'
Dale... er, Jr.
www.bugmenot.com
this site has logins for most newspaper and magazine sites.
I know your post will be taken off soon, but Edwards made his money by suing the organizations like the Red Cross, not "evil" corporations as you postulate. Besides, no straight people like "Breck hair" sissy boys like Edwards. So there.
Actually, the Plymouth Barracuda was introduced a few weeks before the Mustang.
Just a little ponycar trivia.
The white car approached a school bus, the windows flew up, and the children inside chanted "Mustang! Mustang! Mustang!"
Windows in a school bus open down, not up.
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