Ford just couldn’t wait for the 1965 model year, could they? They have to have been certain they had a winner in their hands, as the 64½ Mustang was unveiled five months earlier than other ’65 cars in Ford’s model lineup. But it was worth it, as the game was changed and ground was broken for forever more. The first cars had come off the line on March 9, and on April 17 at the New York World’s Fair the pony car that created pony cars was in the public eye.
In this post, I take a fast-forward look at the 49 years of the Ford Mustang.
The affordable, enviably good-looking Mustang quickly made it to the silver screen and worldwide presence. On two consecutive Bond films, Goldfinger and Thunderball, Bond girls give Mustang some well-earned screen time, and in the 1966 French film Un homme et une femme (A Man and a Woman) the GT40-testing racing driver protagonist hoons a permanently dirty hardtop example with the number 184 crudely applied on the sides. It’s the best-looking dirty car in any film I’ve seen.
[youtube width=”720″ height=”480″]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9mq4yCMrmc[/youtube]
A little-known fact about European Mustangs: Ford couldn’t use the Mustang name in Germany, since the German industrial giant Krupp had used the name to sell trucks between 1951 and 1964 – thus the Mustang was a “Ford T-5” in Germany until 1978.
Ford has been eager to evolve the Mustang over the years, to make it suit the times whenever necessary. The Mustang II of 1974 was almost a series reboot, since all the boldness and most of the power was suddenly gone, to be gradually brought back over the years.
By the third generation, often referred to as the Foxbody, the car had grown back its guts, and it’s here where I declare the Fox to be my favorite Mustang of the lot. I’d most happily go for a black SVO.
After nearly going for FWD in the late 1980s (that project ended up birthing the Probe), Ford re-designed the Mustang for 1994. The SN95 lived on until 2004, noticeably facelifted with New Edge design for 1999, and the decidedly retro-looking 2005 Mustang harks back to the good old days of late-60s design. In my opinion, the current iteration looks the best the Mustang’s looked for 20 years.
But at the 49th anniversary, one really can’t help but wonder – what will Ford unveil when the time comes for the big 5.0 a year from now?
[Photos: Ford, imcdb, Jose/Cargurus, Blueck/Wikimedia]
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