Brain child of hotshot Ford Executive Lee Lacocca, the sporty Mustang was based on the floor pan of the budget, priced Falcon range. Its crisp, pseudo European styling came in notchback, fast back and convertible forms, and could be ordered with a vast range of options that allowed buyers to tailor the car to their own requirements. Poseurs could for the weakling straight six, and enthusiasts for a whole raft of V8s, escalating in power from 95 bhp to 390 bhp. There were lazy automatics, stick shift manuals, sports handling packages and front disc brakes, as well as those countless trim options. As a marketing packages it was perfect, and when it was launched in 1964 the Mustang quickly entered the history entered the history books as one of the fastest selling cars of all time, 418,000 units in the first year, topping a million by 1966. The attractively basic, pretty shape continued pleasingly unmolested into 1968 as rivals hurriedly prepared their own Pony cars. Longer paunchier 1969 Mustangs marked the start of the rot though, and the Mustang reached its nadir with the 1973 model Mustang II, a meek and mild little economy car launched in the wake of oil crisis.
Nobody was fooled into thinking that this later, weaker version was anything like the car that its grandfather had been, but it sold well, notching up more than million sales, partly from long lasting affection and perhaps partly from the relatively weak competition at the time. However, unlike the 1964 car, it will never be a classic.
