Ford Mustang at 40
Happy birthday, baby, you look mahvelous!
By Matt DeLorenzo
May 2004
Photo by Ron Perry
With the all-new yet somehow familiar 2005 model waiting in the wings, it seems that the Ford Mustang, which turned 40 on April 17, has discovered a Fountain of Youth. If cars were people, this particular Ford would be Dick Clark.
Which is fitting, because the Mustang has always been about youth or youthful thinking. In the early 1960s, Ford was looking for a way to capture the hearts and minds of the Baby Boom generation, which was just coming of age. Inexpensive imports, particularly the Volkswagen Beetle, were turning their heads, so Ford began crash programs to develop the kind of small, low-cost transportation these college-aged kids craved.
The first candidate was the Cardinal, a V-4-powered front-drive compact sold as the Taunus in Europe. Ford general manager Lee Iacocca, who was originally in charge of the car's development for the U.S., decided that it wasn't right for America. Instead, he favored a 2-door coupe based on the rear-drive Falcon. Unlike Ford's rather plain-looking economy car, the Mustang had new proportions — a long hood and short rear deck — that became the template for a whole new segment of sporty American cars.
Powered by a base 170-cu.-in. 101-bhp inline-6 or an optional 260-cu.-in. V-8 making 164 bhp, the Mustang proved to be an instant hit with the youth market. With its bucket seats, floor-mounted shifter and introductory price of $2368, buyers of even the 6-cylinder models felt they had something special without having to shell out a fortune. In the first 18 months, Ford sold more than 1 million Mustangs, the fastest car launch in history.
One would think that this kind of success would have a trajectory leading straight to the 2005 model. Not so. The Mustang has been upsized, downsized, upsized again, rethought and given up for dead before being reborn as a new model that has more in common with the original than most of the cars in between.
In the late 1960s the Mustang reached its zenith as an icon in both performance and design. The introduction of the full fastback look in 1967 indelibly etched the long-hood, short-deck profile into the subconscious of enthusiasts everywhere. And the infusion of horsepower from V-8s with ever-increasing displacements — 289, 302, 351, 390, 429 and 489 cu. in. — turned the mild-mannered pony car into a true muscle car.
By the early 1970s, the Mustang had grown fat and sassy. What started life as a lithe sporty car became an overweight caricature of itself. Downsizing followed, and Ford needed a donor car for the new Mustang II. Based on subcompact Pinto components, it sported only 4- and 6-cylinder power when it bowed in 1974 and yet at 385,000 units, it more than doubled sales of the '73 model.
But purists looked down their noses at what was perceived as a shadow of the Mustang's former self, despite the return of V-8 power in 1975.
In 1979, Ford went back to the drawing board and upsized the Mustang on the Fox platform shared with the Fairmont. With European-inspired styling, the classic pony car was reborn. It still had that long nose and short rear deck, but the body was clean and sleek. The Mustang went through its Euro stage by offering turbocharged 4-cylinder engines with the aim of someday supplanting the traditional pushrod V-8. This resulted in the 1984 SVO Mustang, which featured a turbocharged 175-bhp 2.3-liter 4-cylinder engine and all sorts of aero-inspired bodywork including a biplane rear wing. It just matched the 175-bhp GT with V-8 power and yet cost $5000 more. It soon disappeared.
Meanwhile, forces were afoot that might have forever altered the concept of the classic rear-drive American pony car. In the early 1980s front-wheel drive was viewed as the across-the-board answer to not only meeting high fuel economy standards but also beating back the challenge of the Japanese and their sporty coupes.
Ford had developed a front-drive successor to the Mustang and went to its new Asian partner, Mazda, to build the car at a joint-venture plant in Flat Rock, Michigan. John Coletti, now head of Ford's Special Vehicle Team, recalled seeing the car in the design studios and being asked what he thought. "I said, 'I don't know what you call it, but it ain't a Mustang.'" It was a sentiment universally shared by Mustang enthusiasts. Months before the launch, Ford relented and renamed it the Probe, cadging the nameplate from a series of aerodynamic studies done in the late '70s and early '80s.
A study team, led by Coletti, was formed in 1989 to develop a business plan to see if a new Mustang could be developed in less than four years for $700 million. An all-new car was out of the question, Coletti says. "Remember, times weren't that good and as the Probe demonstrated, we couldn't afford to do the car that we wanted to do, and we didn't want to do the car we could afford."
But, the team persevered and found a way to build the car that met both the timing and cost objectives. "In a way, it was almost easy, because everyone was expecting us to fail," Coletti says with a laugh.
The SN95 would show that the Fox platform, now known as the Fox-4 because of the extensive reworking done to the structure, could still be a competitive foundation for the Mustang. The car also began to pick up on the classic cues that made the Mustang iconic, such as the galloping pony on the grille and the use of a dual-cockpit theme.
Four years later, the team was back to work on the Mustang, fine-tuning it even further in both styling and engineering. The design picked up more heritage cues from the original Mustang, from the front and side scoops to the horizontal arrangement of the three taillamps. Beneath the skin, the base Mustang and GT models retained their classic live-axle suspension, while the SVT Cobra adopted an innovative independent rear.
After a 25-year run, the Fox platform is finally being laid to rest and yet the lessons learned from years of development are being applied to the 2005 model.
1965 Mustang
1971 Mustang
1975 Mustang
Photos by Wm A. Motta and Gordon Chittenden
1984 SVO Mustang
1995 Mustang
1999 Mustang
Photos by Ron Perry and Kirk Willis
Photo's by Car&Driver
If the 1999 model was considered heavy on heritage cues, then the '05 is just this side of a reissue of the 1967-1969 version. The newest Mustang has that car's sharklike nose, which is further accentuated by the retro gills discreetly tucked into the headlamp bezels. The galloping pony is running free on the honeycomb grille work. The two round driving lights nestled in the intake instantly distinguish the GT from the V-6. The side features a classic hockey-stick character line, and the fastback look (the car remains a coupe with a conventional trunk) is accentuated by quarter glass in the rear pillars. The rear of the car sports the traditional three-element taillamps.
Even though the shape is instantly recognizable as a Mustang, there is a machined look to the body surfaces and the kind of precise gaps and body fits that were unheard of in the 1960s. "Our goal was to create a fresh, modern-looking car, while not confusing anyone about the fact that it is a Mustang through and through," says Larry Erickson, chief designer of the Mustang.
That modernist approach is carried over inside where the dual-cockpit theme is retained. The satin-finished dash hints at the exposed painted metal surfaces of the original Mustang, while polished aluminum bezels around the vents and instruments give the car a touch of elegance. The three-spoke steering wheel and the stitching patterns on the bucket seats were modeled after the original's. While the instrument cluster and graphics are retro, the display itself is decidedly high-tech with a color-configurable background with more than 125 permutations.
Beneath the skin, the Mustang is a departure from all previous models in that it has its own platform for the first time. While it does draw on the MacPherson-strut front suspension components from the Lincoln LS and Ford Thunderbird, the use of a lower-cost live-axle rear as well as other structural changes make it unique. That's not to say that some future rear-drive Fords may not be derived from this architecture. Hau Thai-Tang, the Mustang's chief engineer, said the live-axle setup was decided upon for reasons having to do as much with performance as cost. Not only is this suspension lighter than an independent rear, its geometry is better suited for drag-race launches. "We talked to Mustang owners, and a lot of them told us, very strongly, that the all-new Mustang had to have a solid rear axle," Thai-Tang explains.
The all-new nature of the Mustang allowed for a complete overhaul of the rear end. A new three-link design employing two trailing links and a lightweight tubular Panhard rod is used to locate the axle. Constant-rate springs and softer shock settings improve ride without sacrificing handling.
In addition to larger 4-wheel disc brakes, the Mustang benefits from a significant upgrade in wheels and tires. Base models now ride on 16-in. wheels with S-rated BFGoodrich P215/65R-16 tires, while GT models have 17-in. alloys with Pirelli P235/55ZR-17 rubber.
Beneath the hood, the base 4.0-liter V-6 engine has been reworked to develop 202 bhp at 5250 rpm and 235 lb.-ft. of torque at 3500 rpm. The 4.6-liter V-8 in the GT makes 300 bhp at 6000 rpm and 315 lb.-ft. of torque at 4500. Both cars are equipped with Tremec 5-speed manual transmissions as standard, while Ford's 5R55S 5-speed automatic is optional. The GT has a taller 3.55:1 final drive, while the V-6 has 3.31:1, which Ford says should be good for GT 0-60 sprints in 5.5 seconds compared to 7.0 sec. for the V-6.
In a world where the average car costs upwards of $26,000, the Mustang again plays to its heritage of offering bang for the buck by pricing the V-6 somewhere between $17,000-$18,000, while the GT is expected to bow in the $25,000 range. With this kind of style, performance and value, the Mustang is sure to have many more birthdays to celebrate.
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