April 17 marked sixty years since the Ford Mustang’s public debut at the 1964 New York World’s Fair. The original pony car immediately became a pop-culture and automotive phenom, and it remains one of the most impactful cars in history. Click here to follow along with our multi-week 60 Years of Mustang coverage. —Ed.

It was too early for the phone to ring. One of my workers was on the line, out of breath, saying that the Mustang was gone. Stolen!  

I had left my beloved ’65 Mustang GT convertible in the fenced, locked yard at my office. The thieves managed to cut multiple padlocks, moved a 15-foot truck, and got away with my baby.

When I was a teenager growing up in Mexico, I saw the French movie A Man and a Woman and fell in love—with the ’65 Mustang convertible. I told my mom, “I’m going to have that car one day.” Years later, I graduated from college in the U.S. and surprised my mom by showing off El Poni, my Rangoon Red ’65 Mustang GT convertible. She cried.

Fast forward a couple of decades, and El Poni was on blocks in the garage, with vermin living comfortably in the engine compartment. My wife told me I needed to fix it or sell it. I couldn’t part with the car, so I put in the time and money to build it into a show piece. I was rewarded with the biggest surprise of my life when I won the Mayor’s Trophy at the 2019 La Jolla Concours d’Elegance.

A few months later, we were in the middle of the Covid pandemic, and El Poni was gone. I was heartbroken, and so were my friends and family. My wife and I drove around neighborhoods in hopes of finding the car, to no avail. We reported the theft but heard nothing.

Then, a miracle. A year and a half after the theft, I found a listing for a red ’65 Mustang GT convertible on eBay. I stared at the photos and saw that the rear window was glass instead of vinyl. Then I saw the custom armrest. Then the gold-painted air filter painted gold. I knew it was mine.

Amazingly, the people selling on eBay listed their city and included a photo of the car taken in front of their condo. A detective from the Chino Police Department, who happened to own a ’66 Mustang convertible, located the car with the assistance of the California Highway Patrol. The VIN plate on the driver’s side had been punched out. To verify the VIN, the passenger-side fender—held on by 18 bolts—would have to be removed. The detective had a better idea: He asked if there was something specific that would identify the car as mine. I remembered I’d put a red plastic straw in the windshield washer bag to hold it up. And when the detective opened the hood, he exclaimed “Yep, it’s your car! Come and get it.”

I went to church and lit a candle, so grateful to have this beloved car once again.

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post Red Straw to the Rescue! Mustang GT Stolen and Recovered appeared first on Hagerty Media.

April 17 marked 60 years since the Ford Mustang’s public debut at the 1964 New York World’s Fair. The original pony car immediately became a pop-culture and automotive phenom, and it remains one of the most impactful cars in history. We’re celebrating with stories of the events surrounding the Mustang’s launch, the history of the early cars, and tales from owners. Click here to follow along with our multi-week 60 Years of Mustang coverage. -Ed.

When the 289 in my 1965 GT Mustang was ready for a rebuild after 15 years of driving, I made a decision not unfamiliar to owners of original Mustangs: If I was going to pull the car’s motor and have it overhauled, why not take the next step and upgrade the driving experience? Rather than opting for a stroker kit, a roller cam, or some other modern engine upgrade, however, I decided to do something a bit more historic: a period-correct conversion of my car’s original 225-hp A-code into a replica of the high-performance, solid-lifter K-code 289. In fact, while my mechanic and I were at it, why not push the replica idea to the next step and give the car a “Cobra 289,” the 306-hp version of the engine Carroll Shelby tweaked for the GT350?

Now, this kind of transformation has been an enthusiast option that goes all the way back to 1965. It’s been the subject plenty of magazine and online articles and videos, and you can buy replica K-code 289s on eBay.

The coupe was far and away the most common body style of those original Mustangs. Ford moved more than a million coupes in the first generation but barely 100,000 fastbacks, and two-thirds of those sold in 1965. After the first year’s novelty, fastback sales plunged drastically.

For those of us who were on the scene then, none of this is a mystery. The coupes were minimally less expensive than the fastback or convertible, but that wasn’t the reason 80 percent of all 1965–66 Mustangs were coupes. Rather, the ’60s generation simply preferred the original, the version Lee Iacocca sprang on the world in the spring of 1964, the car that won the Tiffany Award for Excellence in Design. At a time when many Mustang buyers owned only one car, coupes offered a slight advantage in rear seat headroom and trunk space over fastbacks. They even possessed a slight performance edge as they were the lightest of the three body styles. As dazzling as the sleek fastbacks seem now, as fetching as convertibles are in the market, in the 1960s, it was easy to be smitten with the Mustang coupe. Only after about 1968 did the fastback Mustang begin to replace the coupe in our collective affections.

In high school and college I owned three Mustangs—a pair of Springtime Yellow ’66 coupes and a Candy Apple Red ’68 fastback. But none of those cars approached the special qualities of the car I bought in 2004 to salve my Mustang nostalgia. What I had always swooned over was an original GT, the first performance/cosmetic version of the Mustang. Offered only with the two top engines, Mustang GTs got disc brakes, quicker steering, and stiffer suspensions, along with eye candy like round gauges with 140-mph speedometers, fog lights, trumpet exhausts through the rear body, and racing stripes.

The GT cars were beautiful regardless of body style, but another original Mustang truth is that the majority of factory GT cars were coupes. Most weren’t strippers, though. As period road tests (like the one Motor Trend did of a ’66 GT) and books on Mustang history offer as evidence, a common look for the original GT Mustang was a coupe with a two-tone body, with rocker panel racing stripes matched to a black or cream vinyl top designed to set off a complementary paint color. It was a striking aesthetic combination then, and still is now.

This was the Mustang that had always entranced me. What I found and bought in 2004 was one of the first run of Mustang GTs built. It came out of the San Jose plant in May 1965, the second full month of GT production, as a two-toned coupe with white stripes and cream vinyl top gracing a Silver Blue body. Driven off the truck onto the Al Cheney Ford lot in Santa Cruz, California, the car was absolutely loaded. Beyond the GT package and A-code 289, its options included Cruise-O-Matic, air conditioning, power steering, Rally-Pac gauges, styled-steel wheels, dual red-band tires, an Equalock differential, deluxe two-tone interior, deluxe steering wheel, deluxe seat belts, a console, radio, a vinyl top, banded tinted glass, the convenience group, backup lights, an interior-controlled side mirror, a passenger side mirror, and two-speed wipers. Despite lacking the ultimate option—the Hi-Po engine—with delivery and dealer prep, this car was a $4000 showroom starlet, rare altitude for a factory Mustang.

Then there was its subsequent history. As a loaded GT, it had clearly impressed its early owners enough that when it came to me 40 years down the line, not only were its factory engine and transmission still in place, it still sported all its date-coded tinted glass. Equally indicative of a rare, no-hit lifetime, fore and aft it wore its first set of dealer license plate frames from that initial Santa Cruz sale at Al Cheney Ford. Fingering the patina on its worn ignition key, a friend offered that when that key was bright and new this car would have been cruising California’s Highway 1 with the Beatles’ latest, Rubber Soul, playing on its radio.

The car came to me with a ten-year-old, mostly cosmetic restoration familiar to anyone who watches auto-garage TV. The engine had gotten a rebuild, and the car had been resprayed in its original color and given a new interior. Aesthetically, it was gorgeous. Beneath the skin, as a mechanic who looked at it for me said, it was “bone stock.” I proceeded to replace the woodgrain appliques on the dash with real wood and attended to various faults as they surfaced. But in its new home at the foot of the Rockies in Santa Fe, New Mexico, for its next 20,000 miles I mostly just drove it. Eventually, a tired and protesting suspension, grabbing brakes, faltering compression, and oil smoke on start-up signaled the time for a full mechanical restoration.

In good tune, a 289 Mustang is a lovely road-trip or daily-driver car. Few of us really use collector cars that way, though. I mostly drive my classics on local roads to enjoy their acceleration, their throttle response, and the analog way they react to driver inputs. An A-code 289 is still torquey enough to run light-to-light with modern city traffic, but no one would call it scintillating on an empty road. No one did in the day, for that matter. Motor Trend’s road test of a ’66 GT yielded a 0–60 time of 9.5 seconds and the quarter-mile in 17 seconds, at 81 mph. Riding in the Silver Blue coupe the first time, my wife’s reaction was, “So this is mainly a car that sounds nice, huh?”

So, with a loaded and very sound ’65 GT in need of a mechanical restoration, the time was at hand for whatever upgrades I envisioned for it. Why not impart, then, the kind of performance those GT cosmetics and red-band tires had always implied? Why not give this GT that one option it didn’t get in 1965?

A historical upgrade seemed proper, anyway. This was a car so straight out of the ’60s it begged for a period hop-up. I turned the restoration over to Steve Chiulli of Green Monkey Coachworks in Santa Fe. Operating from my obsessively researched build plans, Chiulli launched a mechanical restoration that took nearly eight months. Saving the replica Cobra 289 engine for the moment, here’s what we created.

An entirely new suspension was part of the work, so we started by mimicking one of the handling tricks Shelby’s shakedown driver, Ken Miles, developed for the GT350: dropping the pivot point for the control arms one inch to keep the wheels upright in fast cornering. This gave the finished car the raked stance of the 1965 GT350. We used another Shelby/Miles trick to get additional stiffness, adding the more robust “export brace” and a “Monte Carlo bar” to the engine bay. As with GT350s, red Koni shocks became a part of the rebuilt suspension. We then traded out the leisurely 3.00:1 A-code final gearing for a much shorter 3.80:1 ring-and-pinion limited-slip differential. With the A-code’s 8-inch differential, that was the closest match to the 3.89:1 Shelby utilized in the 8.75-inch diff of the GT350. Finally, following Ford’s lead when it mated the K-code with Cruise-O-Matic, we gave the transmission a general uprating along with a shift kit.

Converting my A-code 289 into a replica Hi-Po, then Shelbyizing it to GT350 specs, was the heart of this rebuild. And critical to the beating heart of the Ford high-performance 289 was its solid-lifter camshaft. We sourced one for my engine from Comp Cams, whose Nostalgia Plus K-Kit promised a “tight lash with the distinctive sound and character of Ford’s 271-hp 289.” Installing this re-creation Hi-Po cam in my rebuilt 289 block involved machining the A-code heads to accommodate a K-code valvetrain, including recessing the spring seats for the stronger valve springs and machining for screw-in rocker arms. New flat-topped pistons provided the K-code’s high compression. That done, we replaced the cast A-code intake with an aluminum hi-riser, then changed out the 480-cfm Autolite four-barrel for a remanufactured 600-cfm Autolite. Shelby used a 715-cfm Holley on manual GT350s, but his automatic cars retained the 600, so we did, too.

On the exhaust end, Tri-Y headers replaced the A-code manifolds, then fed through MagnaFlow glasspack mufflers to the standard GT trumpet exhausts. Rather than the original dual-point distributor, we added spark with an electronic MSD unit with mechanical advance and a Flamethrower coil. Other additions involved replacing base 289 motor mounts with K-code motor mounts and installing a K-code harmonic balancer and high pressure oil pump with the larger Cobra oil pan. Classic 1965 Cobra valve covers provided the final touch.

The result is a luxury GT Mustang wrapped around the performance drivetrain of a GT350, and it runs and drives like a sports car.

For those who have never driven a Cobra or a Mustang outfitted with the high-performance 289 engine (I hadn’t), it’s a revelation. Whirring solid-lifters and a shorter axle make for a noisier drive than in ordinary Mustangs, but the snarling throttle response, ability to rev beyond 6000 rpm, and strong acceleration pull at any speed are exciting, even half a century later. Rebuilt this way, a Mustang that had been a pretty but sedate commuter now steers, brakes, corners, accelerates, and sounds like a performance sports coupe. I’m a convert.

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post Mustang Member Story: The K-Code Transformation of a ’65 GT appeared first on Hagerty Media.

April 17 marked 60 years since the Ford Mustang’s public debut at the 1964 New York World’s Fair. The original pony car immediately became a pop-culture and automotive phenom, and it remains one of the most impactful cars in history. We’re celebrating with stories of the events surrounding the Mustang’s launch, the history of the early cars, and tales from owners. Click here to follow along with our multi-week 60 Years of Mustang coverage. -Ed.

On the Wednesday before the new Mustang debuted at this year’s Rolex 24 at Daytona, Ford presented its Spirt of Ford Award to the team behind the Mustang’s first-ever racing victory 60 years earlier.

That inaugural win wasn’t scored on American soil, nor even by an American team, but at the 1964 Tour de France and contested by British outfit Alan Mann Racing (AMR)—a team that had been established only that year by racer and subsequent team manager Alan Mann.

Mann passed away in 2012, but his sons, Henry and Tom, collected the award at the American Muscle Car Museum, and they continue to run AMR to this day. We spoke with them at Daytona a few days later about how an unknown British team from Byfleet, Surrey, got a big-time Ford contract, about what happened next, how their involvement with the original Mustang continues, and the mystery that still surrounds that winning car’s whereabouts.

Alan Mann was still a young man when the Ford connection began. “My dad worked for a Ford dealer on the south coast called Alan Andrews, which had a successful racing operation, and Ford of America invited a couple of British Cortina teams over to race in the Marlboro 12 Hours [at the now-defunct Marlboro Motor Raceway in Maryland] and at Bridgehampton in 1963,” says Henry. “My dad was running one of them with his British drivers, and Holman-Moody were running some Falcons with their NASCAR guys.”

When the Brits beat domestic Falcons it caused quite a stir, but rather than bristling at the unwelcome competition, John Holman saw an opportunity—his team disliked competing in European events with Galaxies and Falcons, so he introduced Mann to Ford management.

With Mann aged just 27, Ford suggested he establish his own company and run the European arm of its Total Performance program, which involved racing in various categories across continents. Things moved quickly.

“That led to them running Falcons in the 1964 Monte Carlo Rally,” says Henry, noting that the Falcon shares much with its pony-car sibling. “The cars were all built at Holman-Moody, then brought into Lincoln Cars Ltd. in the Great West Road, which was Ford’s British distributor for American vehicles at the time.” Ford’s trust was repaid when the Falcon Sprint driven by Swede Bo Ljungfeldt came second to Paddy Hopkirk’s Mini Cooper S that January.

“After they got back from the Monte,” says Henry, “Ford shipped over an early pre-production Mustang, number 3 I think, with a 260 V-8 and a three-speed gearbox. It was fairly standard and not quite the spec it would end up being—there were still some Falcon bits on it—but they did testing and homologation work. It had to be very secret. When a photographer got some shots of them testing at Goodwood, he had to be persuaded to destroy his film.”

Come June, Ford shipped over four Mustangs with Hi-Po 289 engines for the Tour de France—a 10-day, 4000-mile marathon that lapped France like a boot pointing out to the Atlantic, taking in race tracks, hill climbs, and sprints as it moved clockwise from Rennes in the northwest and eventually back to Paris.

Three Mustangs would compete, the fourth acting as a support car driven by Alan Mann and cannibalized as necessary. All wore AMR’s new red-and-gold livery—much like a British postbox and now synonymous with the team—after Mann had struggled to distinguish his Lotus Cortina at the Nürburgring in 1964 from a number of others all wearing white-and-green war paint. “Ford would supply bodies in white or red, and red helped him tell them apart,” Henry says. “Then it was a case of ‘What goes with red?’ The first car in red and gold was a 1964 Lotus Cortina.”

A previous Hagerty story on AMR’s efforts covers Peter Procter and co-driver Andrew Cowan’s Tour de France win of the Touring class in-depth, but Henry notes that, along with exceptional driving, two other factors in particular contributed.

“They’d been a bit unsuccessful in the Marathon de la Route [a series of long-distance European road rallies] with two other cars, which was a pretty intensive event, and they went off the road in Yugoslavia but learned a lot,” he explains. “My dad was also lucky, because there was a Vickers [engineering] plant near AMR’s base in Brooklands, so there were a lot of really talented metalworkers and mechanics in that area, and a huge part of the job in those days was to keep the cars running.”

Not only did the Mustang win the Tour de France to end Jaguar’s long-term dominance, but another AMR Mustang placed second. Had the final Mustang not been disqualified for a push-start, it would’ve been a 1-2-3.

Alan Mann Racing went on to further success with the Mustang, winning the British Saloon Car Championship in 1965—50 years before the Mustang would officially arrive in dealerships in the UK—while Jacky Ickx contested some rounds of the 1965 European Touring Car Championship with one.

“After that there were no more Mustangs run by my dad in period,” Henry says. “It had kind of had its day in frontline competition, but AMR moved onto other things—the GT40s, Escorts, Shelby Cobra Daytonas…”

In fact, AMR won the 1965 World GT Championship with the Daytona, the 1965 European Touring Car Championship with the Cortina, and then took the Falcon and Escort to consecutive British Saloon Car Championships in ’67 and ’68. AMR even contested Le Mans with the GT40 in ’66 and ’69, though a finish eluded them.

Then Ford wound down its Total Performance program. “Once Ford pulled the plug in 1970 and went more into rallying, my dad withdrew from racing, didn’t see his old friends, and concentrated on his aviation business,” says Henry.

That was that—for a quarter of a century. Then a Cobra reunion at Sears Point in 1995 reignited interest, and when Goodwood’s historic events started to take off, Alan was invited to drive some of his old cars, apparently surprised that people remembered him.

Tom Mann adds that during their childhood, the two youngsters had no real appreciation of how successful their dad had been long before he started a family. They were startled when fans began approaching him for autographs at Goodwood.

The return of Alan Mann Racing proper came in a roundabout way in 2004. The brother of Henry’s school friend asked what he should campaign in historic motorsport, and Mann senior suggested a Mustang, citing strength, parts availability, power, and affordability. He soon found himself project-managing the build.

“He sourced a car in the U.S., contacted Lee Holman at Holman-Moody, and thought ‘Well, if he’s having one, I might as well have one too,’” recalls Henry. “He persuaded some of the mechanics from back in the day to prepare the car and started to get back into racing big time. It was like a switch flipped in his brain.

“Historic racing was quite clubby back then, and I think he just enjoyed spending time with [fellow racers] John Whitmore, Jack Sears, and Frank Gardner,” Henry remembers. “I was about 13 and started tagging along at races, going to get diff oil and coffee for mechanics, things like that. As he got ill, he said I should drive—he got me a driver coach and I started to get more involved.”

When the founder passed away in 2012, Alan Mann Racing was handed down to the brothers. Today it remains synonymous with Ford, being particularly renowned for its Mustang builds. It is still based on the same Fairoaks airfield site that has been AMR headquarters since 1970, and the brothers are currently finishing off a 1957 Fairlane and a Mk II Cobra, among various Mustangs. Occasionally they undertake road-car restorations, including the Mustang ePower that Hagerty recently tested, but mostly it’s about prepping ’60s Fords for historic motorsport, with Mustangs a particular speciality.

“My dad was a good development driver,” says Henry, “so we had a good spec sorted out on a historic Mustang by the time he passed away, and we’ve stuck with that ever since.”

At the Goodwood Members’ Meeting in England earlier this month, five of the 30-car grid contesting the Ken Miles Cup were AMR-prepared. Ford boss Jim Farley even shared an AMR Mustang with legendary touring car racer Steve Soper.

None of the four cars that entered the 1964 Tour de France were on the grid, but in this 60th year of the Mustang, Tom and Henry are keen to track down the long-lost winner. The fate of the three other cars, however, is known. The car disqualified from third position—registration DPK 5B—has already been restored by AMR and now appropriately lives in France. The second-place DPK 6B won the British Saloon Car Championship in 1965 and was then sold to a club racer, who suffered a fatal accident at Silverstone. The brothers believe it was subsequently crushed. And the support car driven by their father has been “in a leaky lock-up in north London since 1972, still with the Holman-Moody race engine in it, but it’s sadly not very good,” says Henry. “If the owner’s going to do anything with it, this is the year.”

The winning car—DPK 7B—remains the biggest mystery of all. “It was air-freighted back from France to America at the end of the rally and did a press tour, but no one knows where it is now,” says Henry.

“When we received the Spirit of Ford award, a guy introduced himself to us who’s writing a book about these cars, and he has a theory it started in the first Trans Am race, but it’s almost impossible to prove,” adds Tom.

There is, apparently, a concerted effort within Ford to find that car this year. Sixty years after a little British team gave the Mustang its first win a long way from home, nothing would make the brothers happier.

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post When Alan Mann Racing Gave the Mustang Its First Victory appeared first on Hagerty Media.

April 17 marked sixty years since the Ford Mustang’s public debut at the 1964 New York World’s Fair. The original pony car immediately became a pop-culture and automotive phenom, and it remains one of the most impactful cars in history. Click here to follow along with our multi-week 60 Years of Mustang coverage. -Ed.

The world’s fastest Mustang lined up on the far left at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, one of two drag strips in the country configured to race four cars at once. Besides Bob Tasca’s Ford, there was Austin Prock’s Chevrolet, Matt Hagan’s Dodge, and Ron Capps’ Toyota—every brand that races in the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) Funny Car class.

For Tasca, it was a point of honor to beat the other three manufacturers. Tasca Automotive Group was founded in 1943 by Bob Tasca, Sr., and in 1953 he opened the original Tasca Ford in Bristol, Rhode Island. Just one year later, this dealership was destroyed by Hurricane Carol. Bob Sr. ultimately opened up the new Tasca Ford in East Providence, Rhode Island.

It was here in the 1960s that Bob Sr. and his team became the second largest Ford dealership in the world. This was also the birthplace of the Tasca Racing program and multiple historic muscle cars such as the Ford Cobra Jet, the Tasca Street Boss, and the Mystery race cars. Bob Tasca III carries on the Ford racing tradition, working at the family dealership when he isn’t at the track.

On the afternoon of April 14, those four cars lined up on The Strip. The starting lights flashed, and Tasca was off first, with a 0.34-second reaction time. Even though his top speed of 329.75 mph was only second-quickest to Capps’ 333.00, his quick reaction time was enough to get Tasca’s Mustang to the finish line first. It was Tasca’s first win of 2024.

“When you put together a final round where there’s one Ford, one Dodge, one Toyota, one Chevy, that is why we do it,” Tasca said. “It’s the only reason we come out here to win for all our Ford fans all around the world. That’s going to go down as one of the best final rounds in Funny Car history.”

But it wasn’t in NHRA competition where Tasca earned the honorary “world’s fastest Mustang” title. Since Tasca’s 341.68 mph record run didn’t come at an NHRA event, the sanctioning body still recognizes Robert Hight’s 339.87 mph mark, set at Sonoma Raceway in 2017, driving a Chevrolet Camaro SS.

Where Tasca made history was at Bradenton Motorsports Park, located in Manatee County, Florida, about an hour south of Tampa. Founded in 1974, it’s a quarter-mile asphalt drag strip and considered one of the nicest, most competitive grassroots strips in the country.

Though it may not host any major NHRA races, the Bradenton track held the inaugural PRO Superstar Shootout last February 8–10, an independent competition with a $1.3 million purse, making it the richest drag racing event in history.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Bob Tasca III (@tasca3)

As you would expect, the three-day show attracted the top professional drag racers in the country, including regulars on the NHRA circuit in the Top Fuel and Funny Car classes, which race from a standing start to 1000 feet. With speeds well over 300 mph, the Top Fuel and Funny Cars used to race the full quarter-mile—1320 feet—but some drag strips don’t have enough real estate in the shut-down area for the cars to come to a safe stop.

The official distance was shortened to 1000 feet in 2008, following the death of racer Scott Kalitta after his engine blew during a qualifying run in Englishtown, New Jersey. His Toyota Solara Funny Car’s twin parachutes were damaged by the explosion, and Kalitta’s car vaulted a concrete retaining wall at the end of the strip and hit a steel post, and then a piece of heavy equipment. Kalitta, 46, died as the result of blunt trauma injuries.

It was thought at the time that trimming the competition distance by 320 feet likely meant that Top Fuel and Funny Car records would be frozen, as it would be impossible to go faster in 1000 feet than the cars had gone in 1320. That logic sold short the ingenuity of drag racing crew chiefs and Goodyear, and many major quarter-mile records have been eclipsed by runs on 1000-foot tracks. That includes the world’s fastest Mustang.

Which brings us back to Bradenton.

A perfect run for a nitro-powered Top Fuel or Funny Car is dependent on so many factors: Track preparation, temperature, dew point, prevailing wind, and, of course, the driver’s ability to launch the 12,000-horsepower car and keep it in the dead center of the lane. Worth noting is that the record is for “wheel-driven” cars, which leaves out the handful of jet-powered dragsters out there.

There was something in the air on opening night for the PRO Shootout, a Thursday; it was obvious to the veterans there that the atmospheric conditions were right. Multiple cars had easily topped 330 mph, and fans were speculating which of the rear-engine Top Fuel cars, which are typically a bit faster than the front-engine, full-bodied Funny Cars, would go the fastest.

So it was a bit of a surprise when Funny Car driver Tasca went 339.87 mph in his PPG-sponsored Ford Mustang Dark Horse that Thursday at Bradenton. And it was even more of a surprise when Tasca came back Friday night and went 341.68 mph.

That’s not only a record for Funny Cars and Ford Mustangs—it was the fastest pass in the history of drag racing.

That it happened at a little country track in Florida, and not at one of the major NHRA events at a premiere facility, shocked everyone.

But there’s no argument that it is legitimate, and it makes his car the world’s fastest Mustang. Of course, it’s lost on no one that there are very few parts on Tasca’s car that would fit on a stock Ford Mustang Dark Horse, but that’s to be expected by any vehicle that can go over 340 mph in 1000 feet. That said, Tasca credited Ford Performance for his record pass. “Their support and Ford’s aerodynamic and engineering expertise were crucial in breaking the 340-mph barrier,” Tasca said.

Of course, Tasca, 48, would like to set the NHRA record, but in his opinion, it’s a done deal already. “Now, doing it officially at an NHRA national event, I’d love to do it, but it’s already been done, and I’ve made this point very clear to everyone who’s asked me. It’s already been done,” Tasca told Autoweek. “Whoever does it is going to do it for the second time, not the first time. The first time at a national event, I’d love to do it—but we already did it.”

Tasca went on to say that the next big milestone, 350 mph, probably won’t happen in his lifetime. After all, Tony Schumacher broke the 330-mph barrier in 1999, and it has taken 25 years to creep up to 340.

Regardless of whether it is “official” by NHRA standards, Bob Tasca III did it in the world’s fastest Mustang.

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post At 341.68 mph, the World’s Fastest Mustang Is Also the World’s Fastest Dragster appeared first on Hagerty Media.

April 17 marked sixty years since the Ford Mustang’s public debut at the 1964 New York World’s Fair. The original pony car immediately became a pop-culture and automotive phenom, and it remains one of the most impactful cars in history. Click here to follow along with our multi-week 60 Years of Mustang coverage. —Ed.

There’s a town in Oklahoma called Mustang, with a population of nearly 20,000. There’s another one in Texas, and it has a population of zero as of the 2020 census (for some reason, Mark Cuban bought it in 2021 for $2M). There is not, however, a Mustang County in the United States of America. At least not officially. This got us wondering where it is in the country that Mustangs are most popular. We surveyed our insurance data to find out. The result was this map—hover over it to see which U.S. counties have the most Ford Mustangs per capita.

A dry county named after Civil War general Philip Sheridan, Sheridan County, Kansas isn’t known for much. But it does, according to our data, have more proud Ford Mustang owners per capita than any county in the nation. Kansas in general has relatively high rates of Mustang ownership, as do North Carolina, Virginia, Montana, and North Dakota. As for places like Arkansas, Maine, Louisiana, and Illinois, maybe they’re more into Camaros—stay tuned for future maps. Where does your hometown stack up?

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post What U.S. County Has the Most Mustangs Per Capita? appeared first on Hagerty Media.

April 17 marked 60 years since the Ford Mustang’s public debut at the 1964 New York World’s Fair. The original pony car immediately became a pop-culture and automotive phenom, and it remains one of the most impactful cars in history. We’re celebrating with stories of the events surrounding the Mustang’s launch, the history of the early cars, and tales from owners. Click here to follow along with our multi-week 60 Years of Mustang coverage. -Ed.

Any great piece of automotive literature should make you want to go out and buy whatever you’re reading about. Even if your desire only goes as far as searching the local classifieds, the book should at least inspire a greater interest and appreciation for the subject. Scott McMullen’s book about the rare HiPo 1964 ½ Ford Mustang (K-code) does exactly that.

This is not a coffee table book with big glossy photos. Instead, it reads like a hardback novel that tells the story of why the HiPo (289-cubic inch V-8 rated at 271 hp) Ford Mustangs built in mid-1964 are worth a closer look. Inside, you’ll find black and white photos of cars being built in the factory, close-up color photos of parts that differentiate the 1964 ½ HiPo cars from the other 1964 ½ V-8 Mustangs and regular production 1965s, and an appendix with tables that detail changes in the air cleaners, carbs, exterior colors, and trim combinations.

Scott McMullen’s background as an engineer in research and development means he takes a reassuring, evidence-based approach to understanding these early HiPo Mustangs. His experience restoring cars and examining original cars further helps him explain how Ford’s rush to get Mustangs to market meant there were some variations in the cars built. Preserving those original variations of early K code Mustangs is one of the book’s aims. While maintaining originality is especially challenging when restoring a Mustang, it is an increasingly appreciated and important goal in the collector car world.

Looking at factory photos, understanding date codes, part and engineering numbers, production line notation, and referencing sources like Ford’s Rouge News help untangle the story of why so few HiPo Mustangs were built initially and what makes them different. With 680,989 Mustangs built for the 1965 model year, it is easy to lose sight of the 1964 ½ HiPo cars with all the others. While some people might still agree with the phrase “Mustangs will never be collectible because they built too many,” this book shows why some Mustangs are collectible by even the most stringent of parameters when you look closely.

Once you’re done reading this book, if you can’t find a 1964 ½ HiPo Mustang nearby, you can sate your appetite by watching the segment on Jay Leno’s Garage featuring Scott McMullen and a Guardsman Blue 1964 ½ HiPo convertible. Jay also wrote the foreword for the book, so if it is good enough for Jay, it is good enough for you.

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post Book Review: <em>HiPo 1964.5 Ford’s First High Performance Mustang</em> appeared first on Hagerty Media.

April 17 marked 60 years since the Ford Mustang’s public debut at the 1964 New York World’s Fair. The original pony car immediately became a pop-culture and automotive phenom, and it remains one of the most impactful cars in history. We’re celebrating with stories of the events surrounding the Mustang’s launch, the history of the early cars, and tales from owners. Click here to follow along with our multi-week 60 Years of Mustang coverage. -Ed.

The old candy wrappers, soda can pull-tab, and crumpled Bazooka bubble gum comic stuffed into the dashboard ashtray of Jon Stroud’s Rangoon Red 1965 Mustang convertible would likely earn disapproving frowns from car show judges. As the old saying goes, though, “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.” In this case, the odd bits of trash help unlock a 50-plus-year treasure chest of memories of the car’s original owners, Stroud’s parents.

“Dad smoked a pipe and cigarettes, loved to drink Pepsi, and chewed a lot of gum in the car,” Stroud recalled for Hagerty. “He could change out his pipe tobacco during one stop light. That was talent.”

The assorted detritus was in the ashtray in 1999, when Stroud trailered the Mustang from his parents’ home in Kokomo, Indiana, to his home near Charleston, South Carolina. Both now 82 years old, Richard and Doll Stroud bought the convertible new in August 1964, and Richard used it as a work commuter in three states until 1978. By then, salt used on Indiana’s roads in winter had fueled undercarriage corrosion.

Richard attempted to start repairing the body in his garage but ultimately realized the job would require a professional’s touch. The car would wait 20 years to get it. Once the work was completed, he called Jon to say that he and Doll were moving to a new home in Kokomo, and to ask Jon if he still wanted the Mustang.

Born three years after the Mustang rolled off the line, and in love with it since he was a young boy, Jon did not hesitate with his answer. His bond with the car was established early. “I came home from the hospital in my mother’s arms, in the front seat, because back then they didn’t have protective child seats,” he said. Once he got it to South Carolina, though, the Mustang would mostly sit for yet another 20 years.

“Between starting a family, building a real estate business, getting that business through a recession, and putting two daughters through college, I could never really afford to do anything more on it,” he said. “We finally started the process of getting it back on the road in 2021, and it’s been on the road about two years now.”

Jon gave the Mustang’s mechanicals some major upgrades, including a 302-cid crate motor and automatic overdrive transmission. The changes suited his use of the iconic convertible, which is more than a weekend toy.

“I drive her at least once a week during the spring, summer, and fall, and I take the Mustang to some of my appointments. I don’t drive it long distances, mostly within 10 or 15 miles. My grin is usually so big, I could eat a banana sideways.”

That sentiment is very much what his father felt about the car 60 years ago.

Love at First Sight

Like millions of Americans in 1964, Richard Stroud fell in love with the Mustang at first sight. He had seen photos and TV coverage of the car from its World’s Fair introduction, as well as the torrent of media coverage that followed the car from there.

In August 1964, he spotted a newspaper ad for Saunders Ford in Raleigh, North Carolina, inviting readers to come see the Mustang. He and his wife drove the 80 or so miles from Greenville in their 1956 Chevy Bel Air convertible and found a festive atmosphere when they arrived.

“There was a parade going down the street, and the red Mustang convertible was sitting out front with other new Fords,” Richard said. “It knocked me out. I thought it was the most beautiful car, and I still think it is.”

Richard spoke to a salesman, a man he recognized from his original hometown, Ayden, NC. Despite plans to just look at cars that day, the young couple bought the Mustang on the spot, just a few weeks shy of their one-year wedding anniversary.

“I didn’t know how we were going to pay for it, but I just really wanted it,” Richard said.

Although the original sales documentation has been lost through numerous moves over the decades, Richard remembered paying $3289 for the car, making $69 monthly payments for two years. At the time, he was earning about $10,000 a year working for DuPont.

The Mustang came equipped with the optional 260-cid V-8 and three-speed Cruise-O-Matic automatic transmission. The car’s trim tag also verifies the color and the April 8th build date at the assembly plant in Dearborn, Michigan. Since Mustangs were selling before even reaching dealerships, it is possible this one remained a dealer demonstrator until the Strouds bought it. 

“It certainly got a lot of attention when it was new,” Richard said. 

Factory Basics: 1965 Mustang 260 V-8

The Strouds’ Mustang was made one month after production started, and in the eyes of Mustang buffs, that makes it a “1964.5.” All first-year Mustangs were officially 1965 models, but this unofficial term distinguishes those built before an August transition that ushered in numerous changes on the assembly lines. (To meet much higher demand than originally anticipated, Ford switched its St. Louis plant to augment Dearborn production in June 1964, and the Metuchen, New Jersey, plant switched to building Mustangs in early 1965).

Mechanically, Ford juggled the engine lineup, with the K-code High-Performance 289 the only engine option to carry over to the second-phase ’65s. A 200-cid inline-six replaced the 170, and a 289 two-barrel replaced the 260 two-barrel as the first-level V-8 upgrade. All engines now used an alternator instead of a generator.

The 260 would be the one thing about the Mustang that disappointed Richard.

“I’d driven a friend’s ’65 with the Hi-Po 289 with a four-speed, and boy, did I ever want one. I got on it and was going 80 before I even realized it,” he said.

The 260-powered convertible would have been lucky to do 0–60 in about 11 seconds. The cast-iron V-8, known as the “Fairlane” engine, was compact and light at about 450 pounds. Its 164-horsepower rating was, as common then, an SAE gross figure. True net output might have been around 120 hp.

In the 1970s, Richard tried a little drag racing with the Mustang, but even installing a better ignition and a new intake with a four-barrel carb failed to give the pony car much more gallop. “The real problem was that Ford used finishing nails for valves … I mean, that engine couldn’t breathe!” he said.

For the record, valve size for the 1963–64 260 V-8 was 1.67 inches for intake and 1.45 for exhaust. To make the Mustang at least look a little racier, Richard painted the hood matte black, mimicking the 1969 Mustang Mach 1.

Frequent Flyers

Richard’s Mustang became a mover in a different sense, accompanying the Strouds as they relocated a few times for job changes. The Mustang made the 80-mile roundtrip from Greenville south to a DuPont facility in Kinston, before the family moved to Snow Hill when Doll took a job with the county. Richard later transferred to Seaford, Delaware, to work in the electronics section of DuPont. 

In 1969, with Jon two years old, the Strouds relocated to Kokomo, where Richard worked for Delco Electronics Corporation, a General Motors subsidiary at the time. He commuted with the Mustang for the next nine years. A second son, Michael, was born that year.

“The boys would of course ride in the back, but the car did not come with seat belts,” Richard said. “So, I installed seat belts in the front and the rear.”

Packing the car for long family trips to visit grandparents in North Carolina required another modification. “The trunk was quite small, so I put a rack on the trunk lid to carry the spare tire,” Richard said. “We went back and forth between Kokomo and North Carolina many times with that configuration.”

By 1978, winter road salt had taken such a heavy toll on the Mustang’s undercarriage and rear quarters that Richard parked it in the garage, with about 125,000 miles on the odometer. As a replacement commuter, he bought a beater 1966 Mustang hardtop with the 200-cid six and three-speed stick.

“My brother and I called the ’66 a ‘Rustang,’ because we could see the road going by through holes in the floor on both sides,” Jon recalled. “I remember my dad losing first and reverse gears and having to put his foot out the door so he could push the car down the driveway backwards. At work, management suggested to Dad that he could lose out on promotions until he drove GM cars. I’m sure that ’66 went straight to the crusher.” 

40-Year Journey Back to Health

Richard’s attempt at fixing up the Mustang in the late ’70s did not last long.

“I was a do-it-yourselfer, so I tried a little sandblasting to get it to where I could paint it, but I just wasn’t making much progress.”

He recalled that the car’s side rails were still good, but the convertible-specific center reinforcement plate was beyond repair. Richard realized he was in over his head. The car would remain off the road until 1998, when he brought it to a man in Kokomo who had restored a few classic Mustangs. 

“He did a fantastic job,” recalled Richard. “He repaired the undercarriage and cut the rear quarter panels all the way up to maybe two inches below the top and welded in new panels. He restored and painted the body beautifully.”

After its transfer to Jon in South Carolina, the Mustang would get another long rest before hitting the road—and this time, with much more gusto. Sadly, Jon’s brother passed away in 2012 at age 42.

Pony Express

Jon had a shop in Charleston swap out the tired 260 for a 302-cid crate motor with electronic fuel injection, and a Ford four-speed automatic overdrive transmission replaced the Cruise-O-Matic. The original engine and transmission went into storage. The 302 makes a stout 250 horsepower, or about twice the net output of the original 260 V-8, and the The transmission makes the Mustang a calmer and more efficient highway cruiser, revving around 1500–1600 rpm at 70 mph. 

“I didn’t go with a super high-performance engine, because I wasn’t interested in burning the tires,” Jon explained.

The same shop refreshed the suspension and brakes and installed a set of American Racing 15×7-inch Torq Thrust D wheels.

The Mustang retained its original dash and steering wheel, with some wear and cracking. Here, too, there are memories embedded in the weathered surfaces. Jon bought correct replacement carpeting and had a pro install it. 

Making New Memories, Rekindling Fond Ones

In its new life in South Carolina, the Mustang has been bridging generations while revving up new memories.

“Two years ago, my dad got to ride in the Mustang for the first time since 1978,” Jon said. “I took him to a car show in Mount Pleasant when he was here for Thanksgiving. Once the word got out that he was the original owner, a crowd gathered. Dad said one of the things he enjoyed the most about that day was that he was an absolute rock star. Everyone wanted to hear him talk about that car.”

At a different car show, Jon noticed another Rangoon Red ’65 Mustang convertible. “It had a 289 and automatic. I checked the VIN and saw it was four numbers ahead of mine. So that car was on the line the same day.”

Every drive brings reminders of the car’s specialness. “At almost every stop light, someone tells me about ‘the one that got away’ or a ‘my uncle’s cousin’s dog’s nanny had one,'” he said.

Home buyers in the Charleston area may recognize the Mustang from seeing it parked in front of Jon’s listings, and he sometimes includes the car in photo shoots.

“I sent my dad a photo of the Mustang parked in front of a beautiful home, and he said, ‘Oh, she’s still a beauty.’ So, I replied, ‘You missed the home behind it!’ Then Dad said, ‘I guess the Mustang just overshadowed the house.’”

For Jon, the Mustang is a 50-plus-year-old dream come true, one that bundles priceless childhood memories.

“When I was a boy in Kokomo, every day we left the house to go to school we’d leave through the garage, so I saw that car every day. After Dad had put it in the garage and tried sand-blasting, pretty soon stuff started piling up on top of it. But every day I’d think to myself, ‘One day, I’m going to drive that car.’ Now, every time I go down to my own garage, I get to look at her and smile. It just makes me happy.”

__

Car: 1965 Ford Mustang convertible

Owner: Jon Stroud

Home: Mount Pleasant, South Carolina

Delivery Date: August, 1964

Miles on Car: ~130,000

Are you the original owner of a classic car, or do you know someone who is? Send us a photo and a bit of background to tips@hagerty.com with ORIGINAL OWNER in the subject line—you might get featured in our next installment!

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post Original Owner: An Early Mustang Convertible Is Still Making Memories for the Same Family appeared first on Hagerty Media.

April 17 marked sixty years since the Ford Mustang’s public debut at the 1964 New York World’s Fair. The original pony car immediately became a pop-culture and automotive phenom, and it remains one of the most impactful cars in history. We’re celebrating with stories of the events surrounding the Mustang’s launch, the history of the early cars, and tales from owners. Click here to follow along with our multi-week 60 Years of Mustang coverage. -Ed.

We know how big of a splash the 1965 Ford Mustang made upon its introduction, from its debut at the New York World’s Fair to 22,000 units sold in its first day on the market. The Mustang created the formula for the pony car genre, offering the classic long hood, short deck proportioning of a grand touring car from Europe for the approachable asking price of $2368.00. The base models weren’t outstanding performers, and that’s why many of us know the options that made this pony a real sweetheart.

There were V-8 engines, four-speed manual transmissions, a special handling package, and preferred equipment groupings like the “GT Equipment Group” that added the right amount of flash to go with that hardware. But the Mustang’s interior has an interesting story to tell, one that you likely haven’t heard yet.

This first “pony” car was accessible to many drivers, and its style was crucial to the vehicle’s success. Credit some of the Mustang’s instant popularity with its ability to provide more rungs on its ladder, appealing to Ford Falcon buyers and well-heeled shoppers alike. Going upscale with unique sheetmetal and structural underpinnings is difficult, but the move is quite easy to accomplish with interior trappings. Take the optional floor console, from the Mustang’s extensive options list.

Nobody needs a console, but Mustang owners with bucket seats had an opportunity to add more storage, an ashtray for rear seat occupants, and a ton of flash in a space normally reserved for a carpeted driveshaft tunnel.

For a reasonable(ish) $51.50, this courtesy-light-equipped console gives the affordable pony car a sense of luxury in the Thunderbird tradition. Just look at how it integrates the offset floor shifter while complementing the dash’s chrome accents. But the coolest feature is the “edgeless” rear courtesy light, and how it interfaces with the carpet on the transmission tunnel. It’s like sitting in an infinity pool that merges concrete ground with a stunning backdrop with water as its visual glue. (Or light, in the case of the Mustang.)

Making the Mustang’s interior look like that of a Thunderbird—a vehicle that was twice the asking price of the Mustang—is an impressive transformation for the equivalent of $506.33 in today’s dollars. But we haven’t covered (as it were) the optional wood veneer for these consoles, as that’s where our story kicks into high gear.

While Ford referred to it as the “Interior Decor Group,” the upgrade presented above is colloquially referred to as the Pony Package. The name comes from the horses embossed on the package’s uniquely crafted two-toned seats. While the console was a standalone option, the simulated wood trim on the Pony Package’s console was designed to blend with the wood-effect bits on the steering wheel and dashboard.

Unique door panel inserts with Thunderbird-style handles and courtesy lights were also part of the deal, as was the Mustang GT’s fancy gauge package. Unique kick- and quarter-panel covers with carpet/vinyl coverings and stainless steel trimmings rounded out the Pony Package’s preferred equipment. This is a fair bit of equipment at any price, for any vehicle.

While the Pony Package was a not insignificant $107 hit to your wallet, that $1051.98 spent today can’t even buy the blackout wheels/trim/spoiler combo in the 2024 Mustang’s Night Pony Package. Is black paint and plastic really worth more than all this wood, chrome, ornate trim, and pressed-on ponies?

Very few interior upgrades for a modern Ford can match the bang for the buck of the Pony Package; A Mustang so equipped is more akin to a Black Label Lincoln Continental. The original Mustang might not be crafted like a Jaguar of the era, but that didn’t stop around 27,000 customers (out of 559,451) from choosing this upscale splash of style back in 1965. Clearly, there was a market for a premium Pony Car, and the Mustang’s future competition was foaming at the mouth for a piece of that action.

The Pony Package’s attainable luxury offerings were also part of Pontiac and Mercury’s plan for their pony cars, as those upscale brands traditionally offered more than a mere Ford. Take the Jaguar-esque Cougar XR-7 for 1967, a vehicle which took the now-defunct Pony Package’s game to the next level with extra functionality (more lights and switches), acres of faux burl trim, and decadent leather seating surfaces.

So, consider the oft-overlooked Pony Package to have an enduring legacy on par with that of the Mustang GT: the package had an impact far beyond its two-year lifespan as a factory interior upgrade. This option package gave the masses a shot at personal luxury before the genre even existed, giving the pony-car class an even broader appeal.

Back in 1965, you could get a mere car for $2368.00, or you could have a Mustang. You could also spend $4500 to $6000 for sleek two-doors like a Thunderbird or a Jaguar XKE, or you could have the nicest Mustang in town and save a ton of cash to go with all that flash. (I’d recommend purchasing some of those wild Eames Chairs and a HiFi system for your living room with that extra scratch.)

The purchase scenarios above are brilliant moves at market segmentation, and the Pony Interior shows how important enlightened interior design can be for an entire class of car.

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post Vellum Venom Vignette: The 1965 Mustang’s “Interior” Motives appeared first on Hagerty Media.

April 17 marked sixty years since the Ford Mustang’s public debut at the 1964 New York World’s Fair. The original pony car immediately became a pop-culture and automotive phenom, and it remains one of the most impactful cars in history. We’re celebrating with stories of the events surrounding the Mustang’s launch, the history of the early cars, and tales from owners. Click here to follow along with our multi-week 60 Years of Mustang coverage. -Ed.

The word “iconic” is misused to describe mundane or obscure cars all too often. In the case of the Ford Mustang, there’s no question that the term is warranted. Over the car’s 60-year history, it has been a whopping sales success, a cultural trend setter, and a motorsports champion. If we boil the essence of the Mustang down to just one image, a single icon if you will, it has to be the galloping Mustang emblem that’s graced every generation of Ford’s famous pony car since its inception. It’s hard to imagine it any other way, but the emblem, styled by Ford’s Waino Kangas, could have been much different. Here are several iterations that were tried before the winning formula was discovered.

1962 Mustang I Concept

The public’s first look at a running Mustang emblem came in October 1962 when the Mustang I concept was first shown. The Chevrolet Corvair had a lot of influence on this concept, which was powered by a mid-mounted 1.6-liter Ford Taunus V-4 engine, the same engine that saw widespread use in Ford’s European models and a few Saabs. Ford hoped the production Mustang would capture some of the youth market that had been quick to scoop up the sporty, affordable trims of the rear-engine Corvair. However, as Ford would soon prove, the engine location was nowhere near as important as the sporty appearance and affordable price tag. Early emblem designs, while still galloping Mustangs, weren’t a side profile of a horse, rather one running slightly toward the viewer.

Ford Cougar

It seems like a foregone conclusion that Ford’s two-door, sporty compact would be named Mustang. This internal photo from Ford shows that the earliest iteration of the model that eventually became Mustang with a different genus of pony car emblem entirely. Ford tasked its designers to envision a sporty four-seater, and more than a dozen versions were created. The design that would become the Mustang was initially dubbed “Cougar” by Gale Halderman, the designer responsible. That magnificent feline wouldn’t go to waste, however, as the lanky cat would show up on the production Mercury Cougar in 1967. Halderman did influence the Mustang’s emblem though. Note that the above Cougar is enclosed by a ring around it—this would be adopted by Mustang and become known as the “corral.”

Stalemate

Hindsight is 20/20, of course, but you don’t have to be from the future to know that there were better options for a sporty car emblem than this square badge. Is it a chess piece or a Pepperidge Farm cookie representing the same? Perhaps it was left over from the Willys Knight. Hard pass.

Mustang II Concept

Showing considerable evolution toward the final product, the Mustang II concept was first revealed to the public on October 5, 1963, at Watkins Glen. While the steeply raked windshield was not intended for production, the general shape of the roof was there and its flanks were getting very close. Up front, the headlights were radical, although the grille was almost dead on. This was the first time the public had seen a running Mustang enclosed in its corral.  

Uncanny Valley

To prove just how iconic and specific the galloping Mustang iconography is tied to the Mustang, look at how unsettling it is when one simple detail is altered. We’ve got a feeling there’s a universe where Ford picked this version and detective Lieutenant Bullitt drove a Firebird, the Miracle on Ice never happened, and Seinfeld was canceled after the pilot.

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post The Mustang’s Iconic Galloping Emblem Was No Accident appeared first on Hagerty Media.

April 17 marked 60 years since the Ford Mustang’s public debut at the 1964 New York World’s Fair. The original pony car immediately became a pop-culture and automotive phenom, and it remains one of the most impactful cars in history. We’re celebrating with stories of the events surrounding the Mustang’s launch, the history of the early cars, and tales from owners. Click here to follow along with our multi-week 60 Years of Mustang coverage. -Ed.

On the cover of its January 6, 1967, issue, TIME magazine featured not one person but a whole generation: 25-and-unders. Approximately 76 million Americans were born over the two decades following the end of WWII, and by 1966, people aged 25 and younger had become a demographic force to be reckoned with. This new “baby boomer” generation was closely observed by their parents, market researchers, and the state, yet it seemed hardly any of these elders truly understood them.

Well, anyone except Anthony Lido “Lee” Iacocca, who had just given them exactly what they wanted.

By the beginning of 1967, when TIME put the Mustang’s target demographic on its cover, Ford had already sold well over a million Mustangs. Of course, not every one of those buyers was in their 20s. However, as the old auto industry adage goes, you can sell a young person’s car to an older person but you can never do the opposite.

Many more Mustangs have since followed, and although most are rather handsome, none seems to have quite the same enduring, almost universal appeal of the 1965–66 original. It simply looks, for lack of a better word, “right.”

A design like this occupies an elusive aesthetic sweet spot, as difficult to express in words as it is to achieve in the metal. Yet it is immediately apparent to the eye. Few car designs hit that mark, much less projects like this one.

I’ll elaborate: The stories that we car buffs love to celebrate often involve bold, daring designs stemming from the unique vision of larger-than-life individuals. Yet the Mustang’s origin story couldn’t be more different from that romanticized ideal. An extensively researched corporate project that can’t be credited in its entirety to any single individual, the Mustang’s design wasn’t out to innovate or polarize. The roots of its enduring appeal are much more subtle. Brilliant execution had more to do with the car’s success than with the idea itself.

Design work on the Mustang commenced in late 1961, under the direction of Ford’s newly appointed design vice president, Gene Bordinat. By then, Detroit’s stylists had all but left behind the previous decade’s decorative excesses to embrace simpler volumes and large, unbroken surfaces. With its pin-sharp lines and sheer surfaces, the Mustang fit right into this mold, leaving proportions and detailing to set it apart from anything else in its price range.

To make the “Special Falcon” (as the Mustang was being referred to during development) a car that, in the words of Joe Oros, Ford’s head of car and truck styling at the time, “would look like fun,” Ford’s stylists gave it the proportions of a European sports car. That meant a long hood, short deck, and a hop-up on the rear fender to give the Mustang a slightly crouched, ready-to-pounce stance. It has a trim, lean volume whose deftly modeled surfaces have just the right amount of crowning to take away most of the severity such a boxy shape might otherwise evoke.

The mission to give the Mustang the appearance and character of a much more expensive sports car was then completed with particular details. Note the the nerf-blade front bumper and the now-iconic large “mouth” above it. The latter was inspired by period Ferraris, while the idea of fitting a big die-cast emblem inside it came from the large trident badge found in the Maserati 3500 GT‘s grille. Interestingly, the design department’s original intention for the Mustang’s signature side scallop was to feature a functional intake to feed air to the rear brakes. However, since the additional ducting required would have added about $5 per car in production costs, it became a merely decorative item. Similar cost reasons also led the six individual taillights initially envisioned by Ford’s stylists to be grouped into two bezels.

Still, a neatly executed design and a perfectly timed launch can only go so far in explaining the original Mustang’s staying power. In fact, I believe there’s one more aspect of its design that, although rarely discussed, has been key to making it such a perennial favorite.

As Oros recalled years later, “We talked about the sporty car [referring to the Mustang] not being too masculine, too macho. It had to appeal to women as well as to men. We agreed that it had to be sporty and personal, that young people would enjoy driving it.”

That decision is what sets the original Mustang’s design apart from the ones that followed. The car looks dashing and sporty even in its most basic form, and the effect is care-free and unintimidating. Even in its hottest, “Shelby-fied” GT350 spec, the first iteration of the Mustang has a purposeful look rather than an outright aggressive one.

As we all know, it didn’t stay that way for long.

Caught up amid Detroit’s late-’60s horsepower war, the Mustang put on muscle and a whole lot of fat in the space of a few years. Although that resulted in some genuinely epic machines, the Mustang’s customer base ended up shrinking year-on-year, until Ford reversed course with Iacocca’s “little jewel,” the controversial Mustang II.

The current Mustang is the best ever made by every on-paper metric, but it, too, represents much more of Bunkie Knudsen’s vision of the model than Iacocca’s. There’s nothing wrong with that, mind you, and things probably could not be any different, especially in a world where pretty much every car and truck is styled as if it’s out for blood.

Still, there’s something to be said about a design that not only remains just as coveted now as it was 60 years ago but looks like it will be for the foreseeable future. Despite being very much a “design by committee,” the original Mustang is also the definition of a design classic. On the one hand, it epitomizes the era for which it was conceived, yet on the other, it is utterly timeless. Just as timeless and universal is the message the car radiates. Whether it’s a straight-six on hubcaps or a loaded 289 Hi-Po, a 1965–66 Mustang always looks like a good time.

And who doesn’t like a good time?

Matteo Licata received his degree in Transportation Design from Turin’s IED (Istituto Europeo di Design) in 2006. He worked as an automobile designer for about a decade, including a stint in the then-Fiat Group’s Turin design studio, during which his proposal for the interior of the 2010–20 Alfa Romeo Giulietta was selected for production. He next joined Changan’s European design studio in Turin and then EDAG in Barcelona, Spain. Licata currently teaches automobile design history to the Transportation Design bachelor students of IAAD (Istituto di Arte Applicata e Design) in Turin.

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post Why the 1965 Mustang’s Design Will Never Go out of Style appeared first on Hagerty Media.

April 17 marks sixty years since the Ford Mustang’s public debut at the 1964 New York World’s Fair. The original pony car immediately became a pop-culture and automotive phenom, and it remains one of the most impactful cars in history. We’re celebrating with stories of the events surrounding the Mustang’s launch, the history of the early cars, and tales from owners. Click here to follow along with our multi-week 60 Years of Mustang coverage. —Ed.

Those of us who weren’t around when the Ford Mustang was launched in 1964 can’t quite imagine a vehicle making such a splash. Sure, the Tesla Cybertruck got people talking, but when the Mustang was unveiled, nobody thought Ford was trying a late April Fool’s Day prank. Ford prepared a media blitz and produced its own content, but the Mustang garnered attention from media of all kinds, and it seems that it was impossible to miss the buzz of the new breed of car from Ford Motor Company. Here are several examples of Ford creating buzz and earning some freebies along the way.

On Television

Prior to its reveal, Ford flooded the airwaves with commercials that gave a glimpse of the Mustang’s back seat, grille emblem, and trunk. This commercial surely had prospective buyers and car fans in general as close as they could get to their TVs to make out any details of the fully uncovered Mustang marooned on a tiny island.

That was one of a dozen or more commercials Ford planned before and after the April 17 public reveal. Back when you had to get up to change the channel and there wasn’t much competition for the nation’s three major networks, ABC, CBS, and NBC, Ford bought 30-minute programming blocks on all three to air simultaneously on April 17th. The Mustang stampede was unavoidable!

In Person

The Ford Pavilion at the 1964 New York World’s Fair gave the public an opportunity not only to see a Mustang, but ride in one. Ford, Lincoln, and Mercury convertibles were used to cruise attendees through the automated Magic Skyway, but we imagine that a sizeable portion of the audience was hoping their chariot would be in the all-new Mustang. The Magic Skyway, designed by Disney, brought showgoers through various dioramas that depicted Earth’s prehistoric past as well as its car-centric future. The popular ride was used again for the 1965 New York World’s Fair, where the Mustang was once again in a prominent place at the Ford Pavilion, this time highlighting the 2+2 fastback. Ford Heritage has a video which lets you ride along with the 1965 version of the Magic Skyway.

In Print

All three of the country’s largest weekly magazines featured the all-new Mustang. Time placed a red Mustang in the background with a portrait of Lee Iacocca in the left foreground the day Mustang debuted. Three days later, the cover of Newsweek placed a red Mustang in the background with a portrait of Lee Iacocca in the left foreground. We’ve got to imagine that the editor of Newsweek wasn’t too happy about the similar covers, but Ford’s PR team likely popped bottles to celebrate the wide coverage. Life didn’t dedicate the cover to the car but featured a story on Ford’s “sports car for the masses,” described as a “long-nosed auto aimed at WWII babies.”

On Film

Automakers were quick to get their vehicles featured in prominent scenes in television, often sponsoring entire shows. Bigger, flashier productions on the silver screen were a natural progression. Perhaps the most prominent placement of an early Mustang was its role in the 1964 James Bond film Goldfinger. Filmed at Switzerland’s scenic Furka Pass, the chase between Bond’s Aston Martin DB5 and Tilly Masterson’s white Mustang convertible highlights some fantastic roads. Goldfinger had already started filming by the time Mustang debuted, and this must have been a rather early production convertible, as the Alpine scenes were shot in the spring and summer of 1964. Ford provided several other cars for the film, including a Thunderbird for Felix Leiter, played by Ces Linder.

Sky High

Robert L. Leury, general manager of the Empire State Building, came up with the idea of displaying a 1966 Mustang on top of the world-famous skyscraper. We’re not sure we’d need more of a draw to come visit the tallest building in the world, but we appreciate his spirit. To get the convertible to the 86^th-floor observation deck, Ford surveyed the building’s hallways and elevators to determine the maximum size that could be maneuvered into position. Ford cut the convertible into four main pieces and practiced the operation in Dearborn. Confident they could make it happen, workers moved the car on-site and to the observation deck in the wee hours of the morning, with just a few minor delays. The photo shown here has the car on the outdoor deck, as seen from a helicopter. The car was then disassembled again and moved to a glass-enclosed observation area where it was reassembled again. There it stayed, from October 1965 until March 16, 1966, when it was disassembled and removed the same way it came in.

Ford recreated this stunt in 2015 for the launch of the sixth-generation Mustang and the 50th anniversary of the stunt. We’re pretty sure there won’t be a threepeat any time soon. We may have to hold out until 2040 for the 75th anniversary.

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post The Early Mustang’s Media Stampede appeared first on Hagerty Media.

April 17 marks 60 years since the Ford Mustang’s public debut at the 1964 New York World’s Fair. The original pony car immediately became a pop-culture and automotive phenom, and it remains one of the most impactful cars in history. We’re celebrating with stories of the events surrounding the Mustang’s launch, the history of the early cars, and tales from owners. Click here to follow along with our multi-week 60 Years of Mustang coverage. -Ed.

In 1979, while living in Columbus, Montana, my wife and I purchased our first Mustang, a rust-free ’66, and spent several thousand dollars having it restored to show quality. The car spent many months in and out of various garages for extensive work—an engine and transmission rebuild, new brakes and fuel system, new interior, and a beautiful new paint job.

Five days after picking up the Mustang from the paint shop, our daughter was driving it to meet a bus at school when an oil truck turned left in front of her and she hit the truck broadside. Luckily, our daughter wasn’t seriously injured, but the accident totaled the Mustang.

I wanted another Mustang, so I started searching almost immediately. I looked at several 1965–67 models, and while many looked good from the outside, up on the lift I noted severe problems. I wanted a straight, rust-free original, and after nearly four months of looking, I found a 1965 GT—an original A-code with a 289 V-8 and automatic transmission. The car looked sharp in its original Springtime Yellow paint with black GT stripes.

Over next five years, we drove it periodically on sunny days, but in 1985 we relocated to northern Ohio, and I drove that ’65 across the country with no problems. In 1990, after another move, to southern Ohio, we put the Mustang in storage, driving it 100–200 miles a year just to keep it running. In 1998, those periodic drives stopped and the car sat unused until 2016, when we decided to give the Mustang to our 40-year-old son, who had wanted it for many years.

Over the next 13 months, we had the car completely restored, and today it is again a beautiful GT that looks like it just came off the showroom floor.

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post Mustang Member Story: A Showroom-Fresh GT appeared first on Hagerty Media.

April 17 marks 60 years since the Ford Mustang’s public debut at the 1964 New York World’s Fair. The original pony car immediately became a pop-culture and automotive phenom, and it remains one of the most impactful cars in history. We’re celebrating with stories of the events surrounding the Mustang’s launch, the history of the early cars, and tales from owners. Click here to follow along with our multi-week 60 Years of Mustang coverage. -Ed.

This is the story of a “survivor” Mustang that was purchased twice by the same man, my father-in-law, Gene Herring of Belle Plaine, Iowa, almost 40 years apart.

In the late spring of 1964, Gene was in bed recovering from the mumps when he saw a two-page ad in Look magazine for the new Ford Mustang. The car pictured was Prairie Bronze, and in an instant he knew he would have one.

On June 20, he walked into Winders Motor Co. in Bell Plaine and placed his order. “I got to pick out the colors I wanted, the engine, everything,” he told me. And what he wanted was a Prairie Bronze hardtop. The 260-cubic-inch V-8 was only available for order from March 5 to July 31, and that’s what he chose, paired with a three-speed manual, plus the following options: center console, power steering, air conditioning, AM radio, tinted glass, padded visors, and backup lights. He didn’t order the driver’s side mirror, due to its placement, so instead he had the dealership mount a mirror from a 1963 Galaxie farther down the hood.

Gene had a number of other cars in addition to the Mustang, but this one was his pride and joy. Both his daughters came home in it from the hospital when they were born. He loved to take it on trips, and he always drove it in the local 4th of July parades.

By 1978, the family had outgrown the car. “We had two little girls and we figured we needed a station wagon,” he said. After 14 years and 62,000 miles, Gene traded in the car to a friend at Bevins Ford who was also a Mustang admirer. Instead of selling the car, he decided clean up some rust around the rockers (Iowa gravel roads) and keep it in his showroom for 25 years. He took it out on occasion for parades with a “Not for Sale” sign in the window.

This is the part of the story where I come in. I’m the current owner, married to Gene’s eldest daughter. I’m a lover of original cars. Always have been. My wife and I started dating in 1996, and when I first met my future father-in-law that year, he told me the story of his Mustang. I told him if Bevins was to ever offer him his car back to just say yes! We’d come up with the money somehow. I wanted him to have that car back probably as much as he did.

Well, in October 2003, the “Not for Sale” sign finally came off the car, and Bevins asked Gene, “Do you want it?”

Gene was barely able to hold back the tears. “I’d love it!” he told Bevins. “You know, if I was getting delivery of a brand-new Lincoln, I wouldn’t be a bit happier than I am with this car.” The Mustang barely had 500 additional miles on it since he had traded it in 25 years prior.

After that, whenever my wife and I headed out to Iowa, I’d find any excuse to go out to the garage, because all I wanted to do was go through the car. How are the fluids? Are the brakes pulling? What needs attention?

Then, one day in September 2012, Gene and his wife Joan were out visiting us in Colorado. “When is the last time you drove it?” I asked him. “You have to drive it or things will dry out.”

“Oh, whenever the last time you were out. I suppose” Gene said. Which meant it had been more than a year. After giving him an earful, he said, “Why don’t you just take it?”

I am no fool, so of course I took him up on the offer. Two months later I towed it back from Iowa, and over time I paid him what I could, when I could, until finally he said “Stop paying me for that car. I’m sure you’ve paid enough.”

For the last 12 years I have taken care of this original early Mustang. It lives at 8000 feet in the north central Colorado Rockies and runs great. To my knowledge, it is completely original, barring a dual-reservoir brake cylinder (though the original one still works great!) and typical things like tires, belts, and such. The odometer reads 65,543 miles.

Sadly, Gene passed away this past December at 90 years old. I will always be grateful for the time he let me drive his Prairie Bronze Mustang in the 4th of July parade in Belle Plaine while he sat in the passenger seat and waved. And I will never forget when we placed third overall at the esteemed Sauerkraut Days Car Show in Blairstown, Iowa. That’s right. If you’ve never had classic cars with your sauerkraut, you’re missing out, my friend.

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post Mustang Member Story: Gene’s Prairie Bronze Survivor appeared first on Hagerty Media.

April 17 marks sixty years since the Ford Mustang’s public debut at the 1964 New York World’s Fair. The original pony car immediately became a pop-culture and automotive phenom, and it remains one of the most impactful cars in history. We’re celebrating with stories of the events surrounding the Mustang’s launch, the history of the early cars, and tales from owners. Click here to follow along with our multi-week 60 Years of Mustang coverage. —Ed.

When the Ford Mustang debuted sixty years ago at the World’s Fair in New York on April 17, 1964, it became an overnight hit. However, though Ford accurately targeted the up-and-coming baby boomer generation with the car’s avant-garde design and features, the Mustang wore many colors that were more ’50s pastels than ’60s shock. The discrepancy between the car’s image and its colors has complicated the picture for Mustang enthusiasts ever since. Many owners have opted to repaint their Mustangs, while others have sought cars painted in a rare, original shade. Which original colors are most likely to be covered with a repaint, and which original colors are most valuable? Read on.

For the 1965 model year, the Mustang was available in 24 colors (a few, like Pagoda Green, were only available on the 1964 ½ cars). Yellows, golds, blues, turquoises, beiges, reds, and greens were available, along with more common colors like black, white, and silver.

Some of the original colors aren’t especially valued by enthusiasts today—specifically, Silver Smoke Gray and Silver Blue. To reach that conclusion, we reviewed auction data from over 700 sales, going back to 2014, and compared those results to condition-appropriate values from the Hagerty Price Guide, whether the car in question was a six-cylinder or a K-code, a notchback or a convertible. We found that Silver Blue is worth just 5 percent more on average, and Silver Smoke Gray just 8 percent more.

Rarely seen or ordered, Prairie Bronze is worth nearly one-third less on average, and so is Sunlight Yellow. Vintage Burgundy is popular (almost 50 out of the 700 cars in our data set wore it) but typically worth 16 percent less on average. Conversely, Wimbledon White is relatively common (almost 40 transactions) but worth 16 percent more. Twilight Turquoise isn’t as common (about 20 sales), but worth 19 percent more. Dynasty Green is rare, with just three sales in the past ten years, and worth 24 percent more. A car wearing its original Raven Black is also worth a lot, despite being somewhat common (15 sales): This color is worth nearly 30 percent more on average. The prize for the most valuable color goes to the rarely seen, 1964 ½-only Pagoda Green, worn by only one car out of the 700: This color is worth 61 percent more.

If we group together all the colors, whether original or not, we see that yellows are worth the least on average, followed by reds and blacks, which are very common. However, white is more valuable on average, even though it’s frequently used, and so are orange, turquoise, and green. Gold, blue, green, and silver are in the middle.

What original Mustang colors are most likely to be painted over? Surprisingly, Wimbledon White: Though it is worth 16 percent more than other original colors, on average, it is replaced by a different one almost 75 percent of the time in our data set. Silver Blue, Silver Smoke Gray, Honey Gold, and Prairie Bronze are painted over nearly as often. Given the popularity of red in our dataset (150+ transactions), Poppy Red and Rangoon Red are rarely swapped out. Valuable Raven Black is also rarely painted over, as are Ivy Green and Twilight Turquoise.

What colors do owners typically use for a repaint? Red is the most popular shade, picked almost one-third of the time. It is followed by blue, white, black, and silver. Though Wimbledon White is often painted over, it is also occasionally picked as a repaint shade.

Which 1965-model-year Mustang color is most valuable to you?

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post Which Original Mustang Paint Color Is Worth the Most? appeared first on Hagerty Media.

April 17 marks sixty years since the Ford Mustang’s public debut at the 1964 New York World’s Fair. The original pony car immediately became a pop-culture and automotive phenom, and it remains one of the most impactful cars in history. We’re celebrating with stories of the events surrounding the Mustang’s launch, the history of the early cars, and tales from owners. Click here to follow along with our multi-week 60 Years of Mustang coverage. -Ed.

Cynics call this one the “rental spec.” They would have you believe that the modern Mustang EcoBoost, thrust on stage sans its V-8 Viking helmet, is forever relegated to that endless grey blah world in which the Hertzes and Enterprises slither. The brightest spots in a car’s history tend to claim the column inches, and by extension, they tend to write the lore heavily in favor of themselves. In the case of the Mustang, that means the V-8s. Everything else just becomes fleet fodder in the eyes of enthusiasts.

Shame, that. This is not your Mustang II‘s four-pot, nor a wheezy, compromised Fox-body. Ford’s current 2.3-liter turbocharged EcoBoost four-cylinder makes 85 more horsepower and 70 more lb-ft of torque than the fastest factory Fox-body. It can return nearly 30 mpg at interstate speeds, with enough scoot on tap to make passing a cinch.

If this is a rental spec, ask yourself: How on earth can that be viewed as a bad thing?

Ford has sold more than 10 million Mustangs worldwide. Most have never seen stoplight launches or off-camber apexes; they’re just cruisers. When we reached out to Ford to line up a modern Mustang for a week on Michigan’s roads, we asked for a cruiser—an everyman spec, hewn as close as Ford could manage to those 1964 World’s Fair cars.

Weeks later, a 2024 Mustang EcoBoost Premium Convertible rolled up to our Ann Arbor, Michigan office, and off we went. To our car’s $44,185 base MSRP, five options added $5915 of additional cost: Rapid Red Metallic paint, $495; a Bronze appearance package (bronze pony logos, bronze 19-inch wheels) another $995; Equipment group 201A (12-speaker B&O sound system, voice-activated navigation, illuminated door sill scuff plates, and more) tacked on $3000; An active valve performance exhaust, $1225; and fancy floor mats, $200. All told, ours rang in at $50,100, including a $1595 destination fee and a $645 “acquisition fee.”

The build sheet reads suspiciously like the efforts of someone determined to sidestep the “rental spec” label, which is fine; media testers are rarely modest. That deep red paint does wonders for the car’s curb appeal, highlighting the new bodywork just so. Ditto the Bronze appearance package, which is a must in our eyes.

Specs: 2024 Ford Mustang EcoBoost Convertible Premium

• Price: $44,195/$50,100 (base/as-tested)
• Powertrain: 2.3-liter turbocharged four-cylinder, 10-speed automatic transmission
• Output: 315 hp, 350 lb-ft (with premium fuel)
• Layout: Front-engine, rear-wheel-drive, two-door, four-passenger convertible
• EPA Fuel Economy: 22 mpg city, 33 mpg highway, 26 mpg combined
• Competitors: Dodge Charger, Subaru BRZ, Toyota GR86

As we noted in our first-drive review of the Mustang EcoBoost, calling this seventh-generation car “all-new” is a bit of a stretch, but astute passers-by will see that much of the exterior sheetmetal is indeed revised. The new car’s nose appears flatter and wider, more crouched to the ground. Sharp hips protrude just aft of the doors and harken back to the original pony’s flanks. The forward-canted bodywork on the car’s rear looks decent from the side, but the three-quarter and dead-on views reveal a pinched, too-tight confluence of lines. We preferred the caboose of the sixth-generation, S550 car.

The main justification for anointing this car as belonging to a new generation is the interior. Ford proudly touted the “video-gamification” of the Mustang’s cabin, headlined by a new dashboard that sports two massive screens laid side-by-side to handle infotainment and instrument cluster duties.

Parts of the new user experience are made better, such as the instrument cluster that can display the gauges of a Fox-body Mustang in the name of nostalgia or a smart dual-zone layout on the center screen that allows both Apple CarPlay and another piece of information from Ford’s Sync 4 infotainment software to display concurrently.

Other parts leave something to be desired, such as a climate control interface that, when asked to change anything, jumps up from the bottom bar to take over large chunks of the screen, only disappearing after you tap off elsewhere or cease touching the screen entirely for a bit. Nevertheless, this touchy tech is hot with the youths, and as Ford attempts to woo those buyers, the changeover seems prudent.

Those same younger buyers probably won’t groan at the thought of a four-cylinder, since basically everything gets one nowadays, including full-size pickups. On 91-octane gas, the 2.3-liter produces 320 hp and 350 lb-ft of torque, which is plenty to make things interesting when you desire. Even with regular, the car is plenty peppy. Our car did without the High Performance package, a $3475 bundle that nets a shorter 3.55:1 Torsen limited-slip rear end, upgraded suspension components, Brembo brakes, that kitschy electronic drift brake, and paddle shifters, among other things. Sans the paddles, you’re left with no way to call up specific gears, which takes away some of the urge to wring the car’s neck.

Again: cruiser spec, or rental spec if you’re untrusting of most yahoos on the road.

If you do decide to get your knuckles out, however, the car comes alive in a charming way. The transmission doesn’t stumble or dump you into the wrong gear, and the long wheelbase allows for predictable, creamy little slides. This is still a fun car to hustle, even if some inputs can’t be accessed.

Part of what makes it fun to hustle, however, also detracts from more modest driving. The steering feels too sharp in normal mode, with a small on-center spot that impedes the car’s ability to settle into the background and chow asphalt. Dial it back to comfort mode and things improve, but you’ll wish that comfort was the baseline, not something to seek out. Before you leave the dealer lot, spend some time setting up your custom mode via the button with the Mustang icon on it below the center screen. Our recommendations: Comfort steering, quiet mode for the exhaust—more on that in a moment—and normal mode for the throttle mapping.

On our car’s order sheet, the active valve exhaust is the first thing we’d ditch. It may make cold starts sound more menacing, but inside, an inescapable booming resonance at low RPMs will hamper your cruising enjoyment. We thought dropping the top might remedy the situation, but alas, it did not. The best move is to switch the exhaust to mute mode (which still doesn’t entirely eliminate this drone) and try to stay out of the 1500 rpm range, a task easier said than done around town.

The exhaust also nets you dual tips at each corner, which to the aforementioned yahoos on the road, hints that you’ve got a GT with the V-8 under the hood. Expect roll-race invites that you didn’t ask for. The latter of these qualms is remedied with a measured hand in the configurator, and you can probably get used to the former.

The rest of what’s here has an immutable charm that seeps into your bloodstream quickly. Point the long, sculpted hood of the Mustang down an interstate, turn on some twangy bluegrass, and hoover up miles like salted almonds.

And while the experience is pretty good with the top open, fresh-air cruising is where this car really hits its stride. That power-folding top lasted all of four minutes once we’d exited the highway near Traverse City. The remaining 40 minutes of drivetime were spent al fresco, heat cranked, totally absent regard for the 48-degree, cloudy weather. (Did Mother Nature make me pay the following Monday by dousing the roads in snow and nearly stranding me at the bottom of my heavily inclined driveway? Listen, perhaps. But that’s certainly not the Mustang’s fault.)

If you want to knock the seventh-generation Mustang for being not much more than fresh dressing atop reheated bones, I suppose I can’t fault you. But I humbly offer this food for thought: This car’s new interior could indeed rope in younger buyers who love their tech above all else. If it’s not for you, great news: You can get largely the same driving experience with buttons and a more analog interface—now at used car prices!

Ford had a choice with the 2024 Mustang: Throw up its hands and blame emissions regulations/the march of progress/changing market tastes, sending the pony car as we know it to the big parking lot in the sky—like a certain cross-town rival did—or adapt it, preserve the charm, and trust that despite current challenges, the nameplate would have what it takes to press on for another chapter.

As it has done so many times over sixty years, Ford chose the latter. Whether you receive the keys from a rental counter or over a dealership desk, you’ll be glad this charmer is still kickin’. We know we sure are.

2024 Ford Mustang EcoBoost Convertible Premium

Highs: New interior feels correctly targeted at younger buyers, still a top-five top-down cruising machine. Can we say that the Mustang still being around in this form is a high?

Lows: Active valve exhaust drones incessantly at common speeds, steering that’s too sharp for normal mode.

Takeaway: Sixty years on from the nameplate’s world debut, Ford shows that it still knows how to make the pony car sing. Here’s to sixty more.

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post 2024 Ford Mustang EcoBoost Convertible Review: Icon For a Reason appeared first on Hagerty Media.

April 17 marks sixty years since the Ford Mustang’s public debut at the 1964 New York World’s Fair. The original pony car immediately became a pop-culture and automotive phenom, and it remains one of the most impactful cars in history. We’re celebrating with stories of the events surrounding the Mustang’s launch, the history of the early cars, and tales from owners. Click here to follow along with our multi-week 60 Years of Mustang coverage. -Ed.

This week, which marks 60 years since the debut of the original, we’re looking back at our digital archives and realizing … we really, really like the first-gen Mustang. We’ve written dozens of stories centered on Mustangs built between 1964 and 1973, from member stories to a buyer’s guide to that one time we found the O.G. Bullitt Mustang.

We’ve rounded up a handful of these memorable stories that you might want to share with a friend. If they’re somebody who likes trivia, we’ve extracted a fun fact from each story. If they’re a committed reader who likes to take the long way home, we’ve included links to the full articles.

Whether you’re a history buff, a niche collector, or a casual fan, a story in this list is bound to delight you.

The First-Gen Mustang Is the Most Popular Classic Car Exported from America

Between 2011 and 2021, more than 20,000 examples of the first-gen Mustang were shipped abroad from the United States to collectors in other countries, making the original pony car the most popular export among American classics. Around the world, people love them for the same reasons: parts are easy to find and affordable, and everyone knows what you’re driving. No matter where you live, a Mustang sings “America.”

Discover which overseas country loves the Mustang most here.

The First American to Buy a Mustang Was an Elementary School Teacher

On April 15, 1964, an elementary school teacher in Park Ridge, Illinois, decided she needed a car. Her name was Gail Wise, and the Wises had always owned Ford convertibles, so she headed to the Ford dealer and asked what drop-tops they had in stock. She paid $3447.50 and left with a blue, 260-powered Mustang … two days before Lee Iacocca would unveil the car at the New York World’s Fair. Gail’s husband Tom restored her Mustang himself during retirement in 2006 and 2007. “When I’m driving it,” says Gail, “I feel like I’m 22 years old again.”

Read Gail’s full story here.

Ford Traded the Millionth Mustang for VIN #001

Anyone looks good in a Mustang, no matter what they do for a living. Captain Stanley Tucker of St. John’s, Newfoundland, Canada, wrangled his way into buying a display model: a Wimbledon White convertible with the 260 V-8 and a three-speed automatic. Turns out, writes the Detroit Free Press, it was a preproduction model that Ford wanted shipped back to Dearborn. Preproduction models are often crushed, but this one was lucky: One Canadian dealership didn’t get the news, and Tucker drove home with the car.

Read here about Ford’s change of heart, and the Mustang it offered to get #001 back to Dearborn.

These Lesser-Known Mustangs Are Surprisingly Uncommon

Given the popularity of the original Mustang, it’s no surprise that the model paced the Indianapolis 500 in 1964. As would become tradition, Ford supplied a small number of cars to the Speedway and then built a run of replicas to sell. Confusingly, the 1964 1/2 Indy Pace Car Replicas were not sold to the public but used in dealer incentive contests.

To read about six other lesser-known Mustangs of all ages, click here.

23 First-Gen Mustangs Traveled through Time

Okay, so this 1965 Mustang didn’t really see the future. One of 23 used by Ford in its Wonder Rotunda at the 1965–65 World’s Fair, this Mustang went round and round on the Disney Magic Skyway, taking an animatronic trip from the Stone Age to a vision of the future: Space City.

Discover what happened to this particular convertible here.

This Boss 429 Was Sent to War in the Pacific

Even if you didn’t know the history of this Boss 429, it would grab your eye: Fat drag racing slicks, a parachute out back, a giant blower sticking out of the hood, and four exhaust pipes jutting from each side. If you know the history, the car gets infinitely cooler.

In 1970, Ford worked with Goodyear, Motor Wheels, Hurst, and other speed-parts suppliers to create six “Lawman” vehicles: performance-oriented Mustangs that would travel to various military bases in Vietnam, the Philippines, South Korea, and Japan “to bring the latest in automotive performance activities ad equipment to American Servicemen by conducting safety seminars, driving clinics, performance exhibitions and static displays,” according to a period brochure. The 1970 Military Performance Tour, as it was called, wasn’t just an exercise in entertainment: Ford wanted the tour to “create a genuine understanding” of what it took to be a good driver.

Five of the cars were Cobra Jets. The sixth was a Boss 429 … and you can discover its full story here.

The World’s Most Prolific Mustang Shop Is Run by 30-Year-Old Twins

Based in Chicago, Mustang Brothers is the world’s largest Mustang restoration business, measured by builds completed annually. Founded by Christopher Ingrassia, the shop was originally called Mustang Restorations; now that Christopher is handing the business to his twin sons, Preston and Cody, the shop is called Mustang Brothers. They do everything from ground-up restomods to oil changes on daily drivers.

Stroll along with us as we talk with both generations of the Ingrassias and tour of their sprawling, professional-grade shop.

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post 7 Facts You Might Not Know about the First-Gen Mustang appeared first on Hagerty Media.

April 17 marks sixty years since the Ford Mustang’s public debut at the 1964 New York World’s Fair. The original pony car immediately became a pop-culture and automotive phenom, and it remains one of the most impactful cars in history. We’re celebrating with stories of the events surrounding the Mustang’s launch, the history of the early cars, and tales from owners. Click here to follow along with our multi-week 60 Years of Mustang coverage. -Ed.

When the very first Mustang galloped onto the car scene at the 1964 World’s Fair, there was nothing quite like the pioneering pony car. It was youthful, sexy, and sporty, but also practical, and surprisingly affordable. It was new. In reality, though, what made this new car affordable was that it wasn’t new at all, at least not under the skin. The bits that made the Mustang go were from Ford’s compact Falcon. The Falcon was already a very successful car, but because of the Mustang’s outsized impact—both automotive and cultural—the new and exciting model immediately stole sales from the old and conventional one, and the bird has lived in the shadow of the horse ever since. Sixty years on and now that they’re both well-established classic cars, how do they stack up in the market?

As the 1950s turned into the 1960s, fins and chrome were proving unsustainable, and American buyers were increasingly choosing smaller, cheaper automobiles. Most of the choices in said smaller, cheaper segment were imported Volkswagens, Fiats, and Renaults. The Big Three responded with their own compacts—Chrysler with the Valiant, Chevrolet with the Corvair, and Ford with the Falcon—for the 1960 model year.

While the Falcon’s main competition, the rear-engined and air-cooled Corvair, was radically new and different for Chevrolet, the Falcon was a safe and conservative choice for Ford. Its unibody construction was somewhat advanced, but otherwise, its layout and styling were conventional. In their two approaches to the same customer, Ford’s strategy won out, with the Falcon easily outselling the Corvair and inspiring Chevrolet to play catch-up with its own conventional compact, the Chevy II.

Ford built the Falcon until 1970, and in typical ’60s fashion offered the model range with a huge array of options like the dolled up Falcon Futura, body styles including two- and four-door sedans, two-door hardtops, convertibles, two- and four-door station wagons, and a sedan delivery. From 1960-65, the Ranchero pickup also moved to the Falcon platform.

Despite the wide range of Falcons available and sales well into the millions, there is one narrow slice of Falcon history that gets most of the attention, and that’s because it spawned the Mustang. Partway through the 1963 model year, the Falcon got a V-8 engine for the first time as a welcome upgrade from the humble Mileage Maker straight-six. Available in the two-door hardtop and convertible body styles, these 1963.5 260-cubic inch V-8-powered Falcon Sprints sold in relatively small numbers (about 15,000), but this is the car that provided the basis for the Mustang a year later, and is mechanically almost identical.

A restyled, squared-up Falcon with horizontal creases down the body sides debuted in 1964, still available as a Sprint model with an upgraded exhaust, a stiffer suspension, and the Fairlane’s 260 V-8. Later in the model year, the 260 was swapped out for the 289, but the Sprint was discontinued after 1965 and so was the convertible model, abandoning the Falcon’s brief but real (a Falcon Sprint won its class at the Monte Carlo Rally) sporting pretensions.

That’s because the Mustang immediately and inevitably cannibalized sales from the Falcon. Even though most Mustang options were available on the technically cheaper Falcon, prices were close enough that most buyers could easily talk themselves into the more exciting pony car. This was true for both six- and eight-cylinder buyers, and convertible Mustangs outsold their Falcon counterparts by 11 to 1. As the Mustang spent the rest of the decade becoming a cultural icon, the Falcon spent its third and final generation from 1966-70 riding on a shortened Fairlane platform and seeing its sales decline.

Six decades after they first started sharing showroom space, mid-’60s Mustangs and Falcons have long since been established as part of the classic car hobby. And the market still treats them differently, though not drastically so. If we measure the number of insured vehicles and go by year/make/model, the 1965 Ford Mustang is the most popular classic car in the United States. What’s the second-most popular? The 1966 Mustang. The 1964 and 1965 Falcons, meanwhile, rank number 426 and 438, respectively. That said, their values aren’t drastically different, if you compare similarly equipped Mustangs and Falcons. Convertibles command a premium in general, as do 289s, and Mustangs have mostly seen more appreciation over the past few years. See the graph below to see how they’ve stacked up.

Average insured values among Hagerty members tell a similar story, with Mustangs commanding a similar premium but with both staying in reasonably affordable territory. For 1965-66 Mustang owners, the average value ranges from the mid- to high-$20K range. For 1964-65 Falcons, it’s in the high teens. As for buyer interest and demographics, there are slight but notable differences there as well. The first generation (1965-73) Mustang mostly tracks with the collector car market as a whole, which is unsurprising since it’s a prolific, popular car with cross-generational appeal despite its age.

The Falcon, meanwhile, skews toward a slightly older crowd despite its lower price, with Baby Boomers making up the largest share of buyers. They remember Falcons when they were new, but the Falcon didn’t have the lasting cultural impact of the Mustang, so its appeal to younger enthusiasts is more limited.

The equivalent Mustangs and Falcons are different cars, sure, but they’re both part of the Ford fraternity and are quite similar under the skin. Value trends for them aren’t too different, either, considering the difference in production numbers and popularity. The Mustang will always win the popularity contest, but the Falcon is still a successful, desirable car in its own right that deserves to be more than just a footnote in pony car history.

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post Stablemates: How Values of the ’65 Ford Mustang and ’65 Falcon Compare appeared first on Hagerty Media.

April 17 marks sixty years since the Ford Mustang’s public debut at the 1964 New York World’s Fair. The original pony car immediately became a pop-culture and automotive phenom, and it remains one of the most impactful cars in history. We’re celebrating with stories of the events surrounding the Mustang’s launch, the history of the early cars, and tales from owners. Click here to follow along with our multi-week 60 Years of Mustang coverage. —Ed.

The beauty of celebrating an automotive icon like the Ford Mustang is there are more historic moments to commemorate and significant places to visit than there are candles on the pony car’s birthday cake. As the Mustang turns 60 on April 17, enthusiasts have plenty of opportunities to pay proper homage.

Of course, there are many impressive museums out there to whet your Mustang appetite—including The Henry Ford, the Gilmore Car Museum, the Mustang Owners Museum, and the Mustang Museum of America. And the Flat Rock Assembly Plant, which manufactures current Mustangs, offers a potential photo op with your ride (although the last time we checked there were no tours).

If you’re looking for something a little different, however, here are some suggested destinations where Mustang history was made. Some of them don’t look like they used to, so keep an eye out for ghosts of Mustangs past.

1964–65 New York World’s Fair site

Although the public unveiling of the Mustang was held on April 17, 1964—which is considered the official birthdate of the car—members of the press were given a sneak peek three days earlier. Both showings were held in front of the Ford Pavilion at the New York World’s Fair. Although the Fair featured 140 pavilions and 110 restaurants during its two summers at Flushing Meadows Corona Park in Queens, few of the original structures remain. Skeletons include the New York State Pavilion, a pair of towers topped with circular observation platforms (they are no longer operational); the roofless Tent of Tomorrow pavilion; and the iconic Unisphere, a 120-foot-tall stainless-steel globe. (If you’re in the Detroit area, you can get a taste of the ’64–65 World’s Fair by checking out the giant Uniroyal tire that was originally a Ferris Wheel.)

Dearborn Mustang Plant

Mustang production began at Ford’s Dearborn Assembly Plant on Miller Road, and although Ford also built Mustangs at facilities in Edison, New Jersey, and San Jose, California, only D.A.P. (as it was often called) was active for four decades. After more than 6.7 million ponies rolled off the line in Dearborn, the final Mustang produced there was completed at 1:07 p.m. on Monday, May 10, 2004.

Riverside International Raceway

Mustangs and motorsports are forever linked, and Mustangs often made history at California’s Riverside Raceway, not only for racing but for vehicle development. Carroll Shelby tested his original Cobras at Riverside, and the 1967 and ’68 Shelby Mustang models were revealed there. In 1970, with Riverside serving as the Trans-American Sedan Series championship finale, Parnelli Jones came back to win in a Bud Moore Ford Mustang, giving Jones the unofficial driver championship by one point. It was the first and only year that every Detroit pony car manufacturer had a factory-backed team in Trans-Am.

Alas, Riverside closed on July 2, 1989 and was bulldozed to make room for a shopping mall that opened in 1992. Riverside’s old administration building remained until 2005, when it was torn down to make way for townhouses. If you’re moved to pay a visit to the former location of the southern California track, the Moreno Valley mall is located at 22500 Town Circle in Moreno Valley, about a half-hour south of San Bernardino.

Bullitt movie locations, San Francisco

There may be no more famous Mustang than the 1968 GT390 fastback driven by Steve McQueen in the legendary movie Bullitt. Certainly there’s no Mustang that’s worth more; in 2020, the Highland Green Bullitt car sold for $3.74 million. Many consider the movie’s chase scene the best in film history, and although we don’t encourage any Mustang enthusiasts to recreate that iconic chase, you could—if you really, really wanted to—on the hilly section of San Francisco’s Fillmore Street.

Shelby American at LAX

Carroll Shelby started Shelby American in 1962 and completed the 260 Roadster—later known as the Cobra—soon after. Within a couple of months, Shelby set up shop in Venice, California, and by June 1963 he was being courted by Ford, which was hellbent on beating Ferrari at Le Mans. Shelby succeeded, winning the GT Class at the storied French endurance race the following year, thanks to the Daytona Coupe.

After outgrowing the Venice location, Shelby American moved to a hangar on the south end of Los Angeles International Airport in 1965, and it became the birthplace of the famous Shelby Mustang GT350. Shelby moved his operations again in 1967 after losing his lease at LAX, and today the hangar is home to the Japanese aviation firm Nippon Cargo Airlines.

The Empire State Building

Yes, we’re back in New York, but this is the one site that hasn’t changed much in the last six decades (even if the view has). And the story is so incredible that we had to end with it. In 1965, with the Mustang selling at a record-setting pace in the U.S., the general manager of the Empire State Building—then the tallest building in the world—came up with a big idea. Robert L. Leury wondered if Ford might be interested in displaying a Mustang on the 86th-floor observation deck. As crazy as it sounds, Ford was all in … except its technicians had to figure out how to get a car up there.

A crew of engineers took meticulous measurements (or so they thought) and decided that by disassembling a Mustang into four sections, they could fit everything inside the Empire State Building’s seven-foot tall elevations, then reassemble the car up top. On the night of October 20, 1965, after taking the Mustang apart as planned, the crew discovered that the steering column was a quarter-inch too tall for the elevator. Undeterred, they improvised and made it fit, and the car was completed by the next morning. The Mustang was displayed for five months before it was taken apart and removed. The stunt was recreated with a 2015 Mustang GT to celebrate the Mustang’s 50th anniversary.

Did we miss something cool? Do you know of some historic sites that your fellow Mustang enthusiasts might enjoy visiting? Please let us know in the comments section below.

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post 6 Historic Mustang Sites That Are Worth a Visit (Just Beware of Ghosts) appeared first on Hagerty Media.

April 17 marks 60 years since the Ford Mustang’s public debut at the 1964 New York World’s Fair. The original pony car immediately became a pop-culture and automotive phenom, and it remains one of the most impactful cars in history. We’re celebrating with stories of the events surrounding the Mustang’s launch, the history of the early cars, and tales from owners. Click here to follow along with our multi-week 60 Years of Mustang coverage. -Ed.

When Ford opened the gate to the Mustang’s corral, few people knew just how much interest it would garner, or how quickly. As with any cultural phenomenon, there’s value in finding the early artifacts that shaped the future as we now know it. That combination has led to an interesting subset of Mustang enthusiasts who seek out early production Mustangs, or 1964.5 models. (Even the earliest Mustangs are technically 1965 model-year cars, but they are commonly referenced as ‘64.5s to distinguish their early build date.) Even if it’s not your muse, it is always interesting to look at how rapid production increases affected how the cars were built and the parts that were used. Here’s what to look for when spotting an early Ford Mustang.

Production for the Mustang began in March of 1964, and like anything that makes the leap from idea to physical object, there were some adjustments to the parts and process along the way. Some were likely due to nothing more than ease of assembly, or a change in supplier for the parts, or just subtle changes from the same supplier. The exact dates on a few changes will likely be debated forever, but even if the timing of the shift is imprecise, we know these are typical features of what is commonly called a 1964.5 Mustang.

The VIN

The first digit in the vehicle identification number on Fords of this era is indicative of the model year for the vehicle. That alone is not particularly helpful as all early Mustangs are 1965 models. The second digit in the VIN calls out the production location: “F” for Dearborn, Michigan and “R” for San Jose, California is common for early cars.

Under the Hood

There are a few key components in and around the engine bay that point to an early build. First, we head to the passenger side of the compartment.

Generator

The charging system of a car is critical to long-term functionality, and historically there have been three systems for powering the electrical needs of an automobile: Total loss, generator, and alternator. Total loss is uncommon, and the difference between a generator and alternator is simply which part of the operation spins.

Early Mustangs were equipped with generators, which are slightly less efficient than alternators but still functionally fine for the car. Typically, the generator is visually different from an alternator, making this an easy spot with the hood open. Also different, and related to the generator, is the radiator core support that has pressed vents to allow airflow to cool the battery and generator, along with a longer dipstick to make it accessible through the generator bracket. Later cars moved the dipstick to the driver’s side of the engine block.

Horns behind radiator

Horns might not have been legally required, but just like today, buyers have expectations of being able to convey a one-tone message to those around them in traffic. For the early Mustang this came by way of a pair of horns mounted behind the radiator on the frame rails. Later cars had the horns mounted to the radiator core support.

Hood hinges

The hood hinges would be painted gloss black on an early production car.

Hood stiffener and headlight

This is also known as the “improved” hood, as it comes down to a change in manufacturing after the first run of hoods was produced. The early production featured a hanging “skirt” of sorts from the leading corners of the hood. Later cars had this edge rolled in and flattened. This additional material on the early hoods also required a tapered edge on the headlight nacelle. This means there is the possibility to have one or the other, or both, as cars can get parts swapped on and off for any number of reasons.

Brake light switch mounted to the master cylinder

Dual circuit brake systems were not yet widespread until 1967, so the single-pot master cylinder is not a tell in and of itself of manufacture date. Instead, it is the brake light switch location that can denote an early parts arrangement versus that of the later car which mounts the switch separate from the master cylinder.

In the interior

The steering wheel is unique to early production cars and is a great place to start in dating the car. Also on the steering column is the turn signal stalk which changed as production ramped up in later 1964. The fresh air knob on some early cars was stamped with an “A” while many had a black knob with no markings. Some very early production cars had a passenger seat that did not adjust.

The lock knobs on the doors also changed between early and standard production, going from being color-matched to the interior to being generic chrome for all models.

One of the borderline obvious bits in the interior is the change of “GEN” warning light to a “ALT.” This of course matches with the generator or alternator under the hood, but if a car has been engine-swapped or missing its engine, this light might remain unchanged for the sake of convenience.

The trunk is technically the interior, so be sure to take a glance under the truck lid to see if the taillight wiring is the correct pigtail-style for early production or has no connections like a later first-generation car.

Exterior

Is it a fastback? If yes, then it’s not a 1964.5. Fastback production did not begin until August of 1964. Also of note is the change in the gas cap. The early cars had a three-spoke style cap that had no retention to the vehicle, while later cars had a round cap that also had a security cable that prevented it from being accidentally left atop a gas pump or falling off while driving.

The above is not an entirely exhaustive list, as it is difficult to nail down the timing of many changes for early production Mustangs. That said, these easily spotted items are good indicators. It’s always possible that with time and age, prior owners may have tweaked a feature or two to their liking on a car that has been restored, so if you really want to be sure, follow the old adage of trust but verify. Consult a Mustang specialist to discuss these and other items that can be signifiers of an early production car.

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post The First Ride: An Early Ford Mustang Spotter’s Guide appeared first on Hagerty Media.

April 17 marks sixty years since the Ford Mustang’s public debut at the 1964 New York World’s Fair. The original pony car immediately became a pop-culture and automotive phenom, and it remains one of the most impactful cars in history. We’re celebrating with stories of the events surrounding the Mustang’s launch, the history of the early cars, and tales from owners. Click here to follow along with our multi-week 60 Years of Mustang coverage. -Ed.

Of all the months in the calendar, April is forever aligned with the Ford Mustang. Mustang aficionados may already know April 17 as National Mustang Day, with this year’s date marking the 60^th anniversary of the pony car’s splash debut at the 1964 New York World’s Fair.

The connections are stronger yet within my own family. April 22, 2024, marks 36 years to the day that my dad first parked a Rangoon Red ’65 Mustang convertible in his garage. This April, in an incredibly emotional and devastating turn of events, was also the first time I’ve parked it in my own garage.

You probably have some sense of the Mustang’s history, how Ford product planners and designers captured lightning in a bottle. This sporty yet attainable car resonated with young (and young-at-heart) buyers and sparked an absolute sales frenzy. Twelve months after its introduction, Ford had built and sold over 400,000 Mustangs. By March of 1966, that figure eclipsed the million-car mark.

In 1965 alone, Ford built 559,451 Mustangs, with convertibles accounting for roughly 13 percent of that sum. By those numbers alone, my dad’s car isn’t anything particularly special. Data, however, doesn’t capture what this car means to me.

I don’t know when Dad first felt the call of the Mustang. Maybe it was exposure to Ford’s ad blitz that hit when he was just nine years old. Maybe it happened much later, when he helped my uncle wrench on a rather downtrodden example. Or through riding around in a Mustang owned by his good friend Clark. All I know is that he finally heeded the call in April of 1988—a month after my second birthday and only a few months before my younger brother entered the world.

At first glance, Dad’s Mustang looks like a Mustang GT equipped with the high-revving K-code 289 “Hi-Po” V-8, deluxe interior package, and other desirable options. The reality: It’s enough of a Frankenstang to make a Mustang Club of America concours judge erupt with palpitations.

Hagerty’s 1964-1966 Mustang buyers guide notes that, should concours-grade purity not be a personal goal, the early Mustang’s robust aftermarket parts support (and relatively simple design on which to wrench) make retroactively spec’ing a car to taste a fairly straightforward affair. Heck, in late 1965, Ford was itself running ads suggesting Mustang owners head to their local FoMoCo parts counter and retrofit some GT gear.

That’s exactly what our previous owner did, starting with a standard-grade Rangoon Red 289 convertible as the foundation. In went the Pony Interior and the Rally Pac. On went the styled steel wheels, the exhaust trumpets, the fog lamps, and the rocker striping. The mix-and-match didn’t stop with cosmetics, either: the four-speed toploader manual transmission was pulled from a ’66 car, the 8-inch rear axle salvaged from a ’67 Mustang, and the aluminum bell housing cribbed from some Ford product made in the early 1970s.

Dad may not have had all those date codes mapped when he bought the car, but he knew full well that it wasn’t a bonafide GT on his hands. That lack of provenance did not bother him one bit. I suspect that, with a growing family at home, a true numbers-matching K-code car would have been out of his reach. If it wasn’t, the provenance and value of such a thing might have spooked him out of regularly driving the car.

I’m grateful that we ended up with a pick-a-part pony car, because our family sure drove this Mustang.

My brother and I have—quite literally—a lifetime of memories with Dad and his car. Quick summer trips to the Dairy Queen on a hot summer’s night. Saturday afternoon road trips, exploring the winding back roads of northern Oakland County in Michigan as we snaked past inland lakes, apple orchards, abandoned gravel quarries, and Ford’s own proving grounds. My brother and I got our hands dirty helping Dad replace the rear leaf springs and trying, but ultimately failing, to grasp the intricate, dark art of carburetor tuning.

In later years, after patiently teaching both sons how to operate a manual transmission, Dad began regularly passing driving duties to us, the next generation. Initially he’d toss us the keys on our weekend rambles together, and over time, that led to trusting us enough to venture out on our own. He was gracious enough to repeatedly loan me the car, whether it was to incorporate it into my day job as an auto journalist or simply take my now-wife out for a cruise down Woodward Avenue.

The memories of this car are deeply ingrained in me, so much so that when I ordered a red Ford drop-top of my own—a 2022 Bronco—I picked a similar shade of red paint and added a handful of retro touches to visually tie the two cars together. Dad and I were looking forward to staging our two red Ford convertibles together for a quick photo shoot.

As it so often does, life had other plans. He passed unexpectedly last October, leaving an enormous gap in our hearts. And, per his wishes, the Mustang found its first new custodian in four decades—me. Bittersweet to say the very least.

***

These days, I find myself asking questions to which there are no clear answers. Do I really deserve this car? Am I worthy of being the caretaker for our family’s red Mustang? Who can I turn to for advice and for help swinging wrenches, now that my go-to guy isn’t around? What would Dad want me to do with his car, anyway?

The best answer I have for that last question: Just go. Drive it. Enjoy it.

I want to do all of that, but I also want to protect the car from harm. Maintenance comes first, then.

My initial, cursory exploration beneath the car revealed it to be remarkably solid, considering the Mustang spent its entire life in Michigan. Dad cared more about regular service and maintenance than cosmetic perfection, and my intent is to continue this approach. What it deserves is to be a basic driver treated with respect—nothing fancy.

Above all, I feel compelled to introduce the Mustang to the next generation. Much like Dad found himself 36 years ago, I’m now the parent of a car-crazy two-year-old who is incessantly asking “Dada, we go Mustang ride now?” I’m not overly fond of tradition, but this seems like the best kind to carry on.

That might take a bit of work. This car is rapidly approaching 60 years old, last had a substantial overhaul roughly 40 years ago, and wears its fair share of nicks, dents, scratches, and other imperfections. Having essentially sat for at least a year and a half, it’s going to need a little bit of TLC before we start using it even for short jaunts.

Despite knowing this car like the back of my hand, I’ve continued to discover new details or learn new things about our Mustang in the months since Dad’s passing. Scanned copies of National Parts Depot receipts, indicating what work he performed in recent years. A yellow folder holding the original bill of sale from 1988. (Interestingly, his most recent insurance policy continued to cite that original purchase price for its agreed value—a sum Mustang values have far eclipsed in recent years.) A printed email chain from two years ago shows the work Dad put into refurbishing the brake system, including adding a dual-reservoir master cylinder, but a random receipt in another folder indicates that the last time it received new tires was in 2012. New rubber is a necessity at this point.

So that’s the task at hand. If you find yourself in Michigan this summer, staring at a red Mustang convertible that’s a little rough around the edges—to say nothing of its driver—be sure to wave and say hi. And if you’re open to swinging a wrench and helping me tackle a growing to-do list? Well, that’d be great, too.

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post The Family Mustang Falls to Me appeared first on Hagerty Media.

April 17 marks sixty years since the Ford Mustang’s public debut at the 1964 New York World’s Fair. The original pony car immediately became a pop-culture and automotive phenom, and it remains one of the most impactful cars in history. We’re celebrating with stories of the events surrounding the Mustang’s launch, the history of the early cars, and tales from owners. Click here to follow along with our multi-week 60 Years of Mustang coverage. -Ed.

Ford built the one-millionth Mustang 11 months after introducing the sporty compact sensation at the World’s Fair in Queens, New York, on April 17, 1964. The Mustang’s broad appeal crossed demographic boundaries, feeding voracious market demand that kept three auto plants humming.

Many drivers dreamed of owning a Mustang, including 16-year-old Bill Whitmire in Dennison, Ohio, a tiny rural town about 95 miles south of Cleveland. The young man became smitten with the Mustang after seeing photos and TV coverage from its World’s Fair introduction. While others fantasized, he planned. At the time, Whitmire was bagging groceries and stocking shelves at the local IGA supermarket, saving all he could to buy a car.

Fitting with Ford’s “Total Performance” mantra in the 1960s, the automaker added the 271-horsepower High-Performance 289-cubic-inch V-8 to the Mustang’s option roster in summer, 1964. That’s when Whitmire decided on his target car: a fastback with that engine, plus the GT package. The High-Performance 289 (“Hi-Po” for short) was indicated by a K as the fifth character in the vehicle identification number, hence the nickname, “K-code.”

That combination would not be available in a Mustang until the following year, which would be good timing for Whitmire. The fastback reached Ford dealers in September 1964 as part of a switchover from the early cars, commonly referred to as “1964.5″ models, to those produced starting in August. (All were titled as 1965s, however.) The GT package seen on the World’s Fair fastback display car arrived in time for the Mustang’s one-year anniversary in April 1965.

“I just loved that fastback design,” Whitmire recalled for Hagerty. “I wanted a four-speed and the most horsepower they had. The Vintage Burgundy color was an easy decision for me, and I chose the Palomino interior.”

Fifty-nine years later, Whitmire still owns his ’65 Mustang GT, which served a daily driver and a weekend drag racer for more than 10 years. “I never intended to keep the car this long. I took really good care of it and kept it preserved because I loved it,” he said.

After long and proper storage, Whitmire had the Mustang repainted in 2002, and he refreshed and upgraded the mechanicals from 2015 to 2023. He and his wife, Kathy, still take his classic Mustang out for plenty of exercise and also enjoy driving a 2022 Mustang GT that they plan to drag-race. Along the way, the ’65 became an important family memory-maker.

Ford Family

Whitmire grew up in a “Ford family” at a time when Big Three and AMC brand loyalties ran deep.

“Dad always owned Fords and worked on his own cars,” he said. “My older brother drag-raced a couple of ’55 and ’56 Fords. I helped when he worked on them.”

Being around fast cars made young Bill want his own. At 14, he began doing odd jobs for neighbors—mowing grass, cleaning out garages, painting, and washing windows. Just before his 16th birthday, he landed a supermarket job and his first steady paycheck.

“I didn’t buy anything I didn’t need, because I knew I wanted to buy a car when I turned 17. I was able to save just a little over a thousand dollars, but my dad was confident enough in me that he took out a loan to help me get the Mustang. I paid him $70 per month for 30 months. That was a lot back then. I still have the loan papers he signed. He also promised my brother and me that if we bought our own cars, he’d put them on his insurance policy.”

Insurance, though, became a sticky issue. A month after adding Bill’s new car, his father’s entire policy was cancelled due to the Mustang’s high-performance engine. A second company that accepted them knowing about the Mustang ultimately cancelled two months later.

“My dad never complained about it to me. We eventually got insurance,” Whitmire said.

The Price of Power

On June 14, 1965, around high school graduation, Whitmire ordered his Mustang from Harry Humphries Ford in New Philadelphia, Ohio, leaving a $100 deposit. He paid another $500 in early July and then the balance of $2495 when he took delivery mid-month, for a $3095 total. He turned 18 that October.

Aside from those three receipts, Whitmire no longer has other sale documentation. So, we did some math. The K-code engine package was pricey at $334, and that was in addition to the mandatory cost of ordering it over a base V-8 model—$2697 in the 1965 fastback’s case. The mandatory four-speed added another $188. (A three-speed automatic was available for ’66 and ’67 K-code Mustangs.) The GT package, if you wanted it, was $165. That totaled $3384, so it seems Whitmire got a discount of about $290.

Despite Ford’s “Total Performance” hoopla, performance options were rarely ordered on first-gen Mustangs. The base V-8 was popular, but buyers scooped up just 7273 K-code Mustangs for 1965 (including “1964.5” cars), then 5469 for 1966. Just 489 were ordered in 1967, when the new optional 390-cubic-inch big-block V-8 delivered more bang for the buck. Out of 1.7 million 1965–67 Mustangs made, fewer than 1 percent were K-codes.

Factory Basics: 1965 Mustang GT 2+2

Ford referred to the Mustang fastback as the 2+2, borrowing a term from Ferrari. The Mustang brochure even boasted, “Europe no longer has a monopoly on this kind of flair and fire.”

The 2+2 added practicality. When lowered, the fold-down rear seatback formed a carpeted luggage area that could extend into the trunk to carry long items, including skis. Functional louvers on the C-pillars opened from the inside to improve flow-through ventilation.

Engine options were the same as for the other body styles, which, starting in September 1964 included a standard 200-cubic-inch six replacing the 170; a 289 two-barrel replacing the 260 V-8; a high-compression A-code 289 four-barrel replacing the low-compression D-code, and the High-Performance 289 continuing. That engine was, of course, the one Carroll Shelby’s operation tweaked for more output in the 289 Cobra and Mustang GT350.

With just over 77,000 produced for 1965, the fastback outpaced the convertible by about 4000 and would continue to do so by an increasingly wide margin through 1973 (including Mach 1 models).

What Made the K-code 289 Tick

The K-code 289 option debuted in the 1963 Fairlane and seemed a natural for the lighter Mustang. It earned the “High Performance” label, starting with 10.5:1 compression versus 10:1 for the A-code 289. The two engines shared small-ish valve sizes (1.78-inch intake and 1.45-inch exhaust), though the K-code’s were operated by a solid-lifter flat-tappet camshaft, versus hydraulic in the A-code. A 600-cfm Autolite 4100 four-barrel carburetor was topped by an open-element air cleaner, and header-type manifolds bolted to a dual-exhaust system.

A beefier nodular-iron crankshaft and stronger connecting rods ensured durability for hard usage, while a dual-point distributor gave reliable spark for the 6000-plus rpm the K-code could deliver. Ford rated output at 271 hp at 6000 rpm and 312 lb-ft of torque at 3400 rpm, a healthy bump over the A-code’s 225 hp at 4800 rpm and 305 lb-ft at 3200 rpm (SAE gross ratings.)

Ordering the K-code 289 also netted the buyer the Special Handling Package, with higher-rate springs, heavy-duty shocks, a thicker front anti-roll bar, quicker manual steering, and 6.95 x 14-inch dual-red-stripe tires.

Pony Express

Testing a 1965 Mustang K-code fastback equipped with the 3.89:1 axle ratio, Motor Trend found the 289 revved easily to 6500 rpm, which was sky-high for an American V-8 at the time. The testers found the car gave its best performance when shifted at 6000 rpm: 0–60 in 7.6 seconds, the quarter-mile in 15.9 seconds at 89 mph, and a 120-mph top speed. Car Life magazine recorded similar times.

Whitmire’s car came with the more highway-friendly 3.50:1 axle ratio, which the auto magazines estimated would have added a few mph to the top speed while sacrificing just a bit on acceleration. A base-model Pontiac GTO could beat a K-code Mustang in a drag race, but the much lighter Mustang (about 3000 pounds) would do better on a twisty road.

The GT package available with the A- and K-code V-8s added the dual-exhaust system with the “trumpet” tailpipe extensions poking through the rear valance panel; Special Handling Package (already included with K-code); front disc brakes; rocker panel stripes; grille-mounted fog lamps, and a five-dial instrument panel replacing the horizontal speedometer. (That panel became standard on 1966 Mustangs.)

Daily Driver, Weekend Racer

Whitmire bought his Mustang as a daily driver, though it hibernated in the winter months while he drove an old pickup. In exchange for cleaning out his next-door neighbor’s garage, she let Whitmire store his Mustang there in winter.

Whitmire had not originally intended to race the Mustang but soon found himself on many weekends heading to Magnolia Dragway, about 25 miles from home. “I had the racing bug. The Mustang eventually ended up with headers and slicks, and I changed to a lower axle ratio and put traction bars on it. I welded those to the inside of the frame rails, but they’re off now. I’d tow the Mustang to the track with my pickup.”

Appropriately enough, Whitmire recalled racing the Mustang in K-Stock. “I also raced at National Trail Raceway in Columbus and Dragway 42 in West Salem. I learned to power-shift, and that four-speed Top Loader would take it. Mine was one of the faster Mustangs at the tracks. I raced it for over 10 years, and I couldn’t guess how many quarter-mile trips it made!”

More Drag Racing

After high school, Whitmire spent 40 years working for a construction manufacturing company, including 25 in management positions. He followed retirement from that with 15 years as service manager for a Harley-Davidson dealer.

With the Mustang retired from racing in the late ’70s, Whitmire built a Thunderbolt clone from a ’64 Fairlane, giving it a 460-cubic-inch Ford big-block he’d pulled from a junkyard Lincoln. He called the car “Backyard Bolt” and raced it until 1989.

He sold the Backyard Bolt and bought a 1987 Thunderbird Top Sportsman car, basically a steel tube chassis with a fiberglass body, and raced in NHRA Comp until 1999. “In 1997, I won the Comp Championship at Norwalk Dragway [now Summit Motorsports Park]. “I was voted ‘Most Improved Driver of the Year.’ That basically meant you were really bad the year before or you got really lucky the year you won.”

Rest And Revival

The Mustang went into careful garage storage, with occasional drives. Whitmire and his second wife, Kathy, later moved into a new development near southwest Cleveland. The 2002 repaint (with no rust repair needed) was still looking fresh in 2015 when he decided to go through the car mechanically, adding some upgrades. The interior remains original.

“My main reason for upgrading the car was the possibility that one of my daughters will end up with it, so I wanted it to be a reliable driver,” he said.

Notably, the original K-code 289 has never been rebuilt. Whitmire cleaned and painted the exhaust manifolds and had a new dual exhaust system installed. The car got new motor and transmission mounts, along with a new alternator, water pump, pulleys, a re-cored radiator, and a five-blade fan. Whitmire had the transmission rebuilt and added a Gear Vendors overdrive. The rebuilt Equa-Lock limited-slip differential retains a 3.50:1 axle ratio.

The original steering box was rebuilt in 2015, gaining aftermarket electric assist in 2020. Brakes and suspension were serviced and refurbished, and the car rolls on new BFGoodrich radials. Finishing touches included a new stereo and speakers, LED headlights that look like the original sealed-beam units, and ceramic coating on the paint and wheels.

While working on his ’65 Mustang, Whitmire ordered a 50th anniversary 2015 Mustang GT (#336 out of 1964 built). He installed a Roush supercharger but later sold the car to the builder of his home development, who had a car collection. The man had first offered to buy the ’65 for $70,000, but Whitmire was a firm ‘No.’

“I just didn’t want to part with it. I kept telling myself, ‘It’s the first new car you bought. Hang onto it.’”

Mustang Memories

Hagerty: Was the Mustang the only car you wanted, or did you consider anything else?

Whitmire: I really didn’t know until they introduced it at the World’s Fair in New York. If you had TV, you at least got to see it.

Hagerty: How did your father feel about you choosing the K-code Mustang when you were 17?

Whitmire: He trusted me to have the high-power engine. He understood that we were all car people in the family.

Hagerty: What was that first summer after high school like with a brand-new Hi-Po Mustang?

Whitmire: With my high-school buddies, it was the hit of the summer. I remember many races and a couple of tickets from squealing my tires when taking off. We didn’t have a Dairy Queen, but we had a root beer stand and an ice cream parlor where the kids hung out. It was a lot of fun.

Hagerty: How did this Mustang become such an important part of your family?

Whitmire: We’ve just had a lot of history and a lot of fun with that car. It’s one reason it won’t be for sale until grandpa passes. I taught both of my daughters to drive stick-shift in the Mustang. They each later got Mustangs of their own. My older daughter still has the ’66 coupe that I bought in bad shape and fixed up. The younger one had a ’74 Mustang II. My two oldest granddaughters, now 25 and 19, also learned to drive stick-shift in my ’65. My grandson is five and a half and loves the Mustang. He calls it his race car.

As an aside, when I married Kathy, she had a 1964.5 Skylight Blue coupe with a white roof that she’d bought in the 1970s. She has since given it to her daughter, but it’s still parked in a garage that we own.

Hagerty: Were there any memorable family trips in your GT?

Whitmire: With my first wife and the two girls, we used to drive it to Florida once a year in March to visit my mother-in-law. It being a fastback, the back seats were low, and my daughters couldn’t see out. I made a platform from 3/8-inch plywood, with fold-down legs. I’d fold down the back seat, lay the platform on the carpet, and the two legs would sit on the floor behind the front seats. We’d throw a couple of big, thick blankets and a pillow or two on the plywood and let the girls ride back there the whole way. I would never do that today!

__

Car: 1965 Ford Mustang GT Fastback K-code

Owner: Bill Whitmire

Home: Grafton, Ohio

Delivery Date: July 15, 1965

Miles on Car: ~83,500

Are you the original owner of a classic car, or do you know someone who is? Send us a photo and a bit of background to tips@hagerty.com with ORIGINAL OWNER in the subject line—you might get featured in our next installment!

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post Original Owner: Ohio Teen Turned His Mustang Dream into Reality appeared first on Hagerty Media.

April 17 marks sixty years since the Ford Mustang’s public debut at the 1964 New York World’s Fair. The original pony car immediately became a pop-culture and automotive phenom, and it remains one of the most impactful cars in history. We’re celebrating with stories of the events surrounding the Mustang’s launch, the history of the early cars, and tales from owners. Click here to follow along with our multi-week 60 Years of Mustang coverage. -Ed.

As a car-crazy fifth-grade kid, I drew pictures of hot rods in my notebook. I could identify the year, make, and model of every car on the road, and I spent more time looking into the parking lot from my classroom than at the blackboard. So, when Ford introduced the Mustang to the public on April 17, 1964, I was easily swept up in the new car’s hype.

I wasn’t alone, of course. It was easily the greatest new-car launch in the history of the auto industry. People flocked to showrooms during the days leading up to the car’s official launch, only to be turned away at dealership doors. Paper covered showroom windows, preventing prying eyes from seeing the automotive delights inside. Months of PR hype had men, women, and 10-year-old boys salivating like so many of Pavlov’s dogs. Telling potential customers to go away only made them more anxious to see Ford’s new product.

A few days before the launch, my friend Walt Pierce, now 73 and a former Mustang restorer, and his friend, Paul Neggia, skipped their last three ninth-grade classes at Manchester Regional High School in Haledon, New Jersey, in the hope of catching a glimpse of the new Mustang. And because they were not yet old enough to drive, they paid an upper-classman to drive them to Berry Ford in Paramus.

“The transporters showed up, but all the Mustangs had covers on them,” Walt says. “There were no convertibles or fastbacks, just white coupes. I later heard that they were all sold on the first day.”

A couple of days after April 17, I had my first Mustang sighting: A pair of new Mustangs showed up in the parking lot of Nokomis Elementary School in Holbrook on Long Island, where I was a student.

A sixth-grade teacher took delivery of her black convertible on the same day that our school’s custodian received his Vineyard Green coupe, complete with a 289 V-8, dual exhaust, and four-speed transmission.

The arrival of those two cars caused such excitement that Nokomis principal Mr. Fenner authorized a “private launch” for students. Teachers were allowed to escort their classes into the parking lot to see the new Mustangs up close.

I still remember peering into the cars’ windows and seeing the bucket seats divided by a stylish console—the first I had ever seen. The green coupe had a manual shifter similar to the one in my family’s Volkswagen Beetle, but the convertible had a chrome T-handle shifter. We had never owned an automatic transmission in our family, so I wasn’t quite sure how that device operated. When I saw the long horizontal brake pedal, I surmised that pushing the left side of the pedal must engage the clutch, and pushing the right side must engage the brake….

There was something magical about the car’s grille—that chrome horse!—that made the Mustang unique. And the simple three-bar taillight was a huge and welcomed departure from Ford’s standard round taillight, which, except for 1958 and 1960, had been in use since 1952.

The Mustang was so different from my parents’ Beetle. It was low and sporty, but in a different way than my neighbor’s MGTD. As a kid, I was at a loss for words to describe my passion for the Mustang. As it turns out, folks many years older than I had the same difficulty.

With wind in its sails, Ford thought big prior to the launch and decided to introduce the Mustang at the New York World’s Fair. Division president Lee Iacocca, considered the father of the Mustang, had begun planning for it as early as 1961, when the car’s concept was first conceived.

On April 13, four days prior to the Mustang’s public unveiling, Iacocca addressed 124 invited media, then invited them to drive new Mustangs from New York to Detroit, a 750-mile trip.

Sometime after the launch, probably during our summer vacation, my father loaded my 8-year-old brother, Rob, and I into the VW and drove us about 50 miles to the World’s Fair. Though we enjoyed seeing the Hell Drivers Thrill Show—“risking life and limb”—as they jumped their 1964 Dodges over ramps and drove on two wheels, the real thrill was visiting the Ford Pavilion.

There, we could choose any Ford convertible to “drive” through the pavilion—Galaxies, Falcons, Montereys, and Comets—but of course we climbed into a Mustang convertible. The car was mounted on a rail system called the Magic Skyway, which had been designed by Walt Disney, and took us on a virtual tour of world history. I wasn’t too interested in the history and instead pretended I was old enough to drive as I “steered” the Mustang through the turns.

As with the VW Beetle, it seems almost everyone has a Mustang story. “I had one in high school,” “I never should have sold mine,” or “My uncle had one,” are regularly heard even today, especially among baby boomers.

Soon after introduction, my Uncle Bob actually did purchase one, a red 1965 coupe. Every time he and my Aunt Beth drove it from Boston to visit my family on Long Island, I couldn’t wait to wax it! I remember one Sunday during a visit, my uncle and aunt borrowed my parents’ VW to go to church so that I could wash, compound, and wax the dulling Mustang. I got that car so clean that when he returned from church, Uncle Bob said, “Tommy, it shines like a million bucks!” He didn’t give me a million bucks, but I seem to remember three dollars coming my way.

These were heady times at Ford Motor Company. The saying “A rising tide lifts all boats” applied to the Mustang as well. Folks visiting Ford dealerships to see the Mustang often bought the Galaxies, Falcons, or pickup trucks sharing the showroom; sales of all Ford products were boosted with the increased traffic.

With memories of the ill-conceived Edsel launch a half-dozen years before fading into history, Ford chairman Henry Ford II had his foot firmly on the company’s throttle. Ford had recently engaged Carroll Shelby to build the mighty Cobra to compete with and beat Chevy’s Corvette on race tracks across the country and around the world. By 1965, Shelby had his hands on the Mustang, too, with GT350 fastbacks swiftly dominating their own race classes. And Ford’s Charlotte-based racing operation—Holman-Moody—was winning on the NASCAR circuit and grabbing headlines with legendary drivers like Fred Lorenzen and Fireball Roberts.

Wasting no time after the Mustang launch, Holman-Moody built the world’s first Mustang funny car, which quickly became a hit at drag strips across the country in the hands of drivers like Gaspar “Gas” Rhonda.

On the local front, one of my boyhood heroes was a Suffolk County police officer and ex-Marine named Mike Mooney. Mooney both drag raced and road raced his souped-up Mustang notchback, and with its 271-horsepower High-Performance 289 engine, it was tough to beat. Once in a while, he would invite me to accompany him to either New York National Speedway or Bridgehampton Race Circuit to help him crew. It was Mooney’s early influence that briefly had me consider law enforcement as a career choice, although it was more for being able to speed legally than to fight crime.

As I sit here considering the Mustang’s 60th anniversary, it occurs to me that the car has been part of my life those full 60 years. But as much as I loved the Mustang, for too long I had never owned one. I resolved that issue in 2008, when I purchased a Hertz Edition 1966 Shelby GT350. Most Hertz cars were black with gold stripes, but this Mustang was one of the few painted white with gold stripes.

I love it. Just had the engine rebuilt and of all my cars, the Hertz is the one I enjoy driving most. That fastback design still increases my heart rate. And I get so stoked when the automatic transmission shifts from low to second gear and the rear tires give a little chirp. In the years since I saw that first automatic Mustang at Nokomis Elementary School, I’ve learned a lot about cars in general and Mustangs specifically. Most importantly, I now know that the long horizontal brake pedal serves only one purpose.

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post Mustang Memories: Tom Cotter Recalls April 17, 1964—and What Came Next appeared first on Hagerty Media.