Ford Mustang History

 

1964 marked the production of the legendary Ford Mustang. It was introduced as a 1965 model and was based on the Falcon model to have lower production cost. Amazingly Mustang shook the whole car market with its 22,000 sales on its first day and 1,000,000 sales in its first two years. The first model is a sports car powered by a 170 cid six cylinder and a pair of V8's. Mustang got its name and horse motif from the P-51 Mustang fighter plane because of its horse-like performance.

 

With its low price, wide range of options and sporty look as shown by its long hood, short trunk styling, it captured the buyer's attention paving way to continuous increase in sale. In mid 1964, Ford Company produced a convertible sporty 2+2 fastback body style. To match the car's look, the new "K-code" 271bhp 289 was introduced. Its growing fame urged the Carroll Shelby car company to merge with Ford and produce the powerful racing car, Shelby GT-350. Its power trains include the 289 V8 rated at 306bhp in street tune and around 360bhp in special GT-350R race tune.

 

Further improvement was done for 1966 Mustang. Finally it has its own identity by changing the gauge cluster and replacing the 2260 cid V8 with 2 and 4 barrel versions of the 289 cid V8. Shelby GT-350 was still hot and was available in four colors with added automatic transmission. For GT-350, the optional Paxton supercharger was offered to boost horsepower by as much as 40%. For the next years, Mustang received praises from its users but in 1973 engine power ratings dropped as new emission guidelines were produced which it failed to meet. However in the next year models, the defect was corrected.