Accelerator Pedal...Trim or not? What's correct?

Hi guys,

Saw pictures of some gas pedals that have a stainless trim around them. My car is a 73 with deluxe interior. Both the brake and emergency brake have the chrome trim but NOT the gas pedal? Is it supposed to have the trim or does anyone know which models/years/options included it? Example pic below with stainless trim.



Thanks

There a photo on page 11 1973 dealer brochere that show the brake pedal with the trim and the emerency brake has it also. The gas pedal did not have it. This is with the 3 spoke steering wheel. On page 13 there a photo with 2 spoke wheel and they all have the trim. Its a 4 speed not sure if that make a difference

John J

Hi guys,

Saw pictures of some gas pedals that have a stainless trim around them. My car is a 73 with deluxe interior. Both the brake and emergency brake have the chrome trim but NOT the gas pedal? Is it supposed to have the trim or does anyone know which models/years/options included it? Example pic below with stainless trim.

Thanks

Click to expand...

Jeff,

My 4 speed car also has the deluxe interior. It has the bright trim piece on the brake pedal, clutch pedal, and emergency brake pedal but not the gas pedal. The original owner said that it wasn't there when he took delivery of the car in July 1973. Now, with what you posted, I'm wondering if this was some kind of shortage at the factory. My car was produced 6/30/73. If I remember right, your car was a June of 1973 car also. One would think that the bright trim on the pedals would be inclusive of all pedals. I have seen many 73's with the bright trim on the gas pedal. Here is a photo of mine:




I also found this photo online of a very low mileage 73 Mach 1. It has the bright trim on all pedals:




It looks like the bright frames around the pedals are part of the Mach 1 sports interior. So if you have the woodgrain appliques on your center gauge cluster, the rear seat ash tray, woodgrain door panels, etc, you were supposed to have received the "Bright metal frame around accelerator, brake, brake release, and clutch pedals" according to the 73 Mustang Illustrated Facts Book. These bright pedal frames were standard on the Grande.

There a photo on page 11 1973 dealer brochere that show the brake pedal with the trim and the emerency brake has it also. The gas pedal did not have it. This is with the 3 spoke steering wheel. On page 13 there a photo with 2 spoke wheel and they all have the trim. Its a 4 speed not sure if that make a difference

John J

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John,

Can you post a photo of that page of the dealer brochure?

Guys,

Found this pic from a sales brochure and it shows the trim. Hopefully someone will know the real story.

This is on page 13 of the 1973 dealers brochure. I am not sure what options got the trim around the pedals. My 73 Grande did not have them and the 73 vert I currently own does not have them either. It could be a hit or miss item depending on the supply or how drunk the installer got the night before. It was 1973 they did not know what quailty control was.

John J

Guys,

Found this pic from a sales brochure and it shows the trim. Hopefully someone will know the real story.

Click to expand...

Jeff,

In your brochure above , I can read the entry for the Mach 1 sports interior option and it mentions "bright pedal pads". That agrees with what I posted above. For some reason, the gas pedal trim did not get installed on our cars. If I can find one, I will add it myself. It looks incomplete without it.

My standard gas pedal broke in the 77-78 time frame. It probably had 32,000 miles on it at the time. I bet I wasn't alone. Had to buy a new one from the local Ford dealer.

Guys,

Found this pic from a sales brochure and it shows the trim. Hopefully someone will know the real story.

Click to expand...

Jeff,

In your brochure above , I can read the entry for the Mach 1 sports interior option and it mentions "bright pedal pads". That agrees with what I posted above. For some reason, the gas pedal trim did not get installed on our cars. If I can find one, I will add it myself. It looks incomplete without it.

Click to expand...

CJs has the brake pedal trim and the parking brake pedal trim. I have not seen the accelerator pedal trim anywhere yet.

John J

My late 1972 Q-code w/Deluxe interior has trim around the gas pedal. Brake, not so. Haven't looked close enough to see if the brake shows any indentions from missing trim:



-Kurt

Jeff,

My car came with only the brake and e-brake trim.

-john

I've owned 5 different 73 Mustangs over the years, with a variety of different options, and none of them had the trim around the gas pedal. I'm thinking that if any of them did have it, they were probably very early production cars. Correct or not, I may still try to find one for my car. I like the look.

-Travis

My early 71 (built Aug 1970) with deluxe interior only has the brake and ebrake with the shiny surround.

PS, was it actually stainless or just chromed steel?

My 73 H code auto Mach has them. It has a deluxe interior

Jeff,

Here are some photos from that 183 mile May 73 car. Gas pedal in first photo shows no trim. Second photo does not show trim on any of the pedals.

Strange. As mentioned above, it seems that logic would dictate that all the pedals would be trimmed in the same fashion, either with the stainless trim or without it.

The indication that some came from the factory with only a partial set of trims doesn't make sense.

Mine had bright trim on all three pedals originally: gas, brakes and parking brake.

Mine also suffered a broken gas pedal in the mid 80's ajd there were no OEM replacements available.

Not sure, but I think the pedal itself might be slightly different depending on if it came with trim or not. That may explain why there are no bright-trimmed pedal repros available for 71-73s ( or are there?).

my understanding is this:

if you had a deluxe interior you got the trim around all the pedals.

there was a set of pedals without the bright trim for non-deluxe cars.

now the Trim around the pedals was made of super soft aluminum with bend tabs around the back of the pedal to hold them on.

9 outta 10 the trim is always missing from the accelerator pedal, or it is worn on the brake pedal, the trim easily breaks off or falls off and people threw them away when that happened.

When i restored my interior i was missing my parking brake trim, and my accelerator pedal trim. my brake trim was worn through completely on the top.

it took me quite a long time to figure out deluxe cars got that extra trim work on the pedals and then to actually find a pedal that still had the trim around it and wasn't broken.

you can get replacement trim for the parking brake and the brake pedal, the accelerator pedal is another story.

there is a difference in the pedals. there is early and late 71 and early and late 72, late 72 was suppose to carry into 73. the connection to the throttle linkage is different and the spring for the pedal changed a couple of times. I was also told the texture on the pedals is different year to year, but i never saw enough pedals to know if that is true.

i had to use the part number on the back of my pedal to get the correct one and it took a couple of years to find one that was correct, i had to transfer the spring and hardware from my old pedal to the new one.

the brake pedal had a couple of changes to the rubber the font on the power brake logo changed 2 times.

but deluxe interiors had bright trim around all pedals, standard interior did not.

Jeff,

My car came with only the brake and e-brake trim.

-john

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Same on my car John...And your car had deluxe interior if i remember right? John did get his mach 1 new off the lot..So if his does not have them on gas pedal..Well, ill have to go with that.

I would not dout that ford dropped the gas pedals late, cause of issues with them breaking..Or just ran out of them like our seat backs and weave.

my 1971 Grande (born oct 6, 1970) has deluxe interior. including trim on gas, brake, and e-brake pads. my pedals are factory originals to my car. paint is only thing i know of on my car not original. gas pedal and trim show plenty of wear.

not a 73. but here is a 1971 mach1 that i found today. for sale on marketplace near seattle. looks like original rusty car with pedal trim. so we know that the trim was available on some cars.

I've checked all my Ford and Mercury info, and they all indicate the same thing. The '71-73 Grande, Mach 1 Sport Interior optioned Mustangs and '71-73 Cougar Vert, and XR-7 came with the trim on ALL pedals. There was a Décor option on the Cougar that included several upgraded exterior and interior items along with the pedal trim on all pedals for the interior.
Original and subsequent '73 owners seem equally split on the "Have-Don't Have" trim on the accelerator pedal. There may have been some supply issues at Dearborn. The end of the line was fast approaching for the first-generation Mustang/Cougar, and since these trims were specific to these two cars, the supplier may have already scaled back production.

Regarding the pedal trim, I only had trouble with the accelerator pedal. The gas pedal was plastic and would flex to the point the trim would pop off, and eventually, the tabs would break. I drag-raced my '71 Mach1 pretty hard, which meant there was always a size 13 foot, planting the pedal down to the point where the accelerator pedals were breaking. Unfortunately, I liked the pedal trim's look, so I bought many of the pedals and trim over time! When I received notice of them being on Ford's soon-to-be-discontinued list, I managed to stockpile several of each. The plastic pedal was discontinued on 2/80, and the trim was discontinued on 7/79. I did end up using them all. To my knowledge, I don't believe the accelerator pedal trim is being reproduced, but the others are available.