Alright Tin Lizzy, no takers so far. So I'll Jump in and let you know why I feel the same way about the 71-3 Mustang. The 64 1/2-70 Mustang platform sits on a chassis that was first seen on the 1960 Falcon. Which means it was designed around 1958-1959. It was a pretty good chassis design that was used for decades on many unibody Ford's. As time went on these cars, especially the Mustang and Torino/Fairlane's, became heavier with bigger engines, transmissions, ac, ps, etc until these vehicles exceeded what the original engineers had ever intended. The absolute WORST performance car I have ever driven belonged to a close friend of mine. A 1969 Mercury Cyclone with a 4sp, 428 SCJ with a Drag-Pak 4:30 gear. It had an insane amount of power, and had twice as much as that chassis should of ever seen. It's the one I was driving the night the motor mount broke and locked the accelerator linkage wide open (no throttle cable on that one). It also handled like a wheel barrow with a flat tire. It got so bad that when he went on a date , he would promise to fill my car up twice, for every time I let him use my Mach 1 to take a date out. My girl friend had a 4sp 71 "M" Mach 1, so I was still safe. Once we were able to chain an engine down that was trying to tear the car in half (5 motor mounts later), it was safer to race, but not a fun street car to drive. He finally "Fixed" it by parking it and pulling the powertrain to use on a 69 Drag strip only Mustang we toyed with. The P/S steering system was also another antique design. There was a tangled mess underneath of hoses, fittings, a power steering control valve, a power steering cylinder, etc that all contributed to the vague steering that the Ford unibody cars were known for.
Enter the new 1970 Torino. Still unibody, but new steering, brake, and suspension pieces, and many improvements that the engineers already knew were going to be used on the new 71 Mustang. So when our cars debuted, they benefitted from the Torino's brakes, suspension, and a host of other chassis and under body parts. Even the radiator support was shared.
Along with the new Torino suspension pieces, the game changer on our cars is the steering system. An integrated system with no rats nest of leaking hoses, tubes and fittings. A steering box just like the ones used on full size Fords and a variable ratio box available on the performance Mustangs. While not a perfect system, you now at least had something that would handle and ride way better that any production Mustang before and had power steering that you could actually enjoy using.
I'm not a hater like the 65-70 folks can be, so I'm not trashing the pre 71s. They were built just as good, and handled about the same as anything else from that time era. I just feel that our cars are the "Cream that has risen to the top".
I know that I tend to ramble on sometimes, but I feel that our cars really were the best of the first generation Mustangs and were capable of taking on any challenge from ANY other performance car on the road then. OK, I'm done for now. LOL
