What "almost"- Mustang do you wish Ford would have offered...

[Kit Sullivan]

I kind of see your point with Grande, but I think your view of the entire Mustang line is a liitle biased towards the performance side of things. All Mustangs were not considered, marketed or viewed as "muscle cars", although that is its enduring image these days.

The base Mustsng was really just kind of considered a personal and economical coupe, no sporting pretensions inferred. The psrformance image was added to the base model.

Now, to be fair, while I disagree with your saying that making a "luxury" sports car is schizophrenic...I will say that for the 71-73 body style I actually agree with you, but for a diffetent reason.

The original 65 Mustang was designed as a coupe and a convert', and looked great as both. When the fastback came later, it also looked great.

That is because the designers started with a coupe and got that right. Almost any coupe will look good with a fastback added to it.

But, for the 71-73s they did it reverse. Owing to the increadi.g popularity of muscle cars, the 71 car was designed as a pure fastback first, then the coupe version was cobbled up afterwards.

Coupe to fastback almost always works well.

Fadtback to coupe hardly ever works as well.

My apologies as well to any coupe or Grande owners...its just an opinion, nothing important.

 

[cudak888]

Coupe to fastback almost always works well.Fastback to coupe hardly ever works as well.

Main problem with the coupe is that the flying buttress C-pillar doesn't taper enough. Some angles look fine,but others cause the roof to appear enormous.

Ironically enough, the stylists would have been best off copying the coupe directly from the Sportsroof, rather than designing the taller window line. Cases in point:

This one came out with an unusual Maverick/Falcon XB flavor to it:

A slightly steeper flying buttress - definitely a good production candidate for the coupe:

Ultra-conservative:

Speaking of photoshopped images: Wagons don't work on the '65s, but it sure does on the '71-73s:

Of course, if Ford had done the S197 correctly, it might have looked like this:

S197 owners have a fit every time they see it. Must have done something right! ::blah:: Ironically enough, the Photoshop has as much '71-73 going for it as '69-70.

-Kurt

 

[caspianwendell]

Thats a good choice. Early on in development, a BOSS 429 powered 71 was in the plans, but never made it to production.

Plans were also in place to have the 385-series ( 429/460) developed up to a 501 Cobra Jet. Now THAT might have been pretty awesome!

Damn insurance companies!

Oh yeah, and in a vert

 

[Stangace20]

The Mustang GTR concept from a few years ago....I loved the side exhaust and those quad/split headlights (sux nobody made them aftermarket)

 

[Don65Stang]

I totally dig the wagon.

 

[Mister 4x4]

I kind of see your point with Grande, but I think your view of the entire Mustang line is a liitle biased towards the performance side of things. All Mustangs were not considered, marketed or viewed as "muscle cars", although that is its enduring image these days.

The base Mustsng was really just kind of considered a personal and economical coupe, no sporting pretensions inferred. The psrformance image was added to the base model.

My understanding was a little different - just about every documentary and book I've seen leaned more towards the Mustang being a fun, sporty car aimed squarely at younger people (baby boomers at the time). And since Ford didn't have anything to counter the Corvette, it was there to attempt to fill a niche (the early T-Bird, as cool as it was, fell a little short when they got bigger and less sporty as the Corvette was moving in the "factory sports car" direction).

Muscle Car and Pony Car wars didn't really settle in until the later '60s ('66-ish), and a lot of the blame goes to Carroll Shelby for stuffing huge and high-powered engines into small, lightweight cars. The term Pony Car was actually Ford's fault, because mid-sized factory 'fun' cars around the size of the Mustang were tossed into the new unofficially termed category (which makes sense, since the Mustang was pretty much the first of the Pony Car niche - all other cars of that overall size were pretty much smaller versions of their boxy and bigger siblings).

Luxury car to me (of the period) means: Cadillac, Buick, Chrysler, Lincoln, etc. Those cars were designed to be big, roomy, cushy, quiet cars for people who wanted those things and could afford them. Like I said before, tossing on some chrome molding strips, white walls, and wire wheel caps onto a 'sporty' mid-sized coupe doesn't really fill the bill. Especially when you could get the same or better options on a Mach 1.

But... it is what it is, we have the Grande, nobody got hurt or died in the process, and I'm still not throwing rocks (despite how it might seem). Based on the thread title, if I were in charge of marketing the Mustang, the Grande would've likely not happened in the first place. Obviously, there was a market for it... which means I probably would've been fired for low sales at some point. rofl

 

[Kit Sullivan]

The Mustang was clearly marketed as a "secretary's car" when it debuted. The plethora of options (a new development at the time) gave way to the ad phrase "the car designed to be designed by you."

A "sporty" car to be sure, but the real Muscle "face" of the car was worked in later, beginning in '67.

 

[Piston_Twister]

I like that station wagon idea....pretty cool photoshop.

As for what "almost" was offered, I really would love to see what Shelby would have done with the big girls! I like to dream that the GT350 would have been a nicely done up Cleveland (if Shelby had still had his hands involved with it, think of the aftermarket parts that might have been!). Of course the GT500 would have to be at least a bumped up 460....or the rumored 500+ inch versions that Ford was dreaming up.

I know there was the Shelby Europa, to me it was just like the Mexcian Shelbys....someone else using his name to sell it.

Just my .02 censts worth.

Actually now that I think about it....if the Boss 302 was carried over like the prototypes showed....but done for the coupes as a performance package, hmmmmmmm.

Michael

 

[Mike429cj]

I know the story on the Twister Special 1970 Mach 1's. But I saw one when I was a kid in person and I just loved the tornado on the rear quarters.

So I would have liked a Texas Twister Special since I am a native Texan. Imagine a 1971-73 Twister Special!

We have lots of tornados in Texas too!

 

[auron73mach1]

Maybe an awd 2000 cobra r with a supercharged 5.4 4 valve would have been nice