What Was The Original Mustang Model Designed After?

The birth of the Mustang was due, in large part, to the birthrate of post-war Americans rapidly coming of age. They wanted something new and different; they didn’t want tail fins or gaudy, chrome ornaments. They wanted something hip and “with it”; they wanted to listen to the Beatles and the Rolling Stones on the car radio, not Pat Boone or Chubby Checker. This was the generation that was going to the moon and they wanted a car to keep up with those ideals.

The original Mustang concept car embodied the ideals of a younger newer generation that wanted something “hip” and “with it”. Two-seat, rear engine, independent rear suspension and even a “birdcage” welded, steel tube frame. Dubbed the Mustang 1 concept car, little of it survived to reach the market place except the side scoops and the Mustang badge of a running horse on a red, white and blue background.

Iacocca’s project was code named, “Special Falcon,” a car designed to sell for $2,500 and weigh 2500 lbs. The car became the Falcon Sprint which cost $600.00 more than the Corvair and sales were disappointing. As the dealers complained about the Falcons piling up on the sales lot, Henry Ford II was none to keen to invest in a new, four- passenger, sporty car. Meanwhile, the Mustang 1 concept car was out running laps as a pace car and being promoted while the company had no intention of ever building it.

Iacocca became impatient; the Falcon Sprint was a patch and not the car they were looking for. He felt that design process was too slow so he initiated a contest between all the Ford divisions for a new design. Gale Halderman was asked to contribute. Although already deep into 1965 model designs, Halderman did some drawings at home that evening and put them on the office board in the morning. His boss, Joe Oros, picked the design over twenty-four others and commissioned a full size clay model.

Although Halderman’s design was chosen, it went to the advance design studio where a team of designers worked on the different aspects, trying to make the glorified Falcon resemble the Mustang 1 concept car that the public admired.

As the car started to come together, Ford research began to show the car to test markets for consumer evaluation, who consistently overestimated the price of the car. They liked what they saw but didn’t think they could afford it. When they heard the car was going to sell for $2,500, they became enthusiastic and Ford began to revise sales figures upward and confidence grew and everyone from Henry Ford II on down suspected they had a winner on their hands.

written by David Cox and MustangMadam