Aj Caldwell: This here is Ford's latest Shelby Mustang.
At 760 horsepower, it's the fastest,
most powerful Mustang the company has ever produced.
However, that monster of a machine evolved from a sports car
that took 17 seconds to go 60 miles an hour.
So, how did the first Mustang go from this to that?
To understand that evolution,
we have to go back to the beginning.
In the '60s Ford was looking to create a car
for baby boomers that was different from the large sedans
and family cars their parents were driving.
Commercial: The Mustang's combination of hot styling,
hot performance, and cool price
will make it a big thing with the youth market.
Aj: So in 1964 the company released its first Mustang.
It was small, but sleek and stylish.
And although it wasn't the most powerful car on the market,
it had a lot of power for its size.
Just how much muscle are we talking?
Well, Ford's top-of-the-line model
packed a 4.7 V-8 capable of 271 horsepower.
It went from 0 to 60 in 7 1/2 seconds.
And while it wasn't the fastest car on the market,
Ford quickly discovered that those weren't its limits.
Ford immediately saw the Mustang's potential
as a bona fide race car.
So they brought in racing engineer Carroll Shelby.
Carroll Shelby: Only Mustang makes it happen.
These aren't just words, it's a fact.
Aj: Shelby gave them not one, but two street legal race cars
with the GT350 and the GT500.
The GT500 was given the same high-powered V-8 engine
found in the Le Mans winning GT40.
This Mustang on steroids got adjustable shocks,
upgraded wheels, a larger anti-roll bar, and best of all,
a starring role next to Nicolas Cage
in "Gone in 60 Seconds."
By the end of the 1960s, the Shelby Mustang,
now being built in Ford's factory,
was given the company's famous Cobra Jet engine.
The Cobra Jet was based on the GT500's previous engine,
but upgraded with enormous valve heads, a bigger carburetor,
and a special performance air cleaner.
Allegedly, the Cobra Jet could produce over 400 horsepower,
but Ford reported it at 335
so it could qualify for easier-to-win classes at drag races.
Ford's Mustang was a colossal hit.
They sold 22,000 cars on the first day
and a million cars in two years.
But its success sparked competition from Chevy
with its Camaro and Pontiac with the Firebird.
Ford needed bigger and bigger engines to compete.
So the Mustang itself grew.
But when tougher fuel-emission laws
forced automakers to make lower power output,
the company was left with a Mustang
that was now bloated and boring.
Sales tanked, and Ford had to rethink their prized pony car.
By the 1970s big cars were out.
Americans fell in love with European sports cars
and Japanese compacts.
Ford realized the problem and responded with the Mustang II.
It was 500 pounds lighter, and 20 inches shorter,
but it also tossed that reputation for speed
right out the window.
Its tiny standard engine offered as little as 88 horsepower,
and its one optional engine was a V-6
that barely made 100!
The top level Mustang took 12 seconds
to hit 60 miles per hour.
But Americans weren't looking for horsepower.
An oil crisis had hit in '73 and gas prices skyrocketed.
The economy was tanking and consumers needed to save money.
Coincidentally, the new Mustang showed up just in time.
It was the perfect solution
because it was affordable and fuel efficient.
Ford sold almost 400,000 units in just the first year.
But as the gas crisis ended,
Americans were back to wanting big, fast cars.
Ford answered with a 5-liter V-8 for the Mustang,
but it was a far cry from the performance
Mustangs were producing a few years earlier.
At 134 horses, it barely got a top speed
of 100 mph.
It was time for the Mustang to go back to its roots.
Ford answered it up with one of its most
iconic cars to date: the Fox Body Mustang.
Ford had been using the Fox platform for everything
from compact cars to station wagons.
It had a unibody structure,
flexible chassis, and wide engine bay.
When they added the Mustang to that list of vehicles,
it was an instant hit.
Even today, its versatility has made the Fox Body Mustang
extremely popular with car tuners.
Ford's new pony car was both longer and wider,
but it cut weight in its suspension.
It weighed 200 pounds less than the Mustang II,
improving gas mileage and reducing drag.
But the muscle-car era had ended.
The country was in an economic depression,
and heavy fuel-emission laws were in place.
Another oil crisis in '79 forced Ford
to shrink its top-level V-8 engine to a smaller one
that powered the Mustang 0 to 60
in a less-than-exciting 10.8 seconds.
Ford tried to keep speed junkies and the EPA happy
by introducing the Mustang's first-ever turbocharged engine.
It was a tiny little four-cylinder engine
that Ford called the Lima
and hoped could be a performance level engine.
But it constantly overheated, and Ford engineers
just couldn't figure out the kinks with turbocharging.
But Ford's introduction of fuel injection
changed everything.
Up until then, engines relied on carburetors
to mix fuel and air for combustion.
But on a four-cylinder engine,
some of the cylinders were further away than others,
and you couldn't guarantee the proper fuel-to-air mixture.
With fuel injection, heavy air pressure
is used to deliver fuel from the gas tank
directly into the engine's cylinders at precise bursts.
There's no longer a need for a carburetor.
With the mix happening right inside the engine cylinders,
the engine becomes more reliable, powerful, fuel efficient,
and even has less poisonous emissions.
This breakthrough allowed Ford to bring back the Lima.
Now, even more powerful.
The full-size V-8 was back too,
and it was the Fox Body's most sought-after engine.
Ford added a more aerodynamic design in '87,
and the Mustang's popularity exploded again.
The Ford Mustang's base price cracked $10,000
for the first time in history.
Sales plummeted, and people were over the Fox Body design.
Surveys showed that consumers wanted something
more reminiscent of the original Mustang.
For the Mustang's 30th anniversary
Ford introduced the fourth generation.
It had a new jelly-bean-type shape,
but featured nods to the original Mustang,
especially in the cabin.
In '93 Ford assembled some of its best engineers
and gave them one mission:
win over the world's biggest speed freaks.
They were called the Special Vehicle Team,
and they blessed the world with the Cobra SVT.
The Cobra model would get the Mustang's first-ever
independent rear suspension.
This means each wheel on the rear axle
was able to move independent of one another,
allowing them to stay planted even in the tightest turns.
While the Fox Body still had the advantage in a drag race,
the new Mustang was much better on the track.
For 2003 Ford added to the Cobra SVT's upgraded engine
the same supercharger found on
the Ford F-150 Lightening pickup truck.
It went from zero to 60 in 4.5 seconds.
Ford's precious pony car was once again
a street legal race car.
The Mustang's number one rival,
the Chevy Camaro, couldn't keep up.
Sales plummeted, and Chevy axed the sports car.
Mustang was now in a class all its own.
The fifth generation finally saw the Mustang
get a platform of its own.
For the first time in 30 years,
the Mustang finally resembled
the iconic design of its original.
By 2011 Ford would add to it a brand-new V-8
known as the Coyote.
This engine was rated at around 412 horsepower
and priced at $30,000.
With the Coyote under the hood
the Mustang had a faster Nürburgring time
than BMW's $60,000 M3.
In 2007, Ford and Carroll Shelby
would revive their partnership
and produce the first GT500 in almost 40 years.
By 2013 they were cranking out
the most powerful American V-8 you could find on the road.
But that independent rear axle that was so well-received
was ditched to cut costs.
But consumers didn't care; sales skyrocketed.
But two things were coming that were gonna ruin the party:
the 2008 recession and the return of the Camaro.
Chevy took note of the public's reaction to the new Mustang,
and it decided to revive its pony car.
With one two-hour-and-23-minute commercial
called "Transformers," Chevy took back the market.
The last five years of the fifth-generation Mustang
was the worst five years of the Mustang's sale history.
The Camaro was America's favorite pony car.
So, in 2015 Ford gave us what we know
as the present day Mustang.
It's an accumulation of all of
the Mustang's successes in the past.
It has that beloved squared-off design
from its very first model,
and it finally balances fuel efficiency with performance.
That short-lived, but popular independent rear suspension
has finally made its way to standard equipment.
Combined with the wider body for a low center of gravity,
it makes for the best-handling Mustang in years.
And an even faster version of the Coyote V-8,
dubbed the Predator, has been put in the GT500,
making 760 horsepower, with a 0 to 60 of 3.5 seconds,
making it the fastest street-legal car
Ford has ever made.
Ford's next Mustang isn't quite the car you'd expect.
The Mustang Mach-E is an electric crossover,
but it is a return to Mustang's original ethos.
In a world where young people
are more environmentally conscious,
the Mach-E could be the company's latest attempt
at capturing the next generation of drivers.