(engines revving)
(tires squealing)
- We've launched the new age of American sports car
that continues to this day.
It's more American than football, apple pie,
and blissfully wasteful consumerism combined.
It's also very likely that you've owned one,
or know someone who owned one.
It's the Ford Mustang.
Here's everything you need to know to get
up to speed on the Ford Mustang.
(upbeat electronic music)
Let's get something out of the way right now.
The Mustang is not a muscle car,
or at least it didn't start out as one.
When first sold in 1964,
the Mustang was offered with four engines,
the biggest being a 289 cubic inch V8,
making a respectful 271 horsepower.
Not exactly setting the world on fire,
but that wasn't the point of the Mustang.
The Vice President of Ford Motor Company at the time,
Lee Iacocca,
(amplified) Lee Iacocca,
wanted to give the American consumer a car
that weighed under 2,500 pounds, for under 2,500 bucks.
He also wanted to design and produce
the car in a year and a half.
This kind of timeline was unheard of back then,
and would still be impressive today.
- [Video Game Announcer] Impressive.
- Iacocca saw an untapped market
for a four-seat, two-door sports car,
and he wanted to get it to market before anyone else.
To save money on design and production costs,
Ford used the chassis from the Falcon, their family sedan.
Now, according to Iacocca,
the Mustang's iconic long hood and a short deck.
- Wow, it looks like a giant--
- Johnson!
- I said deck.
Were inspired by European cars of the era.
Iacocca also credited the Chevy Corvair Monza
with the idea of including bucket seats
and a floor-mounted shifter.
He debuted the Mustang in the 1964 World's Fair
in Flushing Meadows, New York,
and on the very same day,
dealerships opened their doors with the new car
in their showrooms.
That's insane.
- It's insane.
- Ford dealers sold 22,000 Mustangs on the very first day.
A huge part of Mustang's initial success
was Ford's marketing campaign towards young baby boomers.
This was, of course, before they ruined the world.
The youthful flocked to the dealerships
to get their hands on the sportiest cars around.
The Mustang's launch could not have been better.
The only thing stopping Ford from selling more Mustangs
was their ability to build more of them.
Ford pumped out 1,200 cars a day,
and even that wasn't enough to keep up with the demand.
In its first year of production,
Ford sold over 400,000 Mustangs,
and made over a billion dollars.
- A billion dollars?
- It was undeniable.
The Mustang was a success.
- [video Game Announcer] Go!
Success!
- Alright, boom.
Back to the facts.
In 1965, a man with a girl's name.
- My name's Carroll Shelby, and performance is my business.
- Carroll Shelby had a dream, literally.
He woke up in the middle of the night.
- Wake up.
- And wrote down a name.
He woke up the next morning and saw COBRA
scrawled across his notepad.
Shelby modified a 289 V8 to make 35 more horsepower,
and then he put it back in a '65 Mustang.
Then he gave it blue racing stripes.
It was the birth of a legend.
The GT350 was a race car for the street,
and that wasn't just a marketing gimmick.
The car actually competed in the SCCA Production B-Class,
and ended up winning the championship three years in a row.
The hype was real, and in true race car fashion,
Shelby offered the car for nearly double
the price of a normal Mustang.
- Sold it for double the price.
- The Shelby name would forever be tied to the Mustang
and it continues today.
In 1967, the Mustang got a major facelift
with the introduction of the new Fastback.
Sure, the Fastback had been an option since '65,
but the updated '67 design was an instant classic.
The sweeping lines of the new model were the
perfect mix of American aggression and sex appeal.
Just like me.
Heh.
(strained laughter)
The grill had a bigger opening,
like a shark waiting to strike.
The taillights were now concave
and the Fastback reached all the way to the back.
It was a revelation and it still stands out
as one of the best-looking American cars ever.
The legacy of cool was cemented in 1968
with the release of Bullitt,
starring the coolest guy in the world, Steve McQueen.
Bullitt features an iconic car chase
between a '68 Charger and '68 Mustang driven by McQueen
through the streets of San Francisco.
Steve McQueen did a fair amount of his own driving
for the scene as he was an accomplished driver.
You can actually tell when he's driving,
by looking at the rear view mirror in the shot.
If it's down, Steve's driving.
If it's up, it's one of his stunt drivers.
So now it's 1969,
and the American muscle craze is in full swing.
Ford's rivals are swinging for the fences
with their new designs.
The Camaro, the Charger, the AMC Javelin,
are all giving the Mustang a run for its money.
So?
What does Ford do?
They go super-sonic.
(screaming)
Ford announced the Mach 1, an absolute show-stopper
featuring a matte-black hood, front-splitter,
hood pins, and the crown jewel:
a 428 cubic inch race engine known as the Cobra Jet.
Cobra.
Jet.
Poisonous snake and jet.
- Whoa.
- If you wanted the ultimate street racing machine,
Ford had you covered.
While Ford was updating the Mustang
with the new and interesting looks, gas became expensive.
Nobody wanted to buy cars with giant engines anymore.
They simply couldn't afford to fill them up.
So?
What did Ford do?
Did they A, discontinue the Mustang line until
it made sense to bring it back?
Or B, fundamentally change the Mustang to conform to
market trends until it was no longer recognizable,
and sullied its good name in the process?
B. They, they went with B.
The new Mustang, now called the Mustang II,
shared zero components with the previous models.
The Mustang II?
Its sister-car was the Pinto.
The Pinto, man.
The fuckin' Pinto, dude.
The fuck, Ford?
In 1974, the Mustang was not available with a V8 option.
Instead, consumers could choose between an inline-four
and a V6, neither of which made any power.
- (agonized screaming) Why?
- However, this didn't stop the Mustang II
from leaving the dealership.
Ford sold nearly 300,000 Mustang IIs that year,
making it the sixth best-selling Mustang ever.
(crickets chirping)
For the rest of the seventies,
Ford tacked on aesthetic upgrades to the Mustang,
and even offered a Cobra package,
in honor of the original Shelby Cobra.
But these were nothing more than appearance packages.
Ford updated the Mustang, yet again, in the early '80s
with their new Fox unibody chassis.
And they even experimented with
turbo-charged engine arrangements.
But, sales were slumping.
Ford proposed replacing the Mustang
with a front-wheel drive design
they had borrowed from Mazda.
Mustang fans flooded Ford with letters in protest,
demanding that they keep the Mustang alive.
Ford responded by keeping the original pony car
and naming the new car, the Probe.
1987 saw a renewed and refreshed Mustang.
The 302 cubic inch, or five liter, engine
got new forged-aluminum pistons,
and some bitchin' new cylinder heads,
which made it great for modifications.
The Mustang was back!
The 5.0 Fox body is still a solid choice for anyone
looking for a great project car.
There is a huge after-market,
and you can build a Fox body for nearly any need.
You wanna go drag racing?
Cool.
Drifting?
It can do it.
Just wanna tear up the canyon?
The Fox body is for you.
The '90s arrived and so did the Fresh Prince,
and the SN95 body stop.
It was rounder and sportier-looking than the previous gens.
Starting in 1996, the Mustang was no longer offered
with the 302 Windsor, the motor that,
in many different configurations,
had powered the Mustang since 1967.
Rest in peace, Windsor.
- Goodbye.
- This is the Mustang that I remember from high school.
They were okay.
SN95 was slower, looked like an amoeba, dickheads drove 'em.
If you were a girl in 1996 that had rich parents,
they probably bought you
a convertible V6 SN95 for graduation.
In teal.
Ah, I still remember Britney.
Next up was the new-edge redesign in 1999.
It had some really cool versions.
Both the SVT Cobra and the Terminator had
super-charged engines and independent rear suspension,
I think a first for the Mustang.
And the SVT Cobra had a giant wing
and is gonna be a definite collector's car.
The new 2005 Mustang looked like the old Mustang.
- Yes!
Yes!
- The new S197 design was a direct evolution
of the iconic Mustang lines of the '60s.
You might be a little numb to them now,
because these Mustangs are everywhere,
but when it debuted,
everyone agreed that this was a great-looking car.
The throw-back styling was a huge success,
setting off a retro trend in the auto industry
for years to come.
Chevy and Dodge responded with retro designs of their own,
and they've all sold really, really well.
♫ Money, money, money
The updated 4.6 liter engine now made 310 horsepower,
and for the first time in Mustang's history,
the S197 was its own platform.
It only shared random parts with a Lincoln,
which is like a nice Ford, so, who cares?
In 2010, Ford updated the Mustang again
with refreshed body panels, giving it a new look.
The next year, Ford unveiled the new, but familiar,
five liter Coyote V8 to replace the old engine.
The Coyote produced 412 horsepower
and 390 foot-pounds of torque from the factory,
all for around $30,000.
It went around the Nurburgring faster than an M3.
'Ze Germans were not happy.
- Nein, nein, nein, nein, nein!
- 2013 saw Carroll Shelby's swan song, his final GT500.
Mr. Shelby passed away in 2012,
but he gave design input on this car in his final years,
like the true gearhead he was.
The GT500 made 662 horsepower
and at a top speed of 202 miles an hour.
Nowadays, when people think about monster horsepower
from the factory, they usually bring up the SRT Hellcat,
but Shelby did it first.
The latest redesign came in 2015.
Now the Mustang is a little wider and a little lower.
You'll be hard-pressed to find
a better-looking car for the money.
- Damn.
- And even though it's starting to look
a little curvy again, the look is undeniably Mustang.
And one more thing:
independent rear suspension's back, baby, yes!
Ford decided the world was ready
for a great handling Mustang.
Welcome to the 21st century, Ford.
It could be argued that we are experiencing
a renaissance of affordable power,
and we have the Mustang to thank for a lot of that.
We don't even blink when a new car makes 300 horsepower,
when 15 years ago that would be pretty impressive.
Now you can buy an American car with four seats,
that gets 30 miles a gallon, and sounds like this.
(engine revving)
All for around 30 grand.
That's pretty amazing when you think about it.
The Mustang created its own class,
and chances are, if there's a car that you love,
it's great because at one point,
it had to compete with a Mustang.
And with strong rumors of hybrid,
and even EV Mustangs in development,
you can rest assured that Ford's Mustang
will be setting the bar for years to come.
This is everything you need to know to get
up to speed on the Ford Mustang.
(upbeat electronic music)
The Mustang has such a history
that we're gonna have to do a second part for this one,
so keep your eyes peeled in the months to come.
Make sure you like, subscribe, and share,
and let us know in the comments what we missed,
what cars you want to see us cover.
What's your favorite Mustang?
Do you have a Mustang memory?
Maybe your grandpa owned one, your uncle, your dad.
My dad didn't.
Fuck you, dad.
Go over to our YouTube and subscribe to that shit.
We're gonna start having stuff over there
that you can't get here.
Holler. (laughs)