Some time back, I was in a sales training class where a person walked out in a huff because they claimed we were being taught to manipulate people. This was rather amusing and perplexing to attendees such as myself that were knowingly and willingly paying to be instructed how to gain this particular brand of mind control. I hate to say it, but that’s very much the heart of marketing, and most if not all of us have been (or are, and may yet again be) victims of advertising purporting half-truths. And to be certain, the car industry is as guilty as any when it comes to mind-altering messaging.
The seventies and eighties were likely the height of car companies messing with our heads, particularly in terms of what a “big” and “small” car actually is. They didn’t make cars “more compact” anymore, they downsized them (a term that transmogrified into “rightsizing” as a way to make executives feel better as they hand employees a box for their personal items and a severance check).
In the flurry of activity to shrink – sorry, downsize – cars, some confusing overlaps occurred. At one point we had “full-size” General Motors and Ford sedans that were only as big as (or even a bit smaller than) “mid-size” offerings at that same dealership, a disconnect that no doubt had salespeople scratching their heads as to how they could spin this on the customer. Consider the example below:
The “full-size” Panther LTD coupe (with odd horizontal opera lights) is actually more than a bit smaller than the “mid-size” rebadged Torino LTD II. And to complicate things more, I bet that Panther has more room inside. If adults were confused by this narrative, you can only imagine how an elementary school-age person such as myself at the time felt. Naturally, I believed the stories the Big Three were feeding me, only to find out later that I was brainwashed, particularly with their malaise-era sports coupes.
A Tale Of II Mustangs
In researching my earlier post on the controversial, compact Pinto-based 1974 Mustang II, I found out that Lee Iacocca might have had a hand in distorting views of certain Ford ponycars. Lee went on record as saying that the Mustang of 1971-73 had gotten “fat” and needed to be right-sized to a much smaller offering to meet consumer demand and fight the imports. He was partially right, but off on a few facts. Let’s start with the 1971-73 model shown below:
As I demonstrated in my earlier post, this alleged “giant” Mustang was barely any larger than the concurrent Camaro, and the 1974 Mustang II that replaced it ended up possibly overshooting its target by going smaller than even General Motors subcompacts:
There’s nothing wrong with a small car, and the Mustang II did have first-year sales that came close to the record-breaking 1964 ½ original, but demand dropped off quickly. The malaise-era styling combined with emasculated performance caused the faithful to throw a fit not seen again until the Blue Oval threatened to make the front-drive Probe the new Mustang. Also, the Mustang II had to do the heavy lifting of competing with a whole range of cars from not-shrunken over-400-cubic-inch Firebirds all the way down to imported four-cylinder coupes like the Toyota Celica. One car alone would have a difficult time trying to capture that wide of a market even if it was the greatest automobile in the history of Western civilization (which the Mustang II unquestionably was not).
This made me think that Ford might have needed to bring a larger AND smaller Mustang to market for 1974. I’ve already shown you the small Mustang II-sized “Stallion” model that a reader asked to see come to life; you can see it below and read more about here.
In the absence of the misinformation that lingers today, we now know that the “big” Mustang wasn’t really that large to begin with, and we’d want a new 1974 version of that larger-of-the-two cars for the lineup to be the same size as the Camaro/Firebird and satisfy that part of the “true” pony car market. Actually, I want to grow the “big” Mustang even more, but not in the way you think. Let me explain.
Not Bigger On The Inside
Even if the 1971-73 Mustang wasn’t necessarily any bigger than a Camaro, the critics were right about one thing they bashed: the space efficiency. The “big” Mustang competed with Ford’s own Continental Mark coupes in its ability to pull a “reverse TARDIS” by being smaller on the inside than one expected based on the car’s outside, with the sparse space poorly put to use at that.
That low roofline made for undeniably one of the slickest-looking Mustangs ever, but it played hell with interior space. The problem was exacerbated not only by the way Ford partitioned the interior but by how the design limited access. Despite the seeming mile and a half distance from the top of the rear window to the bumper, there’s only a relatively short opening deck lid that reveals a rather small space that appears to be spare tire storage but purports to be “the trunk.” A deflated spare instead of a full-sized tire helps the situation as you can see on the gold-colored car pictured below, but it’s still pretty embarrassing for a car this large. Yes, I know that the second-gen Camaro trunk is equally pathetic.
Behind the cramped rear seats, there’s a narrow space for cargo just like on a VW Beetle, albeit much smaller and even harder to get to (and unlike the Bug it was way too small to ride in as a little kid, and yes, I did try). Folding down the back seat gives you a more sizeable area to work with, and a little access panel lets you connect to that tiny trunk. The fly in the ointment is that any cargo you want in this space has to either be shoved in behind the front seats (like on the equally bad C3 Corvette) or fit into the mail slot of an open deck lid. Marketing pics often showed skis going in there, since longish but very skinny objects are the only thing that might fit easily. It’s not unlike having a large backpack with only a few six-inch-long zippers on each side to access your stuff.
You expect to make sacrifices with sporting cars, yet with the 1973-4 energy crisis Ford could no longer turn a blind eye to a car the length of a Volvo 240 station wagon but with Pinto interior space. Not only that, but contemporary testers found the cabin dark and cramped feeling thanks to the tiny rear windows combined with the low ceiling.
Clearly, the length of the 1971-73 Mustang was not the problem; the car just didn’t provide any more useable space than the original 1965 car. Honestly, the Camaro and Firebird were no better and somehow got a pass. Our “big” version of the two 1974 Mustang offerings will need to improve on this; as is often the case, the solution was right under Ford’s nose.
You Couldn’t Call It “Milano” Anyway
It’s quite rare that an auto show car would demonstrate features more practical than what would end up appearing on the production version, but there’s at least one Ford concept that did just that.
In 1970, Ford teased showgoers with the Mustang Milano, a concept with a name that apparently will get you a cease and desist from the Italian government today. The Milano used a 1970 Mustang as its base and was supposed to preview some of the features that would be on the upcoming new 1971 car, even though at that point the design had long since been locked in. The bumperless front and back were far more radical than the production car.
The rear roofline and quarter window treatment were nowhere to be seen on the soon-to-be-release fastback ‘Stang, but the design did appear to make a trip to where the cool Fords went to hide during the malaise era in America: the Land Down Under. The roofline of the Milano was emulated on the awesome Australian Falcon XB coupe that featured prominently in Mad Max films.
Surprisingly, this late-sixties Hot Wheels-toy-dream of what the next decade’s cars might look like had the practical-but-not-produced feature of a hatchback over the cargo area. If the Milano was in fact built on an existing Mustang body, it’s really a proof of concept that the car of this size just didn’t need to be as inherently impractical as it was. That lovely spokesmodel appears to have plenty of room lying around in the Milano’s cargo space; if she were to attempt that in the 1971-73 production car it would look like an abduction in process, provided that she could even fit at all.
There’s something very nice about this Milano concept that seems worth revisiting. As much as I like that SportsRoof 1971-73 Mustang, I know it needed some major changes to become a more useable car, if for no other reason than to allow the beancounters to allow it to live on another day.
For 1974, beyond the fuel crunch there were two seemingly disappointing things that happened at Ford which, in retrospect, could have been used in positive way; “flip the script” is the painfully annoying term that’s been used since the pandemic.
First, the government mandated 5 MPH bumpers that resulted in huge steel girders stuck onto the ends of cars like park benches. However, a few manufacturers (like Chevy with the Corvette) employed body-colored urethane bumpers that actually improved the looks of the cars. The other disappointing thing from my viewpoint was Ford’s 1974 discontinuation of the ultra-cool fastback “Get off my lawn” Torino mid-sized coupes, which were dropped from the lineup as rooflines became more formal as demonstrated by Starsky & Hutch’s “Flying Tomato” Torino.
Combined with the end of the “large” Mustang in 1973, this move left Ford in the US without any fastbacked mid-sized or large car as cool as that XB Falcon. Producing a version of the Milano concept as the “bigger” 1974 Mustang could have solved that.
As with the Ghia proposal that I turned into the “Stallion”, to productionize the Milano we’d need to raise the back of the roof on the Milano to allow more headroom for rear passengers that the concept car didn’t have (it was strictly a two-seater). To my eye, such a change doesn’t damage the appearance nearly as much as you’d think. Also, the Milano concept would never work with standard bumpers, but by using a “soft nose” we could keep that loop-shaped nose that simulates the front of the low production 1969 Shelby GT500. Covered headlamps and low turn signals would take the look of the 1971-73 cars to a clean and aggressive next level. A functional rubber spoiler would assist in downforce and pushing air to the radiator.
Instead of the sunken back of the Milano show car, my production 1974 big ‘Stang would have a convex urethane fascia panel that could withstand the 5MPH mandated hit (the “gas cap” is of course a fake). Triple recessed slots on each side house the traditional-looking Mustang taillights; the slots continue down, terminating in twin exhaust pipes and the backup lamps.
A hatchback! The 1974 big Mustang would be a hatchback! Now there’s far better access to the space available and in folding down the rear seat you’d be rivaling a Saab for how’d-ya-fit-that-in-there versatility (though sadly lacking the low liftover of that car). You can see in the picture below where the fold-down seat would be; it’s the vertical line between that rear seat side panel (with the armrest, ashtray, and power window switch) and the Quadrophonic Ford rear speaker (which would be cranking Carl Douglas’s Kung Fu Fighting many, many times in 1974). The cover on the side near the back of the car would be where the vertical deflated spare tire would fit (the jack and tire iron would fit in the identical compartment on the other side).
For such a sleek, menacing-looking car, you’d never guess that it could carry about four or five more bags of mulch than you could in a Trans Am (hey, I carried many mulch bags in our 2+2 Nissan S30 and Z32). Honestly, that’s kind of what happened when the hatchback Fox-body Mustang premiered later in 1979, arriving with more rear seat and cargo area than the second- and third-generation F-Body coupes.
Mustang Sally Needed Power Assists By Now
Let’s be honest; no matter what we do, the performance of any 1974 American car is going to suck. It took another decade before Detroit (or anyone) really figured out how to deal with smog regulations and still give us anything to match the heyday of late sixties horsepower. At the very least, though, I just can’t put that damn Thriftpower six in the big ‘Stang as a base motor. If you really would want the only engine to rival the Mopar Slant 6 in durability and sheer boredom, don’t buy a Mustang.
You’d get the 302 Windsor as standard, and extra carburetor barrels plus the larger Cleveland as an upgrade. The only engine worth having would be the leaded-gas-running 351 4 Barrel Clevland with the four exhaust outlets shown and a dismal 255 horsepower; even that would likely disappear soon after 1974. Power steering would have to be standard, as well as power front disc brakes, but really the less we talk about mechanicals on this thing, the better. Yikes.
While I gave the smaller “Stallion” Mustang a double-cowl dash like the original 1964 ½ car, for the “big” Mustang I wanted to keep that separation but make this wider car still be driver focused. I utilized a design very similar to the early Z cars with a giant tach and speedo in front of the driver, and then having secondary gauges in the center angled towards the driver. The console and dash below that also aims slightly towards the pilot, with Ford parts bin radio, HVAC, and mechanical digital clock are all plopped in place. The console has two storage bins, though the smaller second one is filled with the power window controls if you spring for that option.
II Mustangs is Better Than I
Ultimately, we probably never should have fat-shamed the 1973 Mustang any more than we blasted the 1974 model as the “puny car.” These were spot-on with the competition, and the right cars for their times; comparing them to products from other eras isn’t really fair.
I’ve heard the saying that “there’s an ass for every seat” as it relates to there being buyers for almost any car. That’s true, but in Ford’s case, the problem was the reverse of that. They really left a lot of asses seatless in 1974 that ended up finding their butt holders at General Motors or even imported car dealerships. The Mustang II tried hard, and it had success that few people give it credit for, yet ultimately there was money left on the table that the Blue Oval could have grabbed with a more expansive model lineup. The import-oriented “Stallion” would have been the first of the two-pronged attack, while a larger more traditional Mustang could have put paid to the competition in the hotly contested two-door “sports” car market.
Fast-forward to today and the once-thriving coupe market is but a distant memory and the Mustang is not only the sole “pony” car available in America, but the only actual no-truck, no-crossover that Ford offers at all.
These Old Ford Styling Concepts For The Mustang II Show How Wild It Could Have Been – The Autopian
Damn, that is one good looking Mustang. I’d definitely want one of those in my driveway today as a classic.
OH, HELL YES!!!!!!!
No offense but I will blast the early 70s mustangs for being too big. Having ridden in one, it somehow has no more interior space and somehow a smaller trunk opening than my frs that is nearly 2 feet shorter and is also in desperate need of a liftback. I know that you compared it to its contemporaries, but that’s just as much of a knock against how big they are also rather than it being the right size.
That said, I do love how you modernized the design, and agree on the urethane bumpers being a game changer for the looks.
Very nice, but isn’t it called a NACA duct? When I first read about them (in regards to a 924 turbo) the never before heard word caught my attention. They are a clever design to gather same air while keeping a low drag coefficient.
Yes, it’s an acronym for National Advisory Commitee for Aeronautics, which was the precursor for NASA
You made a hatchback look fast and kept the tribar lights and “modernized” them instead of turning them into anonymous blobs. This is a car from a better timeline than ours.
Wow.
If Ford went back to that Milano concept for the next new Mustang, that would be pretty ok. If there is one…
Wow that Milano concept looks fantastic (outside of maybe the humongous taililghts). My problem with the Mustang II wasn’t that it was tiny but that it was dumpy and sad looking. The 2 door Chevy Vega did a much better job taking Camaro styling and applying it to a smaller platform. This just seems like Ford read the tea leaves wrong and/or were just too ahead of their time, huge inefficient land yachts continued to sell well through the ’70s, and the larger Camaro and Firebird sold quite well as near as I can tell anecdotally.
I once read a very good definition of sales: “Convincing someone to do something they would not have otherwise considered doing.” Anything else; it’s just order-taking.
The reference to the XA-B-C Falcon was the first thing I saw in the Milano concept image—wow, what a missed opportunity that was—and I’ve always enjoyed seeing it in the very short-lived second-gen Torino. (Watching the original Mad Max as a youngster before the Internet, I always wondered what car the Interceptor was based on).
Having spent a fair bit of time in a friend’s ’73 Mustang in college, I can testify: the interior space was claustrophobic for a car that big. The visibility out the rear was worse than a tour bus. When he would crank it up past 100mph late at night on I-95, I would spend the entire ride home praying to any god who would listen; at that point the 20-year-old suspension was soft and pliable as a marshmallow.
Indeed, when buying that new 1965 289 convertible my dad claimed he had to wait three months to get it, for one reason: he ordered front disc brakes. Not a popular extra, so apparently most buyers didn’t care if the front drums were only good for about one stop from over sixty miles an hour.
You just made me yearn for something that never was. Good job, Dr. Strange!
Much is made of the XA-B-C Hardtops, (not coupes as no B-pillars), because of Mad Max, but the only reason we got them was the Aussie Falcon came in Sedan, Wagon, Ute and Van too. Maybe if the Falcon had lived on in the US (as a mid-size), this Mustang could have worked.
I have an XC Wagon to this day, and love my NASA bonnet scoops!
Also, a big issue with US offerings in general (which I tried to correct a bit with this concept): anything “sporting” has to be cramped and can’t have four doors or even a decent amount of cargo space. With Aussie cars that never seemed to be an issue; the idea of a muscle sedan was fully embraced.
I get it – but what platform for this Mustang?
Are we still on the Falcon platform – which underpinned Maverick/Comet and Granada/Monarch?
Because that platform gives us the flat load bay that the Falcon wagon offered – which was even offered in 60 & 61 as a “Tudor Wagonette”!
But body rigidity may have needed to progress for such a powerful car – and that large heavy hatch may have needed heftier C pillars to carry the weight & torsional loads. And why not reuse side-glass shapes we’ve already spent money on?
As for that long, long, empty nose – why not put it to use?
How about putting the spare up there ahead of the engine and behind the radiator?
Or just giving us a Frunk?
Ford did put the spare tire in the front of their “large” UK market Zephr/Zodiac series (the car before the Euro Granada) since it had a long nose and short V4!
Honestly, this was before the Fox platform so they really didn’t have a lot of new platforms to work with. Even the Mustang platform from 1971-73 could have been tweaked as long as it could have offered more space inside.
I should have said “also” when referring to Maverick, etc – as Mustang & Cougar were on the same Falcon platform up to 1973.
What would really be interesting is if Mercury had kept Cougar on the Falcon platform in ’74 rather than going all Montego with it. Yes, I know they probably went big since they had Capri to handle the sport mission – Yet….
What’s up with the persistent bashing of marketing at the Autopian? For a car community that purports to welcome everyone, I feel regularly attacked here when I’m just trying to relax and enjoy a break from work. Many people like myself who work in marketing try very, very hard to focus on educating prospective buyers with clear and technically accurate information. Who hurt you?
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with marketing. As a person involved every day in sales and marketing of my designs, my only issues are with marketing that’s deceptive. Believe me, I spend most of my time trying to educate customers and dispel the misinformation that they’ve been fed by competitors. I thought that I made that pretty clear with the post, but if there was any offense taken, it truly wasn’t meant that way.
I have been guilty of the unnecessary use of ‘marketing wanks’. I did stop that when I saw someone mention they were in marketing: I was being exclusive, not inclusive.
-My apologies
I think we as consumers tend to generalize on certain professions, like the “marketing guys”, “the dealers”, “the bean counters” and even “the designers”, and tend to forget that most folks in any profession are decent human beings that try their best to be kind, not fuck up and not to be assholes.
I worked in fintech for a while, and it was annoying that everyone assumed I was ripping people off for a living. I wasn’t, and I’ve started to think twice before assuming things about other people’s jobs.
As a fellow Autopian, please have this smiley 🙂
The 71-73 Mustangs are, IMO, the worst-looking Mustangs ever designed with the SN95 right on its heels. The Gran Torino of that time looks a thousand times better than either of them. Hell, the Mustang Cobra II wasn’t a horrible looking car..
Worst looking and worst packaged – even though the Mustang II was everything bad about the malaise era, it was just as roomy inside as the 71-73.
By worst, you meant greatest? The fastback is unfuckwithable. The coupe, you got me there.
I agree there- SportsRoof looks hot but the “notchback” with the sail panels I dislike almost as much as the similar Jag XJ-S (especially the US spec XJ-S).
I actually like the design of those Jags.
I disagree. The fastbacks and coupes thru 1970 are iconic. The Fox body hatchbacks and notchbacks are great. The 71-73s are all turds.
That green Torino really does it for me
Yes! I want more factory decal packages!
Looks like my old AMC Javelin without the hatch but still a trunk you could sneak 4 small close friends into the drive in with.
Have we ever seen the Javelin featured here? A better design but without deep pockets.
Am I the only one who sees quite a bit of the new Charger coupe design in that what if 1974 Mach 1? I think its a good looking car, so I think it is funny that a new model shows seeming evidence that it was inspired by a version of an old car that didn’t exist until AFTER.
That roofline was used on things like the (first) Maverick as well, not to mention cars like even the 2+2 version of the S30 Z cars.
Doggone that’s sweet. Do want
Didn’t Ford have the full size OJ Bronco on the road at the same time as the smaller Ranger based Bronco II? Why couldn’t they do the same with the Mustang?
Looking at height of the seat back relative to the roofline, the only people who could have bought this would have had the nicknames “Shorty” or “No-neck.”
More important is the assurance that one could bang in the seat-folded-down trunk, if I remember my 1970’s correctly. That’s why that woman is in that ad.
More important is the assurance that one could bang in the seat-folded-down trunk, if I remember my 1970’s correctly. That’s why that woman is in that ad.
Ah the swingin’ 70’s.
Today the closest you can get to that is a trunk monkey
Hey your personal business is your personal business. TMI DUDE!!!!
Shocking, I know.
Not that surprising really. JK
Trunk Monkey could totally be a wholesome board game advertised to nuclear families.
Since this is the ’70s, and Ford, the bigger one probably would have been called the Gran Mustang
If it got the laser stripe, I could live with it.
Mustang Grandé
Don’t forget there was a version of the 1971-73 Mustang called the “Grande”
I did forget. Yep, that’s on-brand for the ’70s. Don’t believe they ever did a Mustang Brougham, though
I rented an EcoBoost Mustang around 2017 and the trunk was equally tiny and difficult to access. And the first thought in my mind was… “why isn’t this a hatchback?”
I just bashed my head on the open trunklid trying to fish my luggage out of a Tesla Uber yesterday. I agree.
I’m intrigued by the way the two of them together would seemingly set the stage for the Fox body, in a changes-in-the-timeline-end-up-being-mended way.
As, I could see these alt-reality IIs now running into the early ’80s, at which time Ford decides to combine them into a single model that channels this Euro, futuristic feel.
I wonder the impact on the eventual Probe – would a better-selling set of Mustangs dampen Ford interest in a FWD hatch to replace?
As long as there was always going to be a RWD Mustang available, I think that people would accept a smaller version as well. Even the Mach-E is begrudgingly received by most staunch fans. The issue was that the Probe was reportedly going to replace the Fox body entirely, and that made the pitchforks come out.
What the Mustang SHOULD have been was the Probe IV, except rear-wheel drive with a 5.0 V8 under the hood. Imagine an affordable car that had performance to rival a Lamborghini Countach(including in top speed), but was so aerodynamically slippery, that you could rival a Honda CRX on highway fuel economy.
Maybe with a time machine. I don’t think you are comparing same year car models. But not positive.
I was referring to roughly the time period Ford wanted to replace the fox-body Mustang with the Probe. The Probe they were proposing not only was a watered-down version of the original concepts which had half the Probe’s drag, but those who cherished the Mustang for what it was rightfully rejected its proposed replacement for being the 4-cylinder front-drive shitbox it was.
I was proposing doing something different. Give the consumer the original fuel-efficient Probe concept car design, BUT make it into the Mustang by keeping it what the Mustang was: a powerful rear-drive pony/muscle car. Except with a slippery body, a lot more performance could be wrung out of the 5.0 V8 than with the fox-body, and it would also become an economical-to-operate halo car for fuel economy. It would have ended up at least a half century ahead of its time as a result, and could have potentially paved the way to a viable EV in the 1990s with batteries 1/4 as dense as what we have today.
Did you see this one?
https://performance.ford.com/content/fordracing/home/enthusiasts/newsroom/2018/01/long-lost-1963-_bordinat-cobra-concept/_jcr_content/fr-contentItem/image.img.jpg/1599238157184.jpg
I have not.
I did some research.
https://www.topspeed.com/cars/lost-ambition-the-story-behind-the-1963-ford-bordinat-cobra-and-1964-ford-cougar-ii/
170 mph on 270 horsepower suggests aero drag that was 50 years ahead of its time. At least for the hard-top. Consider that the Mitsubishi 3000GT did 160 mph on 300 horsepower, 3 decades later.
The Probe IV was indeed an impressive concept. As much as I like it, though, I don’t know if buyers would have been ready for it at the time. I mean, if you were around then you saw how they reacted to the XR4Ti and even the Taurus when they first came out. Plus, if you made it a Mustang you’d be aiming at a target that typically balked at too much change. That’s too bad.
Yes, with a 0.42 drag coefficient, I would imagine the Countach to be a pretty easy target for a 5.0 Probe-bodied Mustang to beat.
In this case, the change would IMO have bolstered its status as a musclecar due to the performance, and simultaneously added multiple value propositions to it that you wouldn’t be able to get even in today’s cars. Want some good fuel economy to go with your V8 musclecar? That would have done it.
Keeping it RWD + powerful V8 is really most of the appeal. Even if it didn’t initially fly off the dealer lots, those who hooned one would have noticed immediately what they had, and word would have quickly gotten around. It would have left the Corvette C4 in the dust on the freeway, at a much lower MSRP. I think sales of such a thing would have been on an upward trajectory for as long as there was no competition to its unique value proposition, and it may have ignited an aerodynamics/fuel economy arms race without any performance being sacrificed in the process, something I think we need to this day.
Alright, you’ve convinced me. Maybe this needs to be photoshopped up.
Consider the C4 Corvette of the time had 250 horsepower, and about twice the aero drag of the Probe IV. The C4 and the 5.0 ‘Stang had nar identical 0-60 mph times. After about 60 mph, the Probe IV with RWD/5.0 V8 making 225 horsepower, assuming mass was unchanged from the 5.0 we actually got, would just gather distance ahead of the C4 never to be caught, the rate of change in the distance between the two cars increasing as speed rose.
I had forgotten that Probe III became the Sierra
The Sierra was watered down and saw its drag go way up vs the Probe III. The entire point would have been to keep the slippery aero in-tact, and screw style over substance.
Since it was the go-go era of both FWD and sportcoupes, I guess the Probe still would have seen the light of day, eh?
As I said, from as early as 1974 they needed two cars. Look at the range of cars they needed to compete with. One car can’t be a 200SX and a Trans Am at once. The Probe was perfect for that Celica crowd.
The Probe would have just been the replacement/next gen of the Stallion side by side with the “Mustang”.
According to wikipedia, development of the fox body was already approved by the time the Mustang II came out.Mustang II being based on the pinto which came out for 1971 model year, while the Gen 1 Mustang was still in production. I don’t see Mustang II going into the 80s. The Mustang II to me is the definition of a stop gap measure. Reuse chassis, reuse drivetrain, quickly replace.
My opinion: I don’t see any of this impacting the Probe. I find the discussion of should Mustang go fwd independent of Mustang II. Ford was going to make a FWD sports coupe regardless (Ford invested heavily in Mazda in 1979); the question was are they going to call it a Mustang or not. Thankfully Ford made the right choice in keeping the Mustang RWD only. It’s a better auto rag story to say Ford was going to make the Mustang FWD only. When in reality, they were going to make a RWD Mustang in the Fox body, that platform was approved in 1973, and they were going to make a FWD sport coupe, but will it be called Mustang or not.
Another hypothetical; if the big mustang were successful, and the Fox Body consolidated Mustang II and big mustang into one, would that have pissed off a lot of big mustang boys? 🙂
I think that a version of that Stallion would still need to exist into the early eighties (and even up until the Probe was launched). As much as I dig the Foxstang, it really isn’t a competitor for the smaller Celica/Sapporo/200SX.
Which stallion are you referring to in my silly wall of text?
Thanks for reading it though!
It’s the smaller Mustang that I proposed in the earlier post. If you scroll up you can see the red one with SHRUNK on the license plate and click on the link to the story
If it had made the cut it would have likely been a much better competitor to the others that really took the cake in 77-79. Had they perhaps made this into the next gen Torino/Cougar instead of the bulbous LTD based things we got instead, that would have been something.
Considering the Aussie content rules in this era, It is a small wonder how this did not end up as the late 70’s Aussie Falcon. Maybe the tooling had not been made yet?