Ford’s Perseverance: Mustang Evolution Through the Years
Illustration from a car insurance company shows how the Mustang has remained virtually bulletproof for 50 years.
There are few things as fickle as the car-buying public. Trends and tastes seem to change every few years, leaving manufacturers scrambling to catch up. Nowhere is this more evident than the sporty coupe market.
It wasn’t that long ago that even non-car enthusiasts found themselves behind the wheels of small sports cars at least once in their driving career. The market was chock full of options with every manufacturer offering at least one option.
An article from Budget Direct shows the evolution a small handful of model lines that have survived for decades. Cars like the Honda Civic, Toyota Corolla, and Chevrolet’s Corvette (if you forgive its absence from the showroom in 1983) share that impressive longevity with the Mustang.
As tastes moved on to SUVs and later to crossovers, this market has dried up. However, one model has stood the test of time, weathering each passing storm and managing to come out on the other side better than ever. We’re talking, of course, about Ford’s flagship.
Until recently, the Mustang was always based on somewhat humble underpinnings. The first one, based heavily on the Falcon, was a surprise success for Ford, moving more than two million units in its first two years of production.
As the freewheeling ’60s gave way to the fuel-starved ’70s, the Mustang was downsized into the Pinto-based Mustang II, an underrated, versatile model that kept the dream alive during some very dark times for horsepower enthusiasts.
That gave way to the Fox-platform Mustang, sharing architecture with the Fairmont family car. This model had an especially long run of a quarter century, nearly half the Mustang’s total production life. At one point, it was rumored that Ford would replace the Fox Mustang with a front wheel drive model (that car eventually became the Probe). A letter writing campaign kept the Fox body alive, and a shoestring redesign for 1994 brought the dream into the 21st century.
Starting in 2005, the Mustang finally received its own dedicated platform, and it began its transformation from a fun, inexpensive, and powerful sporty coupe to a world class sports car that culminated in the current S550.
As Ford prepares to wind down car production in favor of trucks and crossovers, one model will remain: the Mustang. Not keen on repeating their potential mistakes of the late ’80s, Ford knows what butters their bread and will likely support the legendary pony for a long, long time.
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