1968 Ford Galaxy 500 4 Door Paint Colors
1. Ford Motor Co. congenital two midengine Mustang-badged abstraction cars: the 1962 Mustang 1 and the 1968 Mach II.
2. Afterwards the Edsel flop, Ford formed a lath to actualize and analysis approaching products. It was alleged the Fairlane Lath because it met in the Fairlane Motel abutting to Ford's Dearborn, Mich., headquarters. The Mustang was the committee's aboriginal above hit.
3. Assorted names were evaluated afore Mustang was chosen. At atomic two of the alone names eventually appeared on Ford vehicles: Cougar and Torino. Frank Thomas, a J. Walter Thompson annual controlling who formed on the name research, already said Mustang rose to the top "because it had the action of advanced accessible spaces and was American as all hell."
Gale Halderman
4. Gale Halderman's architecture that was alleged as the abject of the assembly Mustang was originally alleged Cougar. Halderman and his boss, Joseph Oros, pushed adamantine for the Cougar name.
5. Buhlie Ford, a nephew of Henry Ford II, took a ride in an aboriginal Mustang convertible in the bounce of 1964 and larboard the car in a city Detroit parking lot. The Detroit Free Press appear photos of the car in what was advised a above beat afore the official unveiling.
6. On April 16, 1964, the day afore its accessible actualization in New York, Ford sponsored accompanying programs on the three above TV networks as allotment of a civic business blitz. The Mustang was apparent by 29 actor bodies during prime time. The abutting day, Mustang ads ran in added than 2,600 newspapers.
7. Ford took the Mustang on the alley back abounding bodies could not see the car at its New York admission or at a dealership. The Mustang was put on affectation at 70 high-traffic city sites nationwide, 15 above airport terminals, in 100 Holiday Inns and on billboards in added than 170 markets.
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8. In 1964, the Mustang's abject bulk — $2,368 — was featured acutely in the company's antecedent advertising. It was $1,000 lower than that of the abutting competition.
9. Ford originally anticipation about 100,000 Mustang sales in the aboriginal year. Added than 400,000 were sold.
10. Ford Division General Manager Lee Iacocca accustomed the Mustang's accompanying actualization on the covers of Time and Newsweek in April 1964 with affairs an added 100,000 Mustangs.
Knight on chessboard logo: rejected
11. Already the name was selected, the horse logo in the Mustang grille took on abounding forms, including what resembled a charlatan on a chessboard. Ford designers had the Mustang galloping to the right, agnate to the way horses chase on a track, and additionally affective left. Ultimately, Lee Iacocca said, "the Mustang is a agrarian horse, not a calm racer," and artist Gale Halderman acquainted the pony should consistently face left, the way artist Phil Clark aboriginal drew it.
12. Aloof weeks afore the car's debut, there were still Mustangs featuring the galloping horse brand in the grille adverse appropriate instead of left.
13. Afterwards the Mustang's admission at the New York World's Fair in April 1964, 124 journalists were the aboriginal to drive Mustangs as allotment of the Ford Mustang Alley Rally from Westchester Country Club in burghal New York to Dearborn, with a stop at Niagara Falls forth the way.
14. In accession to plants in Dearborn and Flat Rock, Mich., the Mustang has been congenital in San Jose, Calif., and Metuchen, N.J.
15. Ford awash a actor Mustangs in the aboriginal 24 months afterwards it went on bargain — the fastest time for a new nameplate to aftermath that bulk of sales volume.
16. In the 1960s, a bound cardinal of Mustangs were produced at plants in Mexico and the Netherlands.
17. Approximately 250 right-hand-drive Mustangs were awash in Australia amid 2001 and 2003. They were all adapted in Australia by Tickford Vehicle Engineering beneath arrangement from Ford.
Capt. Stanley Tucker
18. Mustang consecutive No. #001, a preproduction archetypal acclimated for a promotional bout and not meant to be sold, was aback awash by a banker to a Canadian airline pilot, Capt. Stanley Tucker. In March 1966, Ford traded the 1 millionth Mustang to Tucker in barter for the aboriginal car.
19. The 2015 Mustang is the aboriginal to accept absolute rear abeyance beyond the board, but not the aboriginal to accept the technology. The SVT Cobra from 1999 to 2004 had an absolute rear suspension, and in 1963, three first-generation Mustang prototypes were activated with an absolute rear abeyance system.
20. The 1974-78 Mustang II was advised by abounding to be an underperformer, but back it was launched, it offered achievement commensurable to the abundant beyond and added 1971-73 models, admitting accepting a abate engine.
21. Amid 1964 and 1978, the Mustang was awash in Germany through a bound cardinal of Ford dealers and the U.S. aggressive PX arrangement as the Ford T5. The Mustang brand in Germany at the time was endemic by truckmaker Krupp.
22. Added than 161,000 Mustangs — including T5s — accept been awash alfresco Arctic America, and there are about 100 owners' clubs across from New Zealand to Poland and from South Africa to Iceland.
23. The best admired Mustang to advertise at bargain was a 1967 Shelby GT500 Super Snake, which went for $1.3 actor aftermost May. The top 10 Mustangs awash at bargain accept fetched a accumulated absolute of about $7.6 million.
24. Acclaimed Italian artist Giorgetto Guigiaro has created two Mustang-based concepts in his career. The 2007 Giugiaro Mustang is the bigger known. In 1965, back he was still alive at the Bertone studio, Guigiaro advised the Bertone Mustang, which was commissioned by Automobile Quarterly.
25. At atomic three Mustang cutting brakes, or base wagons, accept been advised in the Ford flat and fabricated it at atomic as far as full-sized adobe models — one was alike a anatomic ancestor — during the accomplished 50 years.
26. At atomic one four-door Mustang auto was created, in 1964, accepted to be a abeyant backup for the Falcon.
27. A backward pre-production atramentous Mustang auto was customized for Henry Ford II and included a custom Lincoln covering autogenous and hand-painted pinstripes. Ford after gave the car to his driver, who kept it until he awash it to the accepted owner, a Farmington Hills, Mich., man who still owns it.
28. The aboriginal Mustang awash to a retail customer, Ford says, was purchased by Chicago abecedary Gail Amber on April 15, 1964, two canicule afore the official on-sale date. Brown, who became Gail Wise back she affiliated her husband, Tom, still owns the car.
29. The aboriginal turbocharged agent in a Mustang debuted in the 1979 model, a 2.3-liter with 132 hp, beneath far beneath acrimonious emissions standards than today. By 1985, the bound production, fuel-injected Mustang SVO was up to 205 hp. The 2015 Mustang with EcoBoost will accept added than 305 hp and 300 pounds-feet of torque from the aforementioned displacement.
30. In 1989, Mustang about went front-wheel-drive with a auto based on the Mazda MX-6. Backward in the program, the accommodation was fabricated to bottle the Mustang and redesign it on a rear-wheel-drive platform. The fwd auto became the Probe, which lived alone until 1997 afore actuality replaced by the Mercury Cougar, which was discontinued in 2002.
31. The Mustang is one of beneath than 10 nameplates to survive in connected assembly for added than 50 years after missing a archetypal year.
32. Contrary to accepted belief, there is no such affair as a 1964½ Mustang. Starting from consecutive No. #001 — the car aback awash to Stanley Tucker — all the cars produced had 1965 VIN codes. There is a gap of 80,000 to 100,000 in the 1965 VINs about June-July 1964 that coincides with the about-face from a architect on the engines to an alternator. The gap is advised by abounding Mustang aficionados to be the adding band amid '64½ and '65 models.
33. Mustangs accept appeared in films and on TV shows added than 3,300 times in the accomplished 50 years, according to mustangimdb.com. The armpit was started by the architect of the Icelandic Mustang Club.
34. In 1968, Ford alien the Mustang Cobra Jet, a factory-built turnkey drag-race car with 335 hp from a big-block V-8. At 662 hp, today's GT500 about doubles that while affair avant-garde emissions standards on the street.
35. In October 1965, Ford engineers broken a 1966 Mustang into four sections and took it up on a commuter elevator to the 86th attic ascertainment accouter of New York's Empire State Building, area it was reassembled and placed on display.
36. The third-generation Mustang — the alleged fox anatomy — was produced from the 1979 to the 1993 archetypal year, the longest run of any Mustang. However, the alone archetype from that bearing that featured the pony brand on the exoteric was the 1993 SVT Cobra, which had a baby one placed in the grille. Other Mustangs of that bearing featured a pony on the commuter ancillary of the dashboard only.
37. Two teams of designers at Ford's Dearborn address and a third from the Ford-owned Ghia flat in Italy began aggressive in 1975 to actualize the all-new third-generation Mustang that became the fox anatomy Mustang.
38. "Thou shall never do a slantback advanced end." That was the abode aphorism from Gene Bordinat, Ford's longtime arch of design, as planning for the third-generation Mustang got beneath way in the mid-1970s. "Henry Ford II alone wants vertical advanced ends, and he'll appearance us the aperture if we anytime try annihilation like" a slantback. The final architecture — championed by Jack Telnack, who had alternate to Dearborn from a assignment as arch of architecture for Ford of Europe, resulted in a lean, 2,700-pound barrier weight and bigger apparent visibility. The Mustang's new European-influenced appearance was Ford's aboriginal austere ache at abbreviation air attrition with the everyman annoyance accessory on the alley at the time — 0.44 for the fastback and 0.46 for the notchback.
39. The Mustang has served as official clip car of the Indianapolis 500 on three occasions — in 1964, 1979 and 1994. Benson Ford, grandson of Henry Ford, collection the Mustang clip car at the 1964 Indy 500. The Mustang served as official clip car of the Daytona 500 aloof already — in 2010.
40. Former Admiral Bill Clinton owns a 1967 Mustang convertible — ice dejected with a white interior. Clinton said it was the hardest affair to leave abaft back he confused into the White Abode in 1993. In April 1994, during a ceremony appearance the 30th ceremony of the Mustang, Clinton collection the car briefly at Charlotte Motor Speedway in Concord, N.C. Bill Dillard, again admiral of the Mustang Club of America, alien him as "a berserk Mustanger like the blow of us."
41. Red has been the best accepted exoteric blush on Mustang through the years, followed, in order, by blue, silver, white, black, green, amber and yellow. The 1967 Mustang was accessible in two shades of pink: dark rose and Playboy pink.
42. While chicken has been the atomic admired blush over time, it has aggressive abysmal passions amid Mustang owners. The Chicken Mustang Registry, founded in 2001, is committed to owners and enthusiasts of chicken Mustangs. It has added than 8,932 associates and 8,984 registered cartage worldwide, and it has hosted added than 60 contest back its founding. The chicken Mustangs in the anthology ambit from aboriginal Springtime Yellow, offered in 1965 and 1966, to Zinc Yellow, alien in 2000.
43. Atramentous is the acknowledged Mustang exoteric acrylic blush today, up 10 percent over the accomplished decade, and it accounted for 28 percent of all 2013 Mustangs sold.
44. A disposable adamantine top was planned on the redesigned 1994 Mustang — code-named SB95 — but costs and painting problems bound its appliance to aloof 1995 SVT Mustang Cobras, which were all black.
45. The Mustang has been accustomed with a U.S. postage brand twice: in 1999 with a capital brand admired at 33 cents, and in 2013 back the 1967 Shelby GT-500 was featured as allotment of a set of stamps commemorating beef cars.
46. Janine Bay was the aboriginal woman to serve as arch architect for the Mustang. From 1994 to 1999, she was amenable for the architecture and development of the 1999 Mustang as able-bodied as the 1999 Cobra. She is the alone changeable affiliate of the Mustang Club of America's Hall of Fame.
47. The Mustang has added than 5 actor Facebook fans, the best of any nameplate, Ford says.
48. Sam Pack, a car beneficiary and arctic Texas Ford dealer, paid $300,000 to defended the aboriginal retail assembly assemblage of the 2015 Mustang GT back it goes on bargain this fall. He fabricated the acceptable bid at Barrett-Jackson Bargain Co.'s bargain in Scottsdale, Ariz., in January as allotment of a alms drive.
49. At assorted times over the years, Ford has advised whether to body or abutment an official Mustang building in the United States, alone to achieve that such a activity would not be financially achievable over time.
50. In the 1960s, Sonny and Cher had acclaimed Los Angeles car customizer George Barris architecture for them his and her adapted Mustangs that featured agrarian headlights, leopard-skin interiors and agitative colors. The brace awash in 2010 to a beneficiary for $137,000.
Sources: Automotive News archives; Ford Motor Co.; Robert A. Fria's 2010 book, Mustang Genesis: The Creation of the Pony Car; and Donald Farr's 2013 book, Mustang Fifty Years.
