Mustang- 49 Years Later

Yesterday, April 17th was the birthday of the Ford Mustang. As it goes, I was too busy with everything (including working on one) to mention the Pony car’s birthday. Yesterday 49 years ago, it was displayed at the World Fair, and little did Ford know it would be arguably the iconic car from Ford. At the time it was a gamble for Ford engineers and designers, not knowing if a sporty small car could sell in a world full of used ’50’s land yachts and similar early ’60’s technology. It was an undeniable breakthrough, and it was soon clear they had struck gold. Three body styles gave the Mustang versatility, 4 seats made it a family car, and a strong V8 gave it a power to weight ratio that could compete with any labeled “sports” car of the time. The rest is history, and the amount of “good times” and memories facilitated by this iconic car are infinite. Below is a link to a forum thread currently running on Vintage Mustang Forums about how you got your classic mustang. The stories are hilarious, and some incredibly lucky, all are worth reading. Also included below is an original Ford advertisement for the Mustang, I just love how the announcer says “Mustang!”. Enjoy!

“What’s your Mustang story?” Thread

 

 

Feature Image source: forum.stangtv.com

Porsche 912- Spotted

One thing I love about European classics is the rarely seen “club badges” or “grille badges”. They always display a sense of pride and value in well built cars. It was the hand shaped fenders, hand stitched leather, and hand plated trim surrounding such cars that induced pride and joy in the sight of the finished product. The badges were added street respect, seeing one or two on the front of a car means the owner knew their car, and were deeply entrenched in the culture surrounding that genre of automobiles. Check out this 912 sporting some PCA  pride on it’s back.

Classic Finned Benz-Spotted

The other day I spotted some fins. These fins were not american in their styling, but surely stylish.  The late ’60’s Mercedes always intrigued me, as they were one of the few European cars with rear fins. I love the american fin styling of the 50’s, and this example of a 60’s German car wearing them sounds fitting as well. I recently visited the Peterson Automotive Museum, and I must say their exhibit on the styling and cars with fins was awesome, as well as educational. I have to say they could have thrown in a ’59 impala or ’57 fairlane, but those are a bit later in the fin era.  The story of the finned Benz goes that they saw the mid 1950’s american cars were selling in huge quantities, and that the finned styling was obviously pleasing the consumer market.  They went to their drawing board and took the Mercedes sedan designs and combined them with the rears of cars such as ’57 Chevys, and thus was born the finned Mercedes. I love the look, and this car. The two concepts: European diesel and American fin-styling merged together in this car make it incredibly and unique. It has the grace of a classic Benz, and the bold styling of an American Dream-based family car.  I like that Mercedes stepped out in their design styling at that point in time, trying new things and different approaches to the same function often yields innovative ideas.  Here’s some pics below, enjoy-