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The Ford Mustang Essays

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A highly popular muscle and sports car, the Ford Mustang functions as a daily driver, weekend warrior, and a show winning work of mechanical art. Whether someone just needs a basic transportation to get from point A to point B, an eight second quarter-mile beast, or a show stopping work of power and beauty, Ford has produced a Mustang for every need. The Mustang got its name from the World War II P-51 Mustang fighter plane (Harris). The “five generations” evolved each year model until, in response to the 1971-1973 models, Ford returned the car to its original size and concept in 1974 (Bowling). The first generation of the Mustangs appeared in 1964 and lasted through 1973. On March 9, 1964, …show more content…

Furthermore, this car interests me because at the price one could completely personalize his or her dream Mustang for only $2,320. Ford would sell close to 417,000 Mustangs within the first year (Tucker). In August 1964, Carol Shelby approached Lee Daocca, President of Fomoco at the time. Shelby had a vision to create a high performance Mustang and Shelby wanted a car that could hold its own both on and off the track. Once Shelby received approval to move forward on the project, he created a fastback 2+2 Mustang (Kelly). This model Mustang only had front bucket seats and a console but no back seat, which earned it the name fastback 2+2. This model mustang came equipped with a four-speed manual transmission for more torque, one of the fastest cars of its day. The 2+2 fastback Mustang remains my favorite model Mustang of this year because it had a sleeker, aerodynamic design, and featured a larger engine, the 289 cu in, which produced a whopping 306 horsepower (Tucker1). The official name for this 2+2 fastback Mustang was the Shelby GT 350: Ford named it this for street purposes (Kelly). In the fall of 1964, Ford included an entirely new Mustang engine lineup and the addition of the GT group. The 200 cu in six-cylinder engine replaced the 170 cu in six-cylinder engine, thus increasing the six-cylinder’s performance from 101 horsepower to 120 horsepower. The 289 cu in replaced the 260 cu

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