On October 7, 1962, Ford put Dan Gurney behind the wheel of a prototype named Mustang.
We are in 1961. It is the first year, or the second, but we are not entering into Byzantine discussions, of a decade in which much will change. For starters, a man stars in many covers:
Yury Gagarin. This Russian pilot, now we would say a cosmonaut, is the first human to travel to space. The Wall of Shame was also set up to prevent Berliners from the eastern part from ‘enjoying’ the communist paradise and leaving for the western part. And incidentally, the Bay of Pigs Crisis, a failed CIA plan to invade the Caribbean island with anti-Castro exiles that ended in the severing of relations between the United States and Cuba.
But let’s go to the field, that of cars. In the United States, many young men are returning from military service in Europe, where, apart from the girls, of course, they have fallen in love with the small and nimble European sports cars.
At Ford Motor Company, one of the top executives is a serious and sober young university student with a name that years later (we’re talking about the 1970s) will become famous in the political sphere: think of the “Pentagon Papers”, which is, the “McNamara Report” on the Vietnam War.
Well, under the influence of
Robert McNamaraIn 1955 Ford launched the elegant Thunderbird convertible and in 1960 the first Falcon sedan, when McNamara was already the first president of the brand who did not belong to the founder’s family. But in 1961 he is called by Kennedy to be part of his team. So another manager who will make history,
lee iacoccais free to impose a completely different style on Ford.
Iacocca is very different from McNamara. You want less classic models. His team comes up with a lighter and cheaper model than the Thunderbird. Led by John Naijar and Jim Sipple, designers Bob Maguire (exterior) and Damon Woods (interior) set to work creating the first prototype of their “Mustang” project. It pays homage to the famous P-51 Mustang aircraft, which served the American armed forces during World War II, and which in turn took its name from the wild prairie horses, descendants of horses raised by the Spanish. behave. adapted to nature and used by the American Indians.
Lee Iacocca was very clear that for such a car to be successful among the baby boom generation, it had to be related to competition. There was an obstacle. Ford had respected the 1957 agreement between the US Congress and the AAA (American Automobile Association). Through this agreement, the manufacturers agreed not to compete and not prioritize performance, in exchange for not being forced to meet stricter safety standards in their production models. But in reality, there were brands like Chevrolet that skipped this agreement by developing competition cars and lending their support to privateer teams.
Deciding that Ford did not need to honor an agreement already broken by other manufacturers, Iacocca launched its “Total Performance” program. It starts with a concept, a prototype that is built in just 100 days by the Californian company Troutman & Barnes. It is a two-seater barqueta, with a tubular aluminum chassis, with the four-cylinder V engine from the German Ford Taunus 12M, centrally located and with an increase in power from the original model’s 89 hp to 109 hp. And coupled to a four-speed manual gearbox. This engine was placed centrally. The body was a thin layer of fiberglass. The set was, as Iaccoca intended, very light, only 680 kilos. This weight, together with some tight dimensions, we are talking about 3.91 meters long, promised fun behind the wheel.
In the early summer of 1962, while Troutman & Barnes was assembling the working version of the Mustang 1 concept, Ford designers gathered at the Dearborn studio to review sketches of the symbol that would define the model. Phil Clark had been sketching horse badge ideas for several years, and the team chose his idea of a galloping horse with a red, white, and blue three-stripe design to reflect the Mustang’s American heritage.
The Concept Mustang I was very useful as a marketing tool because it gave a new image of Ford, more appreciated by young people. The two manufactured units (one functional and the other only static) were displayed in various forms over the course of two years.
But this model did not convince Ford’s sales executives, who thought that this two-seater, while attracting a lot of attention, would not be so convincing at the time of purchase. And the company’s leaders were also concerned that its production, being a mid-engined model, did not fit into the production system. So although the work of the engineer Bob Lunn responsible for the chassis served the future Ford GT40, such as the body style, the Mustang I ended up abandoned. And so it remained for several years until it was repaired and restored, and put on display at the Ford Museum.
The so-called Fairlane Group wanted to come up with a more conventional four-seat, front-engined model, codenamed “T-5” or “Special Falcon Project”, that would lead to the first Mustang. But that is an other story.
In any case, if you’re considering a Mustang on the street, see how you can glimpse the sides or
some shapes that remind us of the air intakes for the rear wheels which fed an engine in the rear center position of that first concept car driven by the great Dan Gurney on October 7, 1962 in the prologue of the United States Grand Prix at New York’s Watkins Glenn circuit.
Source: La Verdad
I am Ida Scott, a journalist and content author with a passion for uncovering the truth. I have been writing professionally for Today Times Live since 2020 and specialize in political news. My career began when I was just 17; I had already developed a knack for research and an eye for detail which made me stand out from my peers.
