A Muscle Car Revolution
By David C. Atkin, Tue Dec 6th

The Ford Mustang was built to do battle against the Chevrolet Corvette and the Corvair Monza Spider, the Mustang came out in1964, at first with a straight six, but by 1965 Ford decided that the car actually needed some kind of power.

A straight six could never make the kind power Ford needed, so in 1965 the 225 HP 289 CID V8 was introduced to the Mustang, and this was a brilliant idea for Ford that skyrocketed the Mustang sales, it was the introduction of the pony car. Basically the idea was to use a smaller mid sized car with a larger engine, thereby producing a much better power to weight ratio, and making the car more exciting to drive.

This would make the car a lot more interesting to the babe boomers, the younger people from the 1960's time era, these were the kids that were in their late teens and early 20's, this would be so appealing to the younger people of that time era, that it would set sales records that it would hold for years to come.

It would sell 500,000 units it's very first year, and this was an unbelievable feat for any car during those times, and had never been done before, and this had thought Ford a lesson, they learned that they could produce cars at this rate.

Ford would keep generating interest in the Mustang by adding rundles of new higher performance models, they created a largest able of these pony cars, during 1965 Ford would release the Mustang GT, yet more power, to make the motor heads go nuts.

The Mustang had already become a desirable commodity. It's standard equipment included, bucket seats. It had the immediately popular long hood , short deck look. At first it came as a sports coupe (two door hardtop), and a sporty looking convert able.

In the fall of 1964 the model the 2+2 was added to the lineup. From the outset, the option list was important in the making of the Mustang. Buyers could add appearance and convenience extras, plus some bolt on high performance hardware. However being based on a compact low priced Falcon, there was some room for improvement in the go fast department.

Combining available mechanical features with new visual pieces made the GT package a fairly thorough upgrade. First the buyer had to order an optional V-8 engine, which at the time included the 225 HP Challenger Special 289 at $157, or the high performance 271 HP 289 CID engine for $430.

The Mustang never did come up against the likes of an L88Corvette or a ZL1 Camaro or Corvette, it would lose horribly, as the ZL1 Camaro was running in the 10's for the 1/4 mile with a0-60 of 3.8 seconds, and the ZL1 Vette was even faster, and theL88 wasn't far behind these cars at all.

Now I know what you Mustang and Ford nuts are going to say, what about the GT350, what about the GT500, what about the Boss 429mustang, and most of all what about the Cobra, well even the almighty Cobra never beat the ZL1 Corvette down, this is always what you Ford nuts fall back on.

The 289 and 302 Mustangs never beat down the 302 DZ Camaro, and moreover I have driven them all, except the Cobra and I know the truth, It's true I am a Chevy lover, but I have owned or at least driven most of the Ford and Chevy model that were ever really considered to be the mean one's and I speak for knowledge, and not just as a Chevy or Ford lover.

And never did the Mustang or the Cobra even come close to doing battle with the L88 Corvette or the ZL1 Corvette, and still tothis day hasn't done it.