Pony Car - Origins of The Breed

Origins of The Breed

The pony car had its beginnings at Ford Motor Company in the late 1950s following the demise of the original, two-seat Ford Thunderbird. While the Thunderbird's transformation into a larger, four-seat personal luxury car, starting with the 1958 model year, proved to be successful in sales terms, dealers and buyers alike lamented the loss of the two-seat Thunderbird, which served as a halo car (image leader) for the company and a traffic-builder in showrooms, attracting buyers who would ultimately purchase more mundane automobiles. For several years Ford explored various plans for reviving some equivalent of the early Thunderbird.

An added impetus came from Chevrolet, with the popularity of the Chevrolet Corvair introduced in 1960. The sporty Monza version of the Corvair was the catalyst that Ford needed to create the now instantly recognizable Mustang. The initial Corvair had been positioned as an economy car, but it was much more successful with the plusher trim and sportier image of the Monza model that included bucket seats and a floor-mounted transmission shifter, which sold around 144,000 units by 1961—starting a trend toward sportier cars with bucket-seats in all sizes from compacts to full-size cars. Ford responded to the compact Corvair Monza with sportier Futura and Futura Sprint versions of its Ford Falcon, and Chrysler with the Plymouth Valiant Signet and Dodge Dart GT, as well as American Motors (AMC) with the 440-H and Rogue versions of the Rambler American, and Studebaker with the sporty Daytona version of its compact Lark. Other sporty bucket-seat compact cars that appeared during the early 1960s included the Mercury Comet S-22, Oldsmobile F-85 Cutlass, Buick Special Skylark, and Pontiac Tempest LeMans. Most of these sporty compacts came standard with the same economical six-cylinder engines as their more mundane counterparts, but in some cases more powerful V8 engines were at least optional along with four-speed manual transmissions and center consoles housed between the front bucket seats.

Some technical developments of the early sporty compact cars offered in the U.S. (1961–63) included a turbocharged six-cylinder in the rear-engine Corvair Monza Spyder/Corsa (1962–66), turbocharged aluminum V8 on the 1962–63 Oldsmobile Cutlass Jetfire and a standard 194 cu in (3.2 L) four-cylinder engine mated to a rear transaxle on the 1961–63 Pontiac Tempest LeMans in several states of tune, including a four-barrel high-performance option, as well as (in 1963) a large (for a compact car) 326 cu in (5.3 L) V8 that was optional with up to 280 hp (209 kW).

Although the sporty compacts were a commercial success for most automakers, some auto executives, however, principally Ford's Lee Iacocca, believed that sporty versions of mundane compact cars only scratched the surface of the potential market. During this period there was a strong influx of young buyers with discretionary income and a taste for vehicles with a younger image than a standard sedan, and Iacocca's marketing studies revealed that if a unique-looking sporty car could be offered at an affordable price, it would find many buyers. Ford's response to this demand was the Mustang, launched on April 17, 1964, which proved to be an enormous success. The company was forecasting sales for the first year to reach 100,000 units. However, Ford dealers took 22,000 orders the first day and the company had to shift production mid-year. The extended model year sales totaled 618,812 Mustangs.