History
The Maverick was originally conceived and marketed as a subcompact "import fighter", intended to do battle with the Volkswagen Beetle and newer Japanese rivals. The Falcon, Ford's compact offering since 1960, had seen its sales decimated by the introduction of the Mustang in 1964, and despite a redesign in 1966, was unable to meet forthcoming federal motor vehicle standards that would come into effect on January 1, 1970. Consequently, the Falcon was discontinued midway through the 1970 model year, and the Maverick repositioned as Ford's compact entry.
The Maverick's styling featured the long hood, fastback roof and short deck popularized by the Mustang, on a 103 in (2,600 mm) wheelbase — and featured simple and inexpensive to manufacture pop-out rear side windows rather than roll-down windows.
Nearly 579,000 Mavericks were produced in its first year. This rivaled the record-setting first year of Mustang sales (nearly 619,000), and easily outpaced the Mustang's sales of less than 200,000 in 1970.
Read more about this topic: Ford Maverick (Americas)
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“He wrote in prison, not a History of the World, like Raleigh, but an American book which I think will live longer than that. I do not know of such words, uttered under such circumstances, and so copiously withal, in Roman or English or any history.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“There is a constant in the average American imagination and taste, for which the past must be preserved and celebrated in full-scale authentic copy; a philosophy of immortality as duplication. It dominates the relation with the self, with the past, not infrequently with the present, always with History and, even, with the European tradition.”
—Umberto Eco (b. 1932)
“Most events recorded in history are more remarkable than important, like eclipses of the sun and moon, by which all are attracted, but whose effects no one takes the trouble to calculate.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)