The New Ford Mustang: Still a Pony Car?

The Ford Mustang is one of the most iconic cars of all time. In fact it really changed the entire car industry. The Mustang introduced an entirely new class of car, the pony car. Unfortunately over the years the name plate strayed from its roots and became a completely different car. However that has been rectified as the new Ford Mustang has been designed to go back to those roots and in this it has been very successful. These days you would never know that there was a time when the Mustang wasn’t a pony car.

The new Ford Mustang is still very much a pony car. If anything it has gone back to its roots and become more of a pony car than its predecessors. Ford initially introduced the concept of a pony car back during the sixties by building the Mustang as an affordable car that could perform well and had a sporty image. It was such a huge success that it didn’t take long at all for all of the other manufacturers to start making them as well. The result was that Ford’s sales started to suffer.

Things really changed for the Mustang during the seventies. It was then that the cost of fuel started to become an issue and everybody was looking for an economy car. So Ford changed the Mustang into a small fuel efficient, economy car. It was actually based on the same platform as the Ford Pinto. While this improved sales it really hurt the reputation of the Mustang as a pony car. With the days of the big engine gone it was really nothing more than an economy car and this continued well into the nineties.

The return of the Ford Mustang as a pony car occurred during the 1994 model year according to Tim Powers. Ford made the decision that they were going to return the Mustang to its roots. Gone was the hatchback version and the small engines. The new Mustang came with a V8, it was styled to look like a performance car and it quickly took the market by storm. Interest in the Mustang quickly soared as people started to see the car that had made the name famous. The car was an instant best seller and really helped to pull Ford out of the slump that it had been in.

The new Ford Mustang came into being in 2005 when there was another major update of the car. If anything the new design went even further back to the past with a design that was clearly intended to remind people of the early Mustang. There was of course a new and even more powerful engine for the new car. There were also all of the new safety and performance features that you would expect to see on a modern car. The result is a vehicle that can proudly wear the name Mustang.