The Mustang

All right, stop, collaborate and listen: the Mustang's back in a brand-new edition. Yes, if you're a fan of rolling on by, even though the girlies were on standby (waiting just to say hi), then you'll be happy to learn that the iconic pony car is back in 5.0 form.

And it's not just good news for fans of the worst music white people have ever come up with since electric jazz flute; this new 'Stang rocks. The GT version sports the new “Coyote” V8, pumping out a thundering 412hp and 390 lb/ft of torque, and even the base V6 is now sporting 300+ hp. At the dragstrip, it's more than enough to light 'em up, stage, and wax a chump like a candle.

However, there's a little sadness this month for fans of one of the most enduring cars in history: Donald Frey, designer of the original “'64 ½” Mustang passed away March 5th, just over a month shy of his creation's 46th anniversary. One wonders what Don would have made of the 'Stang's latest iteration, with all that pavement-cracking horsepower, given the weird little mid-engined convertible that was his original prototype.

The date the world first saw the Mustang was at the World's Fair, New York, April 17th, 1964, and if you're a history buff, you'll note that the Mustang predates the official start of the Vietnam War. It's never missed a year of production since.

The first prototype wouldn't be recognizeable as a Mustang to anybody whose blood wasn't filled with blue, oval-shaped corpuscles; in fact, it looked very much like GM's much-later released Fiero. Like the Fiero, it was mid-engined, and like the Fiero, it never really got off the ground. Despite being widely-acclaimed by the racers at its introduction at the '62 Watkins Glen Grand Prix (where even Sterling Moss had a go behind the wheel), the design team was sent back to the drawing board.

Good thing too, as the wedge-shaped, two-seater, 90hp Mustang I prototype was nothing like the rip-snorting image that the name “Mustang” implies. Can you imagine Steve McQueen's “Bullitt” driving around in a four-cylinder doorstop? He wouldn't even have made it up those San Francisco hills, much less outrun the baddies in their Charger.

Round two was much better: taking their inspiration from Maserati and Ferrari coupes, the design team knocked out a second prototype that, with the exception of the bumpers, looked nearly identical to the production model that hit showroom floors in '65. With a long front end dominated by a running horse (rather than Ferrari's prancing horse), the convertible Mustang was a hit with everyone at Ford. Everyone except Henry Ford II.

The Mustang project ended up being cancelled four times before finally being ram-rodded through by those Ford execs who believed in the little car. Having completed the project in just 18 months on a shoestring budget, Donald Frey was told in no uncertain terms: if this car doesn't sell, you're fired. Of course, this being the car business in the early sixties, the exact wording of the threat was a little more, um, PG-13.

Frey needn't have worried. Ford would have considered 80,000 cars in the first year a sales success. They sold over a million Mustangs in two years. The little convertible showed up in Goldfinger, sold 22,000 units its very first day, and became an enduring part of Americana.

Initially powered by a peppy straight-six engine, the Mustang was quick, but not really a muscle car. With the introduction of the V8-powered GT, it really came into its own as a pony car. Carroll Shelby worked with Ford to produce the GT-350, first of the hi-po 'Stangs, and one that would forever tie his name to the brand.

The Mustang continued to be excellent throughout the '60s, most famously as the green fastback “Bullitt” '68 Mustang GT that McQueen piloted. Engines got bigger, horsepower got higher, and the little pony turned into a real musclecar. Most famous of the engines, and just mention this one to any guy in a white t-shirt with a bunch of neon Fords on it if you want to be bored for several hours, was the rare 428 Cobra Jet. This was the king of the Ford big-blocks, punching out an incredible 410 hp, a horsepower figure we've had to wait until now to see again from the factory (excluding superchargers).

And then, predictably, along came the '70s and everything started sucking. Compare the Gimme Shelter 428 Cobra Jet's 410 horsepower with the Debbie Boone power output of the Pinto-based '75 Mustang's 302 cubic-inch powerplant: 140hp. Somebody left the barn-door open at the ranch.

From time to time, Ford gets a bee in its bonnet about replacing the Mustang with something higher-tech or more efficient. So it was in the eighties, when they co-developed a front-wheel-drive turbocharged coupe with Mazda, to be sold under to Ford badge as the Ford Probe, which worked out about as well as trying to sell a colonoscopy to a guy who came in looking for a Johnny Cash record. Admittedly, the turbocharged-4-cylinder SVO Mustang was pretty good, but the public had spoken: they wanted their V8, rear-wheel-drive pony car back, and they wanted it to gallop.

Gallop it did, particularly in the '03 and up supercharged Cobra model. Get a good set of tires and shift fast enough, and one of these could run the quarter-mile in the mid-12s. Aside from that, though, the Mustang of the early 2000s was perhaps a bit too refined, which was why the retro-styled 2005 with its solid rear axle was hailed as a return to the true ideals of the original pony car.

Mustangs being what they are, this new 5.0 model won't be king of the road for long, as the new supercharged Cobra versions will put down even more power, and there'll be more Special Editions variants than the Lord of The Rings DVDs. There'll also be a slew of aftermarket parts to tailor your Mustang into whatever kind of steed you'd like it to be, whether it's a drag racer with pizza-cutter tires up front, an autocrosser with spherical titanium endlinks, or a drifter with a slammed suspension and an unnecessarily large wing on the back that makes it look like you've been rear-ended by a Cessna that was carrying a load of neon vinyl.

But I'd like to think that Mr. Frey would be proud of the new Mustang, as where the Model T brought mobility to the masses, the Mustang brought power to the people. Either way, if you see me on the streets in a dark-green Mustang GT with a six-speed, don't bother to wave.

'Cause I'll be rollin', in my five-point-oh.