Ford Mustang 40th Anniversary Celebration

Forty years ago, the Ford Motor Company introduced its groundbreaking Mustang sports coupe at the New York World's Fair. Based heavily on lowly Falcon mechanicals, the pretty compact with European-like proportions was revolutionary not for its design or engineering, but rather for the fact that it offered youthful style for a base price of only $2368, a bargain even in April 1964 dollars.

Ford didn't try to recreate the World's Fair to celebrate the icon'sanniversary (made more important by the pending advent of an all-new 2005 model). Instead, it chose the Nashville Superspeedway, a roomy, wide-open location more comfortable for the middle Americans who own classic and late-model Mustangs, most of whom were young when the '65 model debuted. It even gave some of the 'Stang cognoscenti the chance to pilot their babies around the big tri-oval superspeedway. And thus women, the larger of the twotarget markets in Spring of '64, were outnumbered by men, the larger of the two target markets from '67 to '73, when the car got bigger and beefier, with enough room in the engine bay to increase motor size from the original's 289 cubic-inch V-8 to such macho engines as the Boss 302, the 351 Cleveland and even the Cobra Jet 429.

These Mustang faithful began showing up by Thursday morning, when they should have been at work or in school. (Yes, there are a number of young owners, too.) They came from as far away as Australia, Norway, and Holland, the latter of which Team Mustang Center member Nico Dendecker claims has the largest Mustang club in Europe with 600 members. TMC of Holland boasted 120 of those members in attendance in Nashville. "Yeah, it's too much," Dendecker said colloquially, after he bought a pony steering wheel and dash for his '66 289/automatic coupe for just $300, at the flea market. They would have cost ten times that much in the Netherlands, he said.

The Mustang Club of America split the parking lot into two sections,more or less appropriately. On one side were the first four bodystyles, '65-'66, '67-'68, '69-'70, and '71-'73, plus the unloved Pinto-based Mustang IIs. On the other side were the Fox-platform cars, '79-2004. Ford brought in a few other Ford models, plus two '05 coupes, a red GT and a green V-6, from the Detroit auto show. It also brought in Ford Division president Steve Lyons, '05 Mustang design chief Hau Thai-Tang, '65 Mustang designers Gale Halderman, Joe Oros, and the car's father, Dr. Don Frey. And it brought two Mustang gods, funny car pilot John Force and Carroll Shelby. We suspect that by the end of the first day, there wasn't a Mustang on the Superspeedway grounds that didn't have Ol' Shel's signature on its dash or under its hood.

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