Hi All! I thought I would share/recommend a great book I just picked up. I've been feeling all nostalgic lately and I came across "Car and Driver: On Mustang 1964-1972." It's a collection of reprints of their original articles they ran on the then new Mustangs. On the whole, it's great to see what people thought about the Mustang before it became a living legend. But what threw me for a flip was how harsh the critics were about what eventually became iconic features of the Mustang. For example, in their very first article they write,

"We can well understand Ford management's wish to give the Mustang a distinctive or possibly unique appearance, but the result strikes us as inexplicably amateurish. There is a non-functional air scoop along the body sides and a clumsy, protruding grill between the single headlamps. The hood lands on a the grille with a fit that reminds us of the lid on one of our mother's more experienced saucepans, and the grille side panels have an air of scatterbrained afterthought."

In their second article,

"The Mustang and the Barracuda are both supposed to be something very fresh and very special--unique new concepts--and they arent'. The Corvair is."

Hah!

Wow, talk about throwing some bad bones on that one! Yeah, the classic c-scoop was front grille were "amateurish," while the lovely and legendary (ok, I'll stop) Corvair is to die for! Cor-what? I think history set the record straight. Just goes to show you, critics are those people who don't or won't put it all on the line themselves, they just sit back and pick at others when they make things happen.

Best,
-j

 

Just goes to show you how wrong the critics were. But, since I was owning cars back then, the Volkswagen Beatle and the Corvair were the cat's meow. I owned a Corvair Monza, and it was one of the most fun cars on the road back then. Had it not been for Ralph Nader's criticism of the Corvair, it just might be an icon today.

 

silly critics

 

Also you are reading Car and Driver.. They like independent rear suspensions, cars lacking enough power to slide the rear out at will, and they prefer a "balanced" car, or what I like to refer to as "a car that doesnt do anything great and doesnt have much power." aka BMW from 1950-1987, pick a car.. or any car built in France after the war. Having owned a BMW, I wasnt very impressed with the handling and engineering. my 70 GTO drives better and has alot more power with about the same economy.

While I really enjoy driving Corvairs, I wasnt ever in awe of the power they had, that is not to say a 65 Mustang was peeling my eyelids back either, but the V8 is there. Its a better place to start for a performance application. I too think without Nader goin on about rear end jacking the Corvair would have done alot better, its a seriously fun car. (especially with a V8 transplant)

C&D has alot of fun poking at cars that have a solid rear axle, so does Road&Track. If you have watched Top Gear before, they do it too, especially with the Mustang. So it s the mag you are reading more than one person getting it wrong, its a different concept of what a car should be.

Ford had something right, because Chevy, Pontiac, Dodge, Plymouth, and American Motors copied the long nose short deck, small car thing. Ford sold a million of them in just a few years, it took GM quite a while to sell a million F bodies. Who cares what some whine and cheese types in Europe think of our cars, we build stuff that will suck the headlights out of thiers...

 

Car and Driver is a 'gentlemans' magazine. most of that type have always hated american cars....Still do......