fah619

p.s The birth of the Mustang! Video via Holly Clark. Tks

MustangInTexas

The story I heard, oh so long ago, was that Ford was looking for something to take on the Chevrolet Corvette. The Corvette was named after a WWII war ship so Ford went after a WWII icon as well... the P-51 fighter plane. Much cooler than a boat.

The pony makes marketing sense as the mascot over a plane though, since they had already come up with the name.

mustang country

Unless I hear or read another story otherwise, I'll believe the original concept that the Mustang was named after the P-51 aircraft from World War II. As for the pony emblem, it is obvious to use that for the car since Ford already was using the a bird symbol for its Thunderbird.

clucas

I know this is an older topic, but I'm actually currently reading a book called 'The Fords' about The family from William to Henry II. In it it references that Henry II was pushing for t he name "thunderbird II" but that the J. Walter Thompson agency recommended Mustang. It references that the concept did come from the fighter plane, and not the horse. Apparently the first choice was Torino, but they didn't want to use an Italian name based on Henry II's private life.

That's what the book says at least. Most things I've read in here and seen/read/heard elsewhere seem to lineup, so take that for what it's worth.

MustangInTexas

So they just pulled the name out of the air? If not the plane nor the horse, that doesn't leave much to be inspired by.

clucas

That's what it said. I also have Iaccoca's autobiography laying around (anyone guess my preferred genre?) I can go look up what he said regarding the mustang name. It's been a few years since I read it, so I really don't remember. Since he was more involved with the marketing, and the Fords really wasn't about him, I bet he goes into more detail.

MustangInTexas

Would love to hear that.

clucas

Here's what Iacocca says in his autobigraphy. His story is the same up to Torino. Interestingly in the design phase they called it the Cougar, but when they got to naming they came up with the following: Monte Carlos, Monaco, Torino, and Cougar. They settled on Torino, but went looking for a completely different name when Henry II's assistant Charlie Moore alled and said it couldn't be Italian.

John Conley who worked for the J. Thompson Agency was the naming specialist who had researched bird names for the T-bird and Falcon. He was sent to the Detroit Public library to lookup names of animals.

"Johns came up with thousands of suggestions, which we narrowed down to six: Bronco, Puma, Cheetah, Colt, Mustang, and Cougar."

Here's where it gets interesting.

"Mustang had been the name of one of the car's prototypes. Curiously, it was not named for the horse but for the legendary World War II fighter plane. No matter. We all liked Mustang, and as the ad agency said: it 'had the excitement of wide-open spaces and was American as all hell.'"

So that's from Iacocca himself. The prototype was the plane, and the ad agency used animals to get there. Regardless, we have badass cars with a cool name.

fah619

Mtg Folks:

Included is the prototype Ford Mustang I grill horse c. 1962. The name Mustang came from the WW II aircraft as Mr. Clucas mentions. A Ford designer named John Najjar coined the name & another Ford designer named Phil Clark came up with the prototype horse drawing! The rest is now history on this famous pony!!

MustangInTexas

Interesting, all but two of these eventually got used. Not all by Ford but someone thought they were good names.