The Industry Reacts

In its first two years of production, three Ford Motor Company plants in San Jose, Dearborn and Metuchen, New Jersey produced nearly 1.5 million Mustangs, a sales record unequalled before or since. It was a success that left General Motors utterly flat-footed and Chrysler Corporation only slightly less so. Chrysler, more or less accidentally, had just introduced a car that could be considered a competitor, the Plymouth Barracuda. Though the "'Cuda" would grow into one of the most revered muscle cars of all time, it started out as an act of desperation and was not much more at first than a compact Plymouth Valiant with a hastily grafted fastback rear window. As for GM, they were certain that they had a Mustang fighter in their rear-engined Corvair Monza, but the sales figures didn't even come close. The Monza was a fine performer, but was only a six-cylinder compared to the Mustang's available eight-cylinder. It took GM until the 1967 model year to counter with the Chevrolet Camaro and Pontiac Firebird. Even Lincoln-Mercury joined the fray in 1967 with the introduction of an "upmarket Mustang" (and subsequent Motor Trend Car of the Year), the Mercury Cougar, using the name originally given to the Mustang during the development phase. In 1968 American Motors (AMC) would introduce the Javelin and later, the 2-seater, high-performance AMX. This genre of small, sporty and often powerful automobiles was unofficially dubbed the "ponycar" as a tribute to the car that started it all.