PONY CARS ...........WHO WAS FIRST ?

We can pretty much thank Dennis Shattuck, the Editor of Car Life  magazine for the phrase "Pony Cars." He coined the phrase when he first set eyes on the 1964 1/2 Ford Mustang.

Before I get too far ahead myself, let's see what led to the creation of the "Pony Cars."

When Ford introduced the T-Bird in the mid 1950's, It had a car that was a 2 seater, fun to drive and inexpensive. By 1958 the car was a much larger personal luxury car, not the sporty two seater like it's predecessor.

Ford wanted to fill a niche market with a car that would get the buyers into the showrooms. It brought out the Ford Falcon in 1961.
The Falcon was more of an economy car than a sporty car, which led to the Mustang. Built on the Falcon chassis, The Mustang had a long front end, short deck lid, available in either a hardtop coupe' or a convertible, six & eight cylinder engines were available along with a standard shift or automatic transmission. Base price for this pony was $2368, very affordable, all being the brain-child of non other than Lee Iacocca, the future savior of The Chrysler Corp.

The pony car moniker, fashioned after Ford's "Mustang," would set the stage for GM and Chrysler to jump into high gear to offer something comparable to Ford's new media darling.

To close the chapter on what will become my Daughter's (Tia) favorite blog, truth be told, the Mustang was supposed to be a 1964 model. Ford's response to this demand was the Mustang, launched on April 17, 1964, which proved to be an enormous success. The company was forecasting sales for the first year to reach 100,000 units. However, Ford dealers took 22,000 orders the first day and the company had to shift production mid-year. The extended model year sales totaled 618,812 Mustangs

The Ford Mustang was brought out five months before the normal start of the 1965 production year. The earliest versions are often referred to as 1964½ models, but VIN coded by Ford and titled as 1965 models with production beginning in Dearborn, Michigan on March 9, 1964 and the new car was introduced to the public on April 17, 1964 at the New York World's Fair.

You can tell the difference between a 1964 1/2 and a 1965 Mustang by the smaller shifter handle in the 1964 1/2 version. The horn of a 1964 1/2 Mustang is also smaller than the 1965 version. However, some 1965 Mustangs will have some of the same things as a 1964 1/2 version.

# # # Special Note: my nephew drew it to my attention that the "Cuda" was the first pony car, Technically the 1964 "Barracuda" could be considered the first pony car, It went on sale 04.01.64 , beating the Mustang by 16 days.

The "Cuda" to an old timer like me is a muscle car. 

Wikipedia reads : " Despite the immediate success of the Mustang, many (including some within Ford) feared that the bubble would soon burst, and other manufacturers were relatively slow to respond. The first competitor was the Plymouth Barracuda, which actually went on sale on April 1, 1964, about two weeks before the Mustang. The Barracuda was not a direct response to the Mustang, which had not yet debuted (although Chrysler was certainly aware of the upcoming model), but a low-cost way to expand the sporty appeal of the Valiant."