Agreed. But there were a lot of coupes with that general shape after the Mustang did it. Not sure if Mustang was really first or not.
I think the GTs/Cobras of any generation aren’t bad looking. The true crime is the lethargic 70’s/80’s Mustangs. Especially the 4-cylinder ones. Now the current low-end Mustang has a 300 HP V6 that gets 30+ MPG. After owning 2 V8 Mustangs, I could actually see myself owning a V6 now.
Jumpin’ Jesus, we have a winner!
Who the hell got ready to roll that out and said, "wait’ll they get a load of this."
My mom had one of those hatchback Mustang… things. I hesitate to call it a car.
I’m not a car guy in the least, but every time I walk past a post-2005 Mustang, Van Halen’s “Panama” starts playing in my head and I’m overcome by a desire to drive that car. Very, very fast. What a gorgeous mixing of the old with the new.
I have to admit…there were some pretty ugly Mustangs in the '80’s. I think they were trying to emulate the Ford EXP…not a good decision.
Viki, welcome to SDMB, but you are posting in a 2 year old thread. We call that a “zombie.” It might be a good idea to keep an eye on the date in the future, but don’t let that deter you from posting!
– ex-Mustang owner, the Fugly Years.
Not so much “improve” as react to market shifts, namely the jump in gas prices following the Arab oil embargo. Detroit reacted by trying to simply make smaller, lamer versions of the same stuff they’d been used to making, not by actually trying to make decent fuel-efficient cars from the ground up.
The Mustang II was a low-quality, rusty, unreliable, weak POS, but then so was pretty much any Detroit product from the 70’s and 80’s.
I’m surprised nobody voted for the '71-73s. They had the gigantic motors, but aesthetically they’d completely deviated from the pony car concept and were well on their way to following the T-bird into bloated full-size coupe territory. The Mustang II was actually truer to the original Mustang concept, but failed in execution like so much else Detroit attempted at the time. The downsize was much maligned, but I doubt a Mustang the size of a '73 with smog-choked engine options would have been much better received.
My cousin-in-law had a 75 Mustang that I rode around it a fair bit. It was a total piece of shit, we dumped our cigarette ashes on the floorboards because the ashtray was totally useless. This was the least of the sins Ford perpetrated on the hapless public with that car. Totally underpowered and no sex appeal.
The Mustang II actually changed the front end enough from 74 to 75 to allow for a 5.0 liter engine. It still had no power but none of the other engines of that era did either. Throw a cam in it and some headers and it got out of it’s way. A 5.0 hatchback with A/C weighed under 2900 lbs.
If they weren’t such complete rust buckets they would still be around as easily modified cars. I’m surprised that got out the factory door without requiring bondo.
Yeah, whereas the '73s were almost two tons-- imagine a wheezy smog-era V8 trying to push one of those around and Ford calling it a “sports car” with a straight face. In retrospect, people laugh about them being based on the Pinto, but that’s not that different from the original Mustangs being based on the Falcon. The other thing people forget about the Mustang II is that they were actually pretty well received at the time and sold significantly better than the last 1st generations they replaced.
I bought an '84 GT new, black inside and out, with removable glass tops.
I sold it six or seven years later after 432,000 kilometres and change, or 268,000 miles, give or take, when I broke my clutch leg.
I drove it coast to coast in two countries and up and down and all around the continent in three, with its only failure on those trips a leaking rad somewhere near Minneapolis, swapped out in 30 minutes or so. Three of us (including Bruce the Mustang) even had an earthquake in San Diego.
It was a great car. I shoulda kept it.
That’s a great color, but I wasn’t a big fan of that particular set of wheels.
Absolutely. I think the 2005-2009 models recaptured the old Mach I/Boss Mustang look better than any other retro new musclecar save perhaps the latest iteration of the Challenger. The Charger (until the cosmetic re-do) and the new Camaro are fugly cars.
No, it’s the THIRD most beautiful you have seen, until you take a gander at my 2008 GT Premium in vapor metallic paint:
Especially when compared to what I used to drive:
Zombie threads about Mustangs are awesome!
I have to vote for the Mustang II. Its not just ugly, its a completely anemic POS excuse for a pony car.
Although I do have to say that I am not a huge fan of the styling direction the 2010-onwards models have taken. While the new 5.0 motor is utterly badass and the sequential taillights are cool, I dislike the plasticky rear end on these newer Stangs, and I don’t like the way they’ve re-shaped the front end, either. I really like that chopped-off, boxy look of the '05-'09 Mustangs for pure retro look in a modern package.
Now if I can just figure out a way to shoehorn a Coyote 5 litre motor and the 6 speed tranny into my budget and into my car, I’ll be all set!
An ex-boyfriend had an '84 convertable. Not a bad driving car but nothing like my old '69. And for anything good about it, it was still, aesthetically ugly. 
That’s because you’re looking back on it from 2012, surrounded by gorgeous Fiat 500s and Honda Fits.
And the newer retro body styles of Mustang.
Alas, it out-retros retro.
In other words, the rear end still hops sideways on bumps.
Not that it bothered me. You’d know how much it would jump, cheating on sharp corners by making it easier to aim.
Not really. They have come up with some amazing controls to halt that wheel hop you mention. And for 2013/2014, they are finally getting rid of it altogether. Its definitely old school technology, but the solid “live” rear axle has helped to keep the Mustang’s price low. And its utterly predictable to drive, too. There are ways around it for owners like myself that care to invest the money.
Ha! Had to quote myself here, as I purchased a 98 Cobra not too long after this post…
2013 still has the solid axle and there’s no indication of a redesign for 2014. 2015 is expected to get a new platform, but nobody knows about the drive train yet.
They’re going to a live axle when they dump the retro look in 2015.