Like Mustang I, Mustang II's lines are the result of a styling runoff among several Ford design studios. Participating were the Ford, Lincoln-Mercury, advanced design adn Turin-based Ghia studios, all working to the same interior package dimensions. Iacocca favored the competitive approach: "I like runoffs, if there's a lot at stake -- especially if youre going into a new market. "Bordinat:"We've had some good luck with that sort ofd thing. The young turks, especially, tend to get ginned up when they know they're in competition." In fact the final design that was picked for the Mustang II was the work of a "young turks" group within the Lincoln-Mercury studio.
Starting in August 1971 with the interior package drawings and a Pinto, Ghia was the first to complete a running car as part of the Mustang II program. Recalls Iacocca:"From the time Gene and Hal Sperlich and I went over to give them the sketches, to the time it arrived at my house, it was 53 days!" The ability to build prototypes that fast was one of the big reasons why Ford bought Ghia. The Turin group did two cars for the program. "They did a fastback car for us, the Ancona, that influenced our fastback, " Bordinat says. "But it had a lot of tire exposure and roll-under. We showed it to sports car buffs, who rejected these measures. This impressed me."
This reaction from a selected market was one of many that Ford gathered in
|
product clinics for proposed new Mustangs, private showings of experimental body designs in competition with others that are in the same slice of the market. "You don't do it for them to design the car for you." Iacocca explains. "We don't abdicate responsibility. They do tell you something when they turn it down out of hand, when it's a real turkey." Where are the clinics held? "We always go to California. If they go in California, they'll go anyplace."
One of the designs, called the "Anaheim notchback" after the Southern California town where it was clinic-tested, laid the proverbial egg. It was a boxy notchback coupe with a semi-pagoda roof inspired by the other car from Ghia. According to the clinic reactions, it couldn't be given away in Southern California. But when the testers opened their doors in San Francisco, including the notchback on a last-minute hunch by Iacocc, it substantially outscored the fastback! "That's why we have the two roofs." admits Iacocca. "The only time you do that is when you have a market that's equally split."
When the San Francisco returns came in, Mustang II had already been styled as a one-body-style car, a three-door fastback. "Once we developed that," says Iacocca, "the question came: Could we get a believable notchback off that body? Now we're equipped to go as high as 50 percent of production on each one.
|
I have a feeling that the women will prefer a more conventional style . . ." At the clinics, the interior was never in doubt. Dave Ash: "It reasearched extrmely well. They consistently put it in a higher price class."
What feel did Ford get from the clinics about the impact Mustang II would have on the sporty imports? Iacocca eplies with a wry grin, "I'd say, oh, a third of the people in the research -- when we showed 'em the car -- said, 'I loved it until I heard it was going to be built in the U.S.!'" He feels, though, that buyers are recognizing that American qulaity isn't so bad as more and more of the imports are equipped with electrical options and other gizmos that cause trouble. And he's confident that the price will tell its own story. "The average foreign car buyer is going to look at this and think we've slipped a cog because the price is so low."
Can Mustang II add to the total number of Ford cars sold in the U.S.? Iacocca: "If half of 'em are incremental, say 200,000, it'll be fantastic. As for the other half, the Pinto will feel it, and so will the Maverick, in '74. But in '75 you won't recognize the Maverick. It'll be Mercedes-style in design, fit and finish." There'll be cannibalism at Ford in 1974, in other words, as Mustang II bites into the sales of other Dearborn products, but Iacocca hopes to minimize it by positioning the "images" of his products with great care.
|
MustangII.Org
