I’ve said everything I have to say about the Mustang II, numerous times, most vociferously here. So I’m just going to let Road and Track do the talking. And you, of course.
mn
Vintage R&T Review: 1974 Mustang Mach 1 – “Neither Fast Nor Particularly Good-Handling…”
– Posted on March 3, 2018
I still want one for the “collection” but now even these have gotten out of my price range. I don’t dump on ’em like most folks. I’d want a 76 Ghia.
I’m not a fan of the II but wouldn’t mind a Mach1 just like the test car. The 2.8/4speed was actually a good combo for these cars.
Family members first car was a ’75 Mustang II Ghia with the feeble 122 HP 302 V8. 3 HP more than the test car’s 119 HP V6! Bought it for about $300 with blown head gaskets, after replacing them and skimming the heads, along with the radiator it was a decent car for what little money was invested. It struggled to get 15 MPG, and felt slower than my ’77 Rabbit. The then 12 year old car’s dark red paint had faded and turned chalky, vinyl top yellowed and cracked, the bordello red interiors plastics had all turned different shades of purple and pink, dash was full of cracks, though the seat velour was faded but still intact. It got her around for a couple of years without problem, as long as she didn’t try to pass a gas station.
Would have been better off with a stripper with the 2.3 and 4 speed trans.
If only North American buyers had known the Accord and Ford Fiesta were only 2 and 4 years away. They could have saved their money.
Cars melted like ice cream in the sun in 1974. They would have been walking a lot.
Or maybe Ford could’ve spent more money on a lighter, better engineered car, that got acceptable mileage? Rather than deep pile carpets.
yes, and maybe if Hitler had gotten into art school the world would be a very different place.
it’s pointless to engage in “shoulda-coulda-woulda” debates over things which happened so long ago and whose after effects have long since been dealt with.
Gotta love American cars of the 70s — incredibly slow while guzzling obscene amounts of fuel…
Bringing over the Mach 1 package to the Mustang II was probably a matter of inertia, but with a V6 and, as we clearly see, legitimately lackluster performance, and even the lack of potential to improve performance by the way over the counter speed parts that the Clydesdale 73s still benefited from, with their venerable 302s and 351s and carryover chassis, it becomes clearer to see why the Mustang II is so maligned among the gearheads. The 74 Mach 1 left a very bad first impression on the Mustang II’s sporty side, directy inverse of the way Shelby’s GT350 made the rather pedestrian 65s seem sporty.
Funny that this article and the electric Focus COAL both came up here today. At the Detroit Auto Show Ford did a teaser about their forthcoming high-performance electric SUV to be called “Mach 1”. Article and very silly video here.
$4500 for that little car was a ton of 1974 dollars. I respect the car though- without it, the Mustang would never have survived.
Love these old road tests. Once again, thanks for posting it up.
As derided as the II is, realistically this was the best subcompact that had yet to come from a domestic manufacturer at this point. That bar was not set very high, but you can’t really overlook the fact that these were legitimately better than a Gremlin, Pinto, or even Vega (I’d argue if the Vega was moderately reliable it would take the title, but they weren’t). The imports were certainly another story, but Ford really did get quite a bit right with these for a traditional American consumer.
The problem with this idea is the Mustang II was never intended to be an economy car. With the base price of $3500, it was a good 30% more money than a basic Corolla or B210 of 1974.
The RX4 featured here had a similar price to the Mustang II tested here and roughly compares for cross-shopping. The Celica was, in my opinion, the best small coupe of the era and the direct competitor.
I certainly agree these weren’t meant to be economy car competition. My point was more along the lines of what American small car came remotely close to the attributes the II had? This was as good as it got for a US built small car then, regardless of price. I also agree the Celica was the car to beat in this category. For $150 more than a base Mustang II hardtop, you received a vastly superior product with a lot more feature content. The $4,500 price tag seen here is grossly inflated because the test car has nearly every option, which was a problem for a lot of the early II’s built.
http://www.oldcarbrochures.org/index.php/NA/Ford_-Mustang/1974_Ford_Mustang/1974-Ford-Mustang-II-Sales-Guide/1974-Ford-Mustang-II-Sales-Guide-14
$3,363 is where the most basic II started for 1974. Certainly not one would consider cheap once you add a few simple options, yet people still ate them up at a fairly large rate. Old habits die hard, it would seem.
Base was $2800.
I have never been a Ford person, and it’s cars like these that turned me against the brand. In my direct experience of 1960’s-1980’s cars, Fords were inferior to their GM competitors in ever way. Just compare the Granada to the Nova: which one do you want to drive every day? GM’s H body competitor came a year later and was a better car in every way, and the packaging sucked just as badly as the Mustang II.
How the Mustang II became this heavy was always a headscratcher to me. They must have added a whole lot of metal to make it ride nice or something. Even the later ones with the 351 were gutless slugs that would understeer like mad at the merest hint of a corner.
I think it’s the sound deadener, all Mustang IIs basically got the same application Grande Mustangs were getting on the previous generation. They never had the 351, the smog choked 302 was added in 1975 and that became the top engine. Granadas had an optional 351 though.
I wouldn’t say that the H-bodies were “better in every way” than the Mustang II. Their styling was definitely better, and they had better handling.
Their drive trains, however, were not better. If one bought a Monza with the small block Chevrolet V-8 jammed under the hood, changing the rear-most spark plugs required jacking up the engine.
The Mustang II had better interior material quality and overall fit-and-finish.
Road Test tested a 1976 Oldsmobile Starfire hatchback, and panned its workmanship and quality of materials. They later tested a 1976 AMC Hornet Sportabout, and said that the only recently tested vehicle with equally bad workmanship and cheap materials was that Starfire.
I learned to drive on a 1973 AMC Gremlin, so I was quite familiar with AMC quality. If the Starfire was as bad as an AMC Hornet or Gremlin in those areas, it was quite bad.
I think that A/C compressor is about as big as the engine itself.
Another thing to remember is Ford sold over 1,000,000 copies of that car in a four year period. Gas prices, insurance, and the 55 mph speed limit made them a lot more attractive then than they are today.
That’s the bottom line. The Mustang II might have sucked, but Ford sure sold a lot of them. It’s a great example of the wrong car at the right time; Ford’s timing on their rebodied Pinto was impeccable.
A preview of the Malaise Era… not bad looking in profile, but how far the mighty Mustang had fallen.
They’re part of the Mustang story. But I don’t know how they managed to make a 2.8 V6 that slow while using that much fuel, and with a stick shift too. Was this because of emissions/smog equipment?
Seriously, 0-60 in 13.5 and 16mpg is atrocious even by 70s standards. I’d expect that kind of acceleration to be more appropriate to a small 4 cylinder.
If you do the math using curb weight, they had to haul 26.22 ponds per horsepower. That jumps to 28.8 if you use test weight. Those are horrible figures by any metric in modern context. Drag likely drug the MPG down as well.
The ’78 Camaro had 105 horsepower (78 kW) and 190 ft⋅lbf (260 N⋅m) of torque with the 250. Those numbers are within a few points of the 262 and 267 V-8s which were 110-120hp and 195-215 ft-lbf.
They were all like this.
105 hp from a 250ci six? Jesus wept! The Euro Ford capris were getting that hp from a 2.0 4 cylinder! It’s like Detroit made a conscious decision to extract the least amount of power possible from a large engine while using as much fuel as possible.
The German ’77 Ford Granada (large 4 door family car) used the same Cologne 2.8 v6 and weighed the same as the mustang II. 0-60 in 10 secs and 113 mph. I don’t know what Detroit was playing at back then.
Not exactly a fair comparison.
Ford EAO cars wouldn’t be tasked with either unleaded gas or catalytic converters for some years, and when they were, they had all the experience NAAO had built up in this technology.
The subject car is only very slightly less offensively ugly than the notchback version. My eyes hurt on the fortunately rare occasion when I see a Mustang II. It is hideously ungainly from any and every angle, and can’t nobody nor nothing make it better. There were some very bad drugs going round the Ford styling studios in the ’70s, as it seems. Too many random swoopy lines and melted-bar-of-soap shapes (quarter glass, ugh; taillamps, ugh; grill, double ugh). The main thing is that the proportions are goofy with the long front fenders and hood and stubby short quarter panels and trunk. Many of these styling (must we?) cues can also be seen in the early Toyota Celica, whereon which they worked quite well because Toyota got the proportions right on that car.
(Also, slapping a “II” on a car with no concurrent “I” and “III” counterparts just makes the maker look lazy and desperate.)
And that’s without even getting into the other kinds of ugliness o full display by this pathetic excuse for a car: poor handling, poor performance, poor economy, etc.
I was taught to find something nice to say even when it’s difficult so…um…the rear turn signals aren’t the wrong colour.
I was taught to find something nice to say even when it’s difficult so…um…the rear turn signals aren’t the wrong colour.
Perhaps you shouldn’t click on Paul’s link to the Mustang II Cobra II posted in his article.
Just sayin’
Oh, yeah, I know it. That might’ve been the first of the many times Ford have played with rear indicator colour as a style gimmick. Others included the Fox-body Mustang, the ’86 and ’96 Taurus, the ’92 Econoline/E-series van, the ’98 Clown Victoria…
Ford used “II” elsewhere, on Capri II, LTD II, and ??
Mark II, Bronco II.
Though Bronco II and LTD II made some sense, since there was a standard LTD and Bronco “I” in the lineup with them, sort of like the Chevy II to the standard big Chevy. The Mustang II and Capri II weren’t in that naming strategy though, they were like the Lincoln Mark for some reason, used in succession to a prior generation, yet never followed up on – the 79 Fox versions of both weren’t Mustang/Capri IIIs, in fact development photos show there was still Mustang II badging on them, so despite being all new they wouldn’t have even continued the succession of the numerals.
It wasn’t a good naming scheme and at the end of the day all it does is call attention to the already oddest Mustang generation. Would the Mustang II have been any less successful had it just been called “Mustang”, sans the II designation?
“Would the Mustang II have been any less successful had it just been called “Mustang”, sans the II designation?”
I think the “Mustang II” designation was brilliant. Had the car just been “Mustang” we would have heard nothing but “THEY’VE RUINED THE MUSTANG!!!” Ford acknowledged upfront that this was not a “real” Mustang. Or at least it was a completely different concept of what a “Mustang” was. It was sort of like managing expectations. And it worked quite well because nobody considered the thing a “real” Mustang. By 1979 they had a car that they felt comfortable calling “Mustang” again. And here we are.
Bronco II. So did GM (Chevy II).
Chrysler didn’t. Oh, they had Fury I, Fury II, and Fury III, but those were trim lines all sold at the same time, not “Uhhhhh…we kinda ran out of interest before naming the car so we just slapped a II on a previous name”.
I completely agree with Daniel Stern’s above comment. What a wretched, overstyled, lumpy, bumpy, mess. Not only was it ugly but it didn’t even have a good personality and was hideously overweight. 3100 lbs is brushing very close to a lightly optioned 1978 gm a body, which was light years better in every way possible. Whatever the forthcoming monzas faults in terms of quality, it was beautiful and not quite as wheezy and handled better. Ughhhhh, 1974. Imagine choosing among a bloated, rattly Electra, a bloated, rattly, ugly, porky pinto clone, and that hideous and cramped b210. At least cars got much better quickly but what dark days.
I can see why the Opel 1900 didn’t make it, as opels weren’t that great to begin with and would have been very expensive to produce here, as the cortina would have been, (I forget where I read that the cortina would have come in at around 2500 whereas the pinto target was 1995) but I maintain the Maverick or Capri would have been infinitely better choices. If the Maverick could turn into the Granada, it could have turned into a tolerable mustang.
I think that this Mustang II and yesterday’s B210 were the low points of 1970’s cars. Perhaps worse than today’s Nissan Juke and Toyota C-HR. I’ve driven both the Mustang II and the B210 and they were bad even then. No redeeming values, and the Ford was not even as good as a Pinto, when you consider the extra cost and weight.
And now you know why our eyes got so big the first time we road in a Rabbit.
Yes, I remember all the details of my first drive in a yellow, 4 door, carbureted 1500 Rabbit. Amazing … and I bought a Fiesta a few years later.
2 years ago I bought All original 1973 Mustang Hardtop coupe bronze ext color with brown vinyl interior 302 2B, Auto, Factory AM radio, Factory AC, manual windows has 8,600 original miles with all documentation wondow sticker and manuals. I paid paid 17K for it
Theres a green with tan vinyl top Mustang two around here V8 as usual nobody would bother importing a four, Quite an ugly car in my opinion but I remember seeing ads for them new and wondering what Ford designers were smoking/taking at the time Mustangs up untill this one were cool unobtainable cars, yes there were private ex US and a few ex Aussie RHD imports but they were rare cars, now its hard to go out and not see some.
I like these cars part of my life philosophy when society goes left……………i go right!!
If Ford kept the ’73 Stang big body another year, it would have died like the Barracuda, Challenger and Javelin. GM had enough might to keep F bodies, though.
In a way it’s kind of surprising that the Camaro/Firebird survived this era. Even more surprising, the 455 resurfaced in the T/A in ’75 due to popular demand.