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THE MUSTANG TRADITION Nine years ago, the name Mustang ushered in a refreshing new concept in the automotive market. It was the industry's standard-bearer for a whole new class of cars -- the sporty, compact and reasonably priced "pony cars" (a colorful and descriptive name derived from Mustang). Mustang sales began at a gallop. In its first full year, sales were 418,812, bettering the record set by Falcon of 417,174 sales in its first year. For any calendar yeare, Mustang never relinquished its segment leadership to any of the half-dozen cars that followed in its wake. Obviously, Mustang was the right car at the right time. A CHANGING MARKET But inevitably, times do change. And so do car buyers' preferences. While Mustang and its competition were growing longer, heavier and costlier, the role of the pony cars in the market became less noticable. Obviously, the market was changing. Accepting the challenge of change, Ford had been studying the possibilities of les-conventional, smaller and more economical methods of transportation even as early as 1969. The need for a new car was stated forcefully in November of that year when Lee Iacocca addressed the company's top management at Greenbriar, West Virginia. He called such a car one of the company's top priorities for the '70s. As a result of this and marketing surveys, a major management decision brought Ford to the development of a new kind of Mustang for the 1974 model year. |
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