Mustang II Network - 1974 Mustang - Young Car With a Tradition and a Future - Page 23

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74 Mustang - Young Car With a Tradition and a Future

THE MUSTANG NAME AND MYSTIQUE The Mustang love affair was fostered further by well-publicized speeches by division district management nationwide - dramatizing the genesis of the new car and of a new "Mustang Mania" it created. Cited were the dissimilar products that sought to ride the Mustang bandwagon - men's hats, shirts, slacks, jackets and boots; a Mustang fabric used for making clothes for junior girls; sunglasses for men and women (at $20 a pair); countless other items of jewelry and bric-a-brac. "Mustang" products proliferated by the hundreds in the late Sixties, and some remain - for example, classy sportswear items. But the name Mustang, which once had as its first meaning "small hardy horse of the western plains" now means first and foremost "small Ford car with flair" to most Americans. A new word, "Mustangers," found its way into the vernacular. Its rough meaning: "Persons (or families) who drive Mustangs - principally for fun." Mustangers formed clubs. With the encouragement of the division, a National Council of Falcon Clubs had been formed in mid-1963 afer the Falcon Sprint won the Monte Carlo Rallye. When Mustang was introduced the following April, the council changed its name to Nation Council of Falcon-Mustang Clubs, later simply the National Council of Mustang Clubs. It grew to peak membership of 32,000 in 472 clubs by 1967 and continues with about 200 clubs and some 10,000 members. Ford Division formed a Ford Motorsports Association, which at one time numbered 300 clubs, principally made up of Mustangers. The J. Walter Thompson ad agency published a "Mustanger" magazine. Mustangers sponsored activities principally designed for family participation - gymkhanas, slaloms, auto crosses, rallies, hill climbs and "funkhanans" They flocked to Trans-Am road races, parked in trackside corrals provided by Ford dealers and drove in parade laps before the Trans-Am events which had been started by Mustang. "Mustang", "Mustangers", "Mustang Mania" - all contributed to a public awareness of the exciting little Ford Division car. In less than 10 years, the Mustang car has created a nostalgia unusual for one so young. A Detroit dentist, who had bought a Mustang convertible new in 1965 and sold it in 1969, bought it back the next year because, he said, "I missed it."

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