A symbol of the “golden sixties,” the iconic Ford Mustang was thrown under the spotlight for its 60th year in existence, fueling nostalgia and revving up a storm amid the cobblestones, classic architecture, and awe-inspiring triumphal arch. This was Autoworld last week in Brussels, Belgium, kicking off a weekslong Mustang bash.
Shaking up the museum, literally, a host of rumbling “’stangs” across all six decades, from the legendary Shelby (seen in the Bond film “Diamonds Are Forever”) to Mustang’s high-powered seventh generation, livened up “Sound Night” on May 3 with lights and live beats under the stars and showroom roof.
The evening event was a taste preview of “Ford Mustang 60 Years: Celebrating the Golden Sixties,” to run through June 30.
If things go the way Autoworld officials say they will, hundreds more Mustangs will descend on Brussels to converge on the esplanade in front of Autoworld for Coffee & Mustangs on June 16, not coincidentally Ford Motor Company’s anniversary. Nor will Ford’s Mustang participation in the prestigious 24-hour endurance race event Le Mans, in June, go without a nod in the celebratory assemblage. And Autoworld will unveil its very own 1966 Mustang promo car decked in a “very spectacular color scheme,” which will run in events like the Fastest Fashion Show.
“Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to one of the proudest moments of our lives,” then Ford vice-president Lee Iacocca said in 1964, ushering in the very first Mustang to the public. That public today looks back with golden-tinted glasses, at how optimistic times were converted into orders for the “Big Blue Oval’s” burly new release with great expectations, at how those expectations were exceeded and blown away (sales reached 400,000 cars in 1964 and topped 1 million two years later), and at how the Mustang entered popular culture with such songs as “Mustang Sally” by Wilson Pickett and films like “Goldfinger” featuring the now-iconic muscle car, infusing it into long-cherished memory.
The robust car with hundreds of horses under the hood we assumed was dubbed after the emblematic horse. It wasn’t. The ferocious WWII fighter plane the Mustang begot the moniker and helped put the sad days of Ford’s failed Edsel behind them.
The sportiest of all the ‘60s models, Shelby’s Mustang GT350 and GT500, served the most hardcore customers. A fleet of them were deployed by car renter Hertz, promoted as their “Rent-a-Racer” in the 1960s. Ford rigged up its own suped-up counterpart, the Mach 1. Both the Shelby GT350 and Rent-a-Racer will glitz the show at Autoworld.
Even as the carefree days of ‘60s excess ended, Mustang sales roared into the ’70s without listing. With sunny smiles from Farah Fawcett of “Charlie’s Angels” now synonymous with the Mustang II Monroe Handler, or “Pony Car,” a more fuel-efficient variant in 1974 during the oil crisis kept driving orders skyward. The convertible was dropped.
In other aspects, the order of the day from Lee Iacocca was: quality without concession. One of only eight of these most distinctive Mustang IIs, the Monroe Handler, will be on display.
The third generation of Mustang arrived in 1979, growing in size and becoming the official pace car of the Indy 500 that year. With plans for front-wheel drive unveiled, Mustang die-hards pushed back. The convertible returned after nine years. This style kept on until the controversial styling update in 1993.
The styling updates set the car’s tone for the ‘90s and early 2000s. With the fourth and then fifth (in 2005) generation Mustangs, Ford had heard its customers and revived her sportier looks, winning back hearts with fond memories and attracting new fans. Cameos in movies like “I am Legend” inscribed Mustang’s new Legend in fresh minds.
Ecoboost as a Mustang sounds counterintuitive. But what the fifth generation sacrificed for environmental pandering, outfitted with an innovative four-cylinder 2.3-liter engine, and seeing the launch of the first electric Mustang in 2021, is compensated for in a sportier look. The all-electric Mach-E is called a crossover, no longer a sports car per se but with the same iconic styling.
Two models of Mustang’s seventh generation showed at Autoworld’s Preview Night on May 3, courtesy of Ford Belgium. The Dark Horse name belongs to the top-of-the-line, most powerful of all Mustangs, sporting 800 horsepower. For Mustang aficionados, limited tickets were snatched up for 25 euros to take in the latest models and an evening of engines roaring under the showroom lights.
Setting the tone for a memory relived, the sound of Mustangs revved. Rhythmic beats played what the children of the ‘60s remembered. Times and policies have changed. But it appears the good ’ol muscle car people grew up with, like nostalgia, are still in demand.
