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Everyone loves to Monday Morning Quarterback things, and the II is no different.

Thing is, Ford (and your other OEMs) can't give a :poo: about Mr. MMQ. They need what will be a hot seller TODAY. The Mustang II was 100% that car for 1974-1978 and had they wanted to, it could've been for longer, but that was not to be. Ford was already planning to replace the Pinto with the Escort, move everything else but the Crown Victoria to the fox platform, and develop more FWD cars. It made no sense to leave the Mustang on the Pinto platform by itself.

On top of that, tastes change. FWD sporty coupes were ALL the rage in the 1980s and 1990s, as were minivans. Look around today, everything is pickup trucks, crossover SUVs, and sedans. Minivans are primarily old people's cars, and sporty FWD coupes (including the Probe, which was meant to be the 4th-generation Mustang) are all but dead.

The Mustang II can be derided all the dummies that want to play MMQ want, a million sold in five years proves Ford was right. Sure, it could've been better, a V8 in '74, some actual performance in the Cobra II or King Cobra packages to go toe-to-toe with the TransAm, better wheel and tire packages, etc. could and arguably should, have been offered. Even without such things, the car was incredibly successful.
 
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The right car for the right time. Just not desirable now since we're not in the mid-1970s anymore.

I'm actually starting to take a liking to the IIs. Might be interested in picking up a notchback in the future if I can find a nice local deal.
 
The right car for the right time. Just not desirable now since we're not in the mid-1970s anymore.

I'm actually starting to take a liking to the IIs. Might be interested in picking up a notchback in the future if I can find a nice local deal.
You're not the only one coming around to that point of view. As the 64-73 values continue to skyrocket, and fox prices have started to rise, people are giving IIs a second look and realising what those of us that have had them for years already knew, they're bolt-ons away from being quick, fun stock, and cheap fun (for now, prices have more than doubled over the last decade).
 
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And, since they're almost always looked down on by both Chevy fan boys AND other Mustang owners, it's usually a surprise to them when you show some actual power. Sure, they point and laugh - until they're looking at your tail lights.

Back in the early to mid 90s I had a friend with a built Camaro, I think it was a 75? Anyway, his car was pretty bad ass and had a reputation. These 2 guys pulled up in 2 Fox 5.0s and challenged him, so we all ran north of my hometown on a county blacktop and they lined up. After they were done my buddy asked who wanted to run my II. Those 2 decided that the car that had the least amount of mods would take me on. Long story short, I walked away from him. We come back and the other guy decided he'd line up with me. That one was a pretty close one, I'll say it was neck and neck. When we crossed the finish line I looked in my rear view and saw flashing lights, so I took off and went back into town. The sheriff never found me, so that was all good, but wiping the overconfident smirk off of those guys' faces was priceless.
 
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Mustang order of ugly. (ugliest to least ugly) in my opinion.
This does not take in to account customer popularity, sales or power rating.
This is my rating based on "style" and shape, and to detail that comment, non-ambiguous styling or copy cat, blob, or industry wide styling trends. Nowadays a Mazda looks like a Mustang looks like a Kia etc. ..hence why the newer mustangs rate so low in my opinion. They are not pure of styling, they follow import trends.

1) 1971 to 1973
2) 1994 to 2004
3) 2015 to present
4) 1979 to 1993
5) 1974 to 1978
6) 2005 to 2014
7) 1965 to 1966
7) 1969 to 1970
8) 1967 to 1968
 
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Mustang order of ugly. (ugliest to least ugly) in my opinion.
This does not take in to account customer popularity, sales or power rating.
This is my rating based on "style" and shape, and to detail that comment, non-ambiguous styling or copy cat, blob, or industry wide styling trends. Nowadays a Mazda looks like a Mustang looks like a Kia etc. ..hence why the newer mustangs rate so low in my opinion. They are not pure of styling, they follow import trends.

1) 1971 to 1973
2) 1994 to 2004
3) 2015 to present
4) 1979 to 1993
5) 1974 to 1978
6) 2005 to 2014
7) 1965 to 1966
7) 1969 to 1970
8) 1967 to 1968
I'd put the IIs somewhat closer towards the better looking cars for me, and have to split the 1979-present cars along each major body style change the way you did the 65-73 cars. Might actually make a thread about it in one of the off-topic sections just to see everyone hate on IIs some more. :rlaugh:
 
That would be a fun survey across the site. I agree with many of your rankings, but a few I'd re-arrange. This is all subjective, on most of these I'm completely in the minority.

1) 1979 to 1993 - Fox, these things were just hideous. Over-sized Escorts with horrendous 80's interiors. No idea what people find appealing about them.
2) 1974 to 1978 - I have one, I love it, please don't spit on me for my opinion, it was my first car, modified they can be stunning (fat rubber, nice paint is all it takes). But in stock form rolling on 13's, they were mal-proportioned and those rubber 5mph bumpers, man. Just ugly.
3) 1999 to 2004 - I split this out from the SN95, New Edge took the SN95 and tried to make it look more like a boxy fox. Not horrible but not great.
4) 1971 to 1973 - Car got fat and 70's weird
5) 2015 to present - Not ugly, but really easy to ignore for the $.
6) 1994 to 1998 - SN95, GT's and Cobra's were beautiful head-turners (read:chick-magnets) when they came out, and I think they still look great today.
7) 2005 to 2014 - Aside from the plasticky headlight housing, awesome retro look
8) 1969 to 1970 - Beautiful but had a few weird 70's styling cues
9) 1965 to 1966 - Love the originals
10) 1967 to 1968 - the g.o.a.t.
 
Yeah everyone has their own ranking, and separation of generations. I think It is worthwhile in some cases to separate some of the gens a little, as some changed quite a lot. I gotta agree on the fox as being pretty blah for styling. For me, much like the SN in that you can't really see too many mustang -ish styling queue's there at all.
Nice cars though, and great performance. My dad had a Grabber blue Mach 1 2003 I think. That car was quick..
68 Shelby gt 500 KR would be my favourite, or a 69 Boss 429. I think I could make one of those things fly with a little tweaking....
 
What I like the most about Mustangs (the old ones), is that they are mass production cars, which can be - if modified slightly - lightweight road race cars, which make a lot of fun and are cheap (1st of there reliability and 2nd because of the cheap parts) and easy to maintain.
The early Shelbys are modified in such a smart way, its incredible.
67 and 68 cars are still cool, because they keep IMO the spirit partly and can be fitted with a 351 stroker.
For me the thin-wall/ lightweight Windsor engine is still the heart of the story.
And the Mustang II is the real successor of the 65-66 mustangs.

Building competing super cars is nice, but building performing cars on a budget (on basis of a mass production car) is where engineers can show what they can.
 
Back in the early to mid 90s I had a friend with a built Camaro, I think it was a 75? Anyway, his car was pretty bad ass and had a reputation. These 2 guys pulled up in 2 Fox 5.0s and challenged him, so we all ran north of my hometown on a county blacktop and they lined up. After they were done my buddy asked who wanted to run my II. Those 2 decided that the car that had the least amount of mods would take me on. Long story short, I walked away from him. We come back and the other guy decided he'd line up with me. That one was a pretty close one, I'll say it was neck and neck. When we crossed the finish line I looked in my rear view and saw flashing lights, so I took off and went back into town. The sheriff never found me, so that was all good, but wiping the overconfident smirk off of those guys' faces was priceless.

Thats a cool story. Was this with your current setup?
I'm still wondering how you get traction with your tire size (diameter), transmission and rear ratio. But it seems its possible.
That makes me thinking of swapping my 3.55 truetrac rear end from my 66 mustang in the MII.
 
Traction? Never heard of her.... :jester: :rlaugh:

The short answer is no, it wasn't my current setup. It was the block and rotating assembly but I had a different cam and heads at that time. The cam was a Comp Cams 292 Magnum and the heads were ported 289 heads with 1.94 and 1.6 valves. They were junk swap meet heads - I found out not too long afterward that the valves weren't aligned properly when they opened them up and the guides were trashed. That's about the time I started looking at Trick Flows and jumped on a deal I found on the internet at that time, I think it was maybe 2001 when I got them? Anyway, I got them for a killer price at that time and haven't looked back. I also did some playing around with cams on Desktop Dyno on my old Windows 98 computer and decided on the Melling cam that I now have. I also didn't have 3.55 gears, I was still running the stock gearing, I believe they were 2.79? It was still fairly quick though. Oh, and it was the stock 4 speed too, I didn't swap for the T5 until around 2004 or 05. Man - now that I've typed it all out, I've changed it a lot since then!! :scratch: