ACID FLASHBACK THURSDAY - Ford "Mustang" II
Where I saw one: Down the street from Kistar. It’s for sale, if you’re a masochist.
Nostalgia factor: -26/10 - THE WORST CAR EVER
Baseline: 0, since I never personally owned one. +1 because Pod had one, -1 for orange, -1 because Yoko had one too, -+1 for Yoko’s being (appropriately) the color of shit, -1 because I never got laid in one, +1 because I never had to drive one, -1 because I did have to drive a couple of Pintos, which are the same thing, +1 because this one has a V-8, -1 because the starter motor in my Mustang puts out more net power, -1 for being unreliable pieces of shit,+1 for not usually being able to explode if they don’t run, +1 for its ability to navigate two track dirt roads, -14 because the sheriffs will laugh and point, +1 for its ability to get airborne, -1 for its inability to land gracefully, +413 for not killing Pod or Phid, -217 for soiling the name “Mustang”,-212 for “Mach One“, “Cobra II ” “King Cobra“, +1 for for being such a regrettable shitbox that the next iteration did not get called “Mustang III,” which would therefore legitimize the “II”s as “real” Mustangs, +2 because this complete disaster of a “car” at least this allowed Pod and Phid (by proxy) to join me, 8 Barrel and my gigolo Dad as Mustang owners - Pod and Phid’s membership just comes with an asterisk for the whole Pinto in drag thing: at least 8’s precursor and mine have respectable DNA. (Or at least less unrespectable DNA).
Stumble It!
Stumble It!
How about getting a clue?
Of the top ten selling years of Mustang, 74-78 hold three of those positions, which hardly “soils the Mustang name”. If you did any research before your petty rant, you’d be well aware that there is less Pinto in a Mustang II than there is Falcon in the “classic” Mustangs or Fairmont in the 79-94 “fox” Mustangs. The whole “exploding gastank” issue was no more corrected in the fox Mustang than it was in the Mustang II.
The Fox mustangs have NONE of the Mustang styling so traditional to the Mustang (including the Mustang II) , and yet they kept more of the design that the Mustang II revolutionized in handling (the rack and pinion setup in the Fox is almost IDENTICAL to the Mustang II unit, but lacks the rest of the front suspension to back it up, which is why the Mustang II front clip is so desirable to the hotrod crowd)
Oh, where to begin…
1 - the point of the post escaped you. It’s not really about the shit box of the week.
2 - “Of the top ten selling years of Mustang, 74-78 hold three of those positions, which hardly ’soils the Mustang name.’” Sales are irrelevant to the point. Dinos sold like hot cakes; Ferrari treats them like bastard stepchildren. Assuming your numbers are true, all that sales prove is that P.T. Barnum was right.
3 - “If you did any research before your petty rant, you’d be well aware that there is less Pinto in a Mustang II than there is Falcon in the “classic” Mustangs or Fairmont in the 79-94 “fox” Mustangs.” So what? The bones of my Mustang are shared with the reanimated T-Bird, Lincoln LS and Jag S-Type. That is the essence of Mustang, turning a sedan, or in the case of the Pinto, a giant steaming pile of shit, into a decent sporty car. (Or, in the case of the Mustang II, a steaming pile of shit with a vinyl roof. Oooo, sporty)
4 - “The whole “exploding gas tank” issue was no more corrected in the fox Mustang than it was in the Mustang II.” Bullshit. Also, way to miss the point, still. Objective facts or shut up. Also, irrelevant.
5 - “The Fox mustangs have NONE of the Mustang styling so traditional to the Mustang (including the Mustang II)” Half right. Fox mustangs reflect some styling cures from Mustang iis. “Classic” Mustangs and iis share little except a general long hood short trunk proportion (as much as that can be transplanted onto a pinto).
6 - You are blending suspension and steering. Fox suspensions and Mustang iis are way dissimilar. Rack and pinion steering? You really want to give all the credit to Mustang ii, not the Capri, Ford of Europe, or all the other competitors with sporting pretensions. I know about Mustang ii front suspensions and you are right. And pigs give us bacon, which everybody loves on salads.
So here is the deal in a nutshell: you like them. I don’t know why, and I don’t care. Good luck to you.
Oh you pitiful misinformed person…
Its most obvious from the “points” made in the article that there is little or no actual knowledge about the II, but simply a regugitation of all the old (very old, and very tiring) BS rationalizations for those who dislike the Mustang II.
1) I don’t give a rat’s anus about the “point” of the post. I commented on its lack of relavence to the subject matter…
2)Did Dino’s sell just a hair shy of 1 million units in 5 model years? The II also made Car & Driver’s “Car of the year” in 74, even without the V8 option. You ARE correct that Barnum was right. Your ignorance is proof of it…
3)With the re-introduction of the V8 in 75, the Mustang wasn’t much lower a performance car than pretty much anything else on the market at the time. Even the Trans Am had pitiful horsepower, and weighed considerably more. At the time, the fit and finish of the II was comparable or superior to pretty much ANY other offering from the big 3 auto makers. Vinyl roof or not, even a stock Mustang II is as sporty as it got in the mid 70’s (I was there in person) Steaming pile of shit? Take a good look at the 05+ Mustang sometime. The lines are remarkably similar to the Mustang II, with the front and rear 6″ of a 72 grafted onto it and smoothed up a bit….
4) Objective? Way to miss the point yourself. Do some research. The exploding gastank issue was a major concern on ONE year of the PINTO, but the same “corrective measure” was applied to most Ford cars. The IDENTICAL measures were incorporated into most Ford passenger cars with rear-mounted fuel tanks, INCLUDING the Fairmont platform as well as the rest of the models with the same fuel tank location, such as the Mustang II. And if its irrelevent, why make such a huge deal about it in the original post?
5) There are NO styling cues common between the Foxbody and ANY other era of Mustang, beyond the nameplate. At least the II kept the flowing lines and the trademark side scallops. And unlike the Mustang II/Pinto, just about all the parts from a Fairmont (other than the body shell itself and the doors) is a DIRECT bolt-on to a foxbody Mustang. The ENTIRE front clip is a direct swap (thus making a Mustang GT wagon a simple weekend creation with no tools beyond a basic socket set…) I’ve seen it done..hideous, but hilarious at the same time.
6) Take a look sometime. While the strut configuration of the Fox is completely different from any previous Mustang, it wasn’t a huge improvement over the setup used in the II, whereas the II suspension WAS a huge improvement over the Falcon-based Mustang. That accounts for the II front suspension being swapped onto half the resto-rods out there (look on Ebay…they even have kits for swapping the Mustang II suspension into 40’s era TRUCKS! Not something the Fox can boast of) It was the combination of the rack and pinion with the front suspension that made the Mustang II setup work, and the rack and pinion setup on a Fox is almost IDENTICAL to the Mustang II (ONLY requiring offset bushings to allow the units to directly interchange). Ford of Germany supplied the 2.6/2.8 V6 used in the Pinto, Bobcat, Capri, Mustang II, Ranger, Bronco II, and the 79 Foxbody, and was the basis for the 2.9 and the 4.0 as used in the Explorer. Only frustrating part is that the Germans used Metric fasteners…
Screw salads. Salads aren’t food. They are what food eats.
So here’s the rebuttal in a nutshell. Yes, I like the Mustang II. I own four of them. I’ve owned several others over the years. You admit to never having owned, driven, or gotten lucky in a Mustang II. I have. All three, actually. So who is more qualified to discuss the merits of them? The guy who actually has a clue about them, or some guy “broadcasting from his mommy’s basement”? I got a life of my own back in about ‘83….when will it be your turn?
I normally don’t bother trying to clue in the ignorant, but I got bored and felt like poking fun at you. Congrats on helping me kill an hour of otherwise wasted time.
1 - IIs suck. You won’t change my opinion by calling me names, or other disingenuous rhetorical devices.
2 - Sales do not = legitimacy. As you claim elsewhere, what other options were there? Vega? Gremlin. Picking the least smelly toilet in a row of porta potties does not transmogrify your choice into something else. It is the best option, but it’s still full of shit. Also, Motor Trend, not C/D.
3 - your styling attributions on the the S197s aside, it’s still the line of port a potties metaphor.
4 -Cars that go boom was a minor comment until you got a hold of it. Never the less, pinto bones makes your car tainted. IN MY OPINION. Accept it. (OTOH, Consumer Reports from that era LOVED the bumpers on the iis. I personally would like bumpers that worked. )
5 - And the Ghia BS, and the coupe/3 door body style. To me that is a good thing: distance the Mustang from the ii. Break out of the rut. I lke the fresh direction better than the 94-04 bastard fusion of new and old. I like the 05+ (big surprise). I would have loved to bolt a Mustang GT front onto my Futura.
6- we are not disagreeing on the suspension steering thing, except for you giving credit to the ii for the grandiose idea of rack and pinion steering.
So here is the surrebuttal - good for you, for liking the car. iis had their chance with me. preety paint and fancy appliques and tacked on plastic zoominess may have won the day in the malaise era, but it doesn’t make a crap car into the best car ever.
I loved iis when they were new. I thought they looked cool, and I was depserate for Ford to do well and so I drank the corporate kool aid a bit about how great they were. then I did my research about what came before, and it was disgusting. Instead of Boss 302s, we get 302 2v with no cojones. Instead of 427/428/429s we get crappy four bangers that don’t run worth a shit. The whole flipping on a wet road thing was a spoiler too.
I lived through what came later - the 1980 “Cobra”, which couldn’t outrun a Civic. The 1982 GT, which restarted the hp wars, or at least the return of performance to the line.
Do I have the pedigree to talk nuts and bolts about “Mustang” iis? No. Same with Yugos or Merkur Scorpios. I just know that every example i ever encountered was a giant piece of shit, and it (the cause or fault or whatever) was split between design and manufacturing.
Feel free to comment about Mustangs (or iis) here all you want. I will continue to bitch about iis as it comes up. (I am not alone on that sentiment).
At least until Mom throws me out, which shouldn’t happen so long as TVLand keeps showing Star Trek reruns.
Since I still have some otherwise unused time to kill…
You may figure the Mustang II sucks. You ARE entitled to your opinion, though it WOULD be nice if you actually knew much about the cars you talk about so disparagingly.
Try going beyond the comparison of the II to previous models. I happen to like the original Firebirds and Camaro’s, while the “big block” 70’s version had difficulty getting out of its own way. I don’t like those ones, but I don’t sit here calling them pieces of shit, either. Some people like them. You seem far too content to spew the same tired arguments about the II, most of which have little or no basis whatsoever. No matter how you keep dissing the II, its a Ford manufactured with “Z” parts, and contributed enough to the Mustang name that the foxbody Mustangs made it past the chopping block.
I don’t particularly like anything Ford produced from 79-04. Most of it lacked any sort of “styling” at all. I HAVE owned a few fox-stangs, and quite honestly? The II out-handles any of the Mustangs produced even 10 years later (I can’t speak for the 94+ though. Never wanted to drive something looking like a “euro-mobile”).
I’m not an expert on Mustangs in general, but I have a fair bit of hands-on experience with some of them (mostly 75-88). The Mustang has ALWAYS been a compromize car. Yes, it lacked a bit of power during the mid-70’s (like just about everything else), but the 302 in the II was the same one used right back to the old 289-era smallblock, and anyone who knows one end of a wrench from the other is more than capable of releasing the potential.
As for the offer to talk Mustangs (including the II:as I stated, it still had “Z”-code parts…get over it) is welcome. As to those who share your dilike for them, what was it you mentioned about the line of porta-potties? A lot of people thought the world was flat, but most know better these days…
At least we seem to agree that the 05+ is an improvement, even if we disagree over why.
And as an aside, you haven’t been the brunt of anywhere near the venom of most II owners when the cars we love get ripped on. Some of us get REALLY pissed-off when people (especially owners of other-era Mustangs) start up the same old crap.