On Sat, 13 Mar 1999, Joe Curry wrote:
> Big question and food for thought:
>
> Did Lee Iacoca in bringing out the Mustang take a lesson form the
> Spitfire?
>
> Both cars were essentially reworked from existing sedans (saloons)
> already being produced by their respective companies....
Joe, I love the theory, but that sort of thing wasn't exactly new even in
the 1960s. After all, in the mid-1950s, Ford basically shrunk a full-size
Ford, plunked one of their larger V-8s in the engine bay, and called it
Thunderbird. A couple years before, Chevrolet took their six-cylinder
engine, added a couple extra carbs, kept the PowerGlide tranny, dropped
it into more or less a '52 Chevy wagon chassis and molded some fiberglas
around it -- yes, the mighty Wurlitzer, er, Corvette!
Of course, Austin (A40 and A40 Sports), MG (most of their sports cars
borrowing heavily from "saloon car" parts bins), Standard-Triumph
(remember where so many of the bits for the TR2 came from) and just about
everyone else has worked this way over the years. The relatively few more
"purpose-built" sports cars (such as Jaguars, Aston-Martins, Ferraris,
most Porsches, etc.) have the much higher price to reflect that build
philosophy.
But it was still a pretty clever thing, that original Mustang of April
1964. I'll take one!
--Andy
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