The Mustang was officially introduced on April 17, 1964, at the New York World’s Fair. The previous evening the car had been unveiled, in NBC, CBS and ABC television commercials, nearly 29 million viewers tuned in. The media blitz had begun, the new Mustang was exceptionally well-publicized. The first day of sales netted more than 22,000 orders. Within one year sales reached 417,000. That total established a record for a full year of sales for a brand new name. As far as we know, that record still stands.

Fords goal was to design a car that carried four people, weighed less than 2,500 pounds and costs less than $2,500. The production version came very close to those design parameters. Looks-wise, the Mustang had flair. It reflected the original Mustang I’s sports car concept, with its clean and dramatic lines. It had a long hood and a short rear deck. In 1964, as today, that type of look says “performance.” The Mustang’s performance look was an instant hit.

Two models were marketed originally, a spunky-looking little hardtop coupe and a convertible; both with 108-inch wheelbases and an overall length of 181.6 inches. The hardtop weighed 2,449 pounds and the convertible weighed 2,615. Ford did a fabulous job selling the Mustang as a car that could be “factory customized” to suit the individual buyers needs.

The Mustang’s performance theme was driven home by its selection as “Official Pace Car” for the 1964 Indy 500. Ford assembled approximately 230 pace car Mustangs. This included 35 convertibles and about 190 hardtops, most of which found their way to the consuming public. In both appearance and equipment, the hardtop pace cars were all exactly alike. They had the 260-cubic-inch V-8 engine with two-barrel carburetor, automatic transmissions and power steering.

Ford did an exceptional job of keeping the Mustang ahead of its direct competitors in the horsepower race. In 1964 available engines were the 170-cubic-inch, 101-horsepower six; the 260-cubic-inch, 164- horsepower V-8, with a two barrel carburetor; and the 289-cubic-inch, 210 horsepower V-8, with a four-barrel carburetor. By the end of 1964, the Mustang had scored 263,434 sales.

On April 17, 1965, the Mustang celebrated its first birthday. It took the cake by setting a new world’s record of over 418,000 sales in its first year on the market as a new model. It exceeded the previous record, set by the Falcon in 1960, by about 1,000 units. The Mustang series was simply continued, with a number of minor changes, and the fastback 2+2 model was added. Several additional options, such as front disk brakes, luxury interiors and a GT package, were seen as well.

An alternator replaced the generator used on early cars. Otherwise, engines remained the same, except the small “Falcon” six-cylinder (the 170-cubic-inch block) was replaced with the 200-cubic-inch “big car” six. For buyers who wanted to “design” a Mustang GT, the package included 225-horsepower V-8; three-speed fully –synchronized stick shift; special GT grille with built-in fog lamps; a dual exhaust system with “trumpet” extensions front wheel disk brakes; and a special handling package.

Also available for Mustangs (and other Fords), were a series of “Cobra Kits” that could be installed for better performance. Kits for the 221-, 260- and 289-cubic-inch Ford V-8s were marketed. They included extras from simple packages, such as chrome dress-up parts and a Cobra distributor kit, to harder-to-install engine performance kits; dual exhaust kits; cam kits; heavy-duty clutch kits and induction kits with single four-barrel; dual four-barrel and triple two-barrel carburetor set ups.

Any Mustang hardtop, convertible or 2+2 could be made more luxurious by ordering the luxury interior option. It included an instrument panel with wood-grained vinyl trim; new bucket seats with handsome, embossed inserts; a sports-steering wheel with chromed “rivets”; integral door arm rests and door courtesy lights. The embossed bucket seats became known as the “pony” interior, as the embossment showed “herds” of stylized wild mustangs.

The 1965 Mustang was honored again. This time it was a Bronze Medal Award from the Industrial Design Institute. The public continued loving the car as much as design critics seemed to. For calendar year 1965, the Mustang racked up a total of 518,252 registrations. It was second to the Chevy Impala and very nearly equaled Dodge’s entire line of cars in sales volumes.

Again for 1966, little change was made to the Mustang, a revised instrument panel that looked less like the Falcon’s, was used. The grille retained its now-familiar shape, but had the Mustang horse emblem “floating in the center of the “corral.” It had horizontal but no vertical dividing bars. A wind split ornament was added at the end of the “cove” on the body sides. Federal safety features including seat belts; padded instrument panel; emergency flashers; electric windshield wipers (with washers); and dual padded sun visors were made standard.

“One Million Mustangs in two years!” An interesting aspect of this announcement is that it noted the three best-selling new cars of all-time were all Fords: the Model A; the Falcon; and the Mustang. It also set the stage for another six-cylinder promotion. Ford had what was known as the Millionth Mustang Sale, offering buyers two choices; they could order a Mustang of any body style with either a six or V-8 and get a personalized nameplate. They could also get a special price on a specially equipped Limited Edition Mustang with the 200-cubic-inch six; special wheel covers; a distinctive accent stripe; a center console; and an engine decal and a chromed cleaner. No wonder sixes were selling well!

Despite the slowing economy, production of Mustangs reached an al-time peak of 607,568 in 1966. By the end of the year, there had been a total of 1,288,557 Mustangs built since the middle of 1964. Quite an amazing number!