Yes. If you study one you can see why. Every part of he suspension does at least two jobs and every thing is light - very light - and sourced from the mfrs existing product line
Its a good car, but I did not know he thought that highly off it. Specially since he build his own mid engined road car, the Lotus Europa, 6 years or so earlyer. Thanks for the Info, thats cool to know... Edit. Its sometimes really surprising to find out which other cars well known manufacturers realy liked. Here is a pic of Enzo with his Mini...
That's cool to see, too think some people on here get crap for having modern daily's. Then you see this
I was able to see it last year while in the big "D" for the Hot Rod Power Tour. I was surprised how small it was in real life.
Here's a couple snapshots of the 1962 Mustang I Concept that I shot at the 2010 Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance: click thumbnails to enlarge
I saw the 62 Mustang Concept car at the Texas State Fair back in 62..a lot of Mfg had their concept cars displayed in the Automobile Bldg there.
Learn something new every day! Thanks, Ryan! My boy started out the same way! Then, when he was five, he saw me window shopping on Craigslist and decided that the 1926 Model T I was eyeballing was just too cool to not have. I told him that daddy would love one of those, but it wasn't really in the budget. He said that if I let him borrow the money, he would buy it and pay me back when he sold it. I figured it would be a great way for him to learn about what makes his favorite cars work (and with a pitch like that, I could convince the old lady that we could swing it!). She went for it and my son, my dad, a couple of friends and I went down to look at it. It was in bad shape and the cobbled frame broke in half on the trailer on the way home! I got rid of the old lady, but kept the kids and only lost one old car in the whole transaction! He is 9 now, and one of his favorite things to do while we are driving around is to tell me what make all of the cars we see are. We are still plugging away on the roadster and just got the fully boxed frame back from the powdercoater. I only work on it with him, and he loves to go to the shop amd work on it and tell his friends all about it! I love my kid! ...and hot rods!
Steve Ray - kinda hard to say who stole what from whom. The Elan went into production in 62 so it's design predates the Ford. The early wheels on the Ford are Lotus wheels. Remember about that time Lotus and Ford were closely associated on lots of projects.
Seems to me, that in the cobwebs of my mind, I recall reading in a car magazine at the time, that the Mustang prototype was a decoy. Ford used it to fool the competition into thinking that it was about to bring out a two-seater in the Corvette vein. Of course as we all know, what happened when the Mustang did hit the showroom floors.
Agreed! Kids get us to look at things that we have long taken for granted... it is new and wonderous to them God Bless our kids, I feel to miss out on kids is to miss out on life. I dig the '62 concept too
Like Steve said the Elan and the Elan +2 were very different and were introduced in different years. I'm pretty sure I've read somewhere that some of the suspension pieces used on the '62 Mustang acctually came from Lotus. ( which probably meant that they were Standard 10 uprights or similar, marked up by Lotus, with maybe the brakes as were used on the Lotus 20 or something like that ) But that the Ford engineers used their own geometry. So if that is true, the bolt pattern was probably 3.75" ( or 4") which is close to the Fiat's 98mm. And a bit of time on a Bridgeport would get them to bolt up. Still,it bugs me. To me they look like the wrong style of wheel, from the wrong era and country. Unless there is a historical reason for them to be on that car ( and there might be...who knows...), they shouldnt be there IMO.
Metalshapes, I have a book titled: MUSTANG 40 YEARS. Here's a pic of the rear susp." Engineers Roy Lunn and Bob Negstad gave the '62 Mustang independent rear susp using upper A-arm with an inverted lower A-arm and coil-over shock absorbers. Engineering settled on a 49" rear track." " Its fully independent susp used upper and lower A-arms front and rear. They adapted outside vendor front disc brakes and larger rear drums. They fitted rack-and-pinion steering with a flexible steering shaft."
I know what you mean, I think it's just a byproduct of time. We filter through hundreds of cars, and we start pushing stuff aside on some small detail that's not-quite-there for our taste and don't look at the big picture. Kids are fresh-eyed and are willing to look at everything, so they pick out the good in things. It's like a place you walk by everyday and don't really notice it anymore, until someone points out how lovely it is. Then you take a step back and give it a second look, and you find out it's true. Kids do that to you... I'm sorry, but what's wrong with the Cromodoras? I think they're much prettier than the wobblies, and they're very much a design of the period. These were quite trendy in the 60's as a design, and you see many similar versions in cars of this era. Still, as my daily is precisely a '67 124 Spider with these wheels, I might be a little biased... You must remember that, as cars did their show rounds, designers often made small changes to the look to keep it fresh, and so the same car might end up being presented in two or three variations before getting tucked away or sold off. Also, while Cromodora did cast a specially-made version of this design as a factory option for the 124 Sport range, they were also available off the shelf in many other bolt patterns and sizes, their business also comprising the aftermarket fittings. Yup, Enzo liked his Minis, and also his Fiat 128's. Mind you, Dante Giacosa, Fiat's chief engineer, hated the Mini. He said that if it weren't so ugly he'd have shot himself. He'd been trying to push a FWD small car to the top brass for years, but was put off until the mid-60's when the 128 was finally conceived. He also did not regret the Mini's box-in-sump solution as he knew it would never work properly and was very expensive to begin with (true, we now know BL never made money on the Mini). So he got his own back in the end, as the 128 became a template for the modern utility car, at least in Europe, and is considered a milestone in car engineering terms. You know, sometimes I see the classic Fiat models getting a bad press, and it's just unfair. These cars were second-to-none in engineering, and the drivetrains were very, very strong. Some markets did not get along with them, simply because they were different and well ahead of their time. Mechanics in the 60's and 70's USA were not used to working on dual overhead cam engines with toothed belt drive, for example. But if you had one and got it properly serviced, you'd be hooked. They sold well because they were brilliant when new, but as people wandered off the dealers they got messed up big time. Yes, after a point they rusted like crazy. But so did many others. Sorry about the off-topic, normal service will be resumed in a few moments... Cheers, Eddie
LilT is 5 now and enjoys his Hot Wheels to no end. He has over 100 now some are mine and my little brothers. His races are fun to watch.
Yeah, we are going Off Topic, but I do agree with you about the vintage Fiats. I really like the small rear engined ones ( 500/600/850) and I've owned many of them. ( look in my albums....) Cant agree with you on the Cromodora's though...
Prancing Stallion or galloping Mustang, there's not much in it (in this case). Miller's got a good eye.
In any case (as Cerberus suggests) Ford/Iacocca did have their collective eye on Farrari at the time. If only to kick their ass.
So close the thread...I DARE YA... Some cool info on here...and I promise I won't tell anybody the boss has "matured".
I had only one 600 back when I was in college, and it was one of those cars I just wanted to inject some poison into, to get it out of my system. I ended up with a stock-looking pretty little thing, but under the skin lurked a tuned-to-the-tilt 127 engine (revved all the way up to 12,000!!!), 4 wheel disc brakes, worked suspension, the lot. Hell, I even painted white bands on the tyres! It looked the most innocent thing on 4 wheels, but when it let rip at the traffic lights, not much this side of a big bike would jump off the line as quickly as that thing did. I had a ball with it at night in Lisbon's main avenues, going from one light to another teasing everyone that came to a halt beside me. I even managed to surprise some posh exec in a hot 911... at the next set of lights he took a very good look at my lowly Fiat! But then I took it to a club meet and before I knew it a guy came up and made me a silly offer, and being young and eager to try other cars, I let it go. I still miss it, and one day I'll do another one when I find a proper donor car. It's hot rodding with an European flavour, but the spirit's there. My current italian project is also something of a rod too, a 124 wagon with a twin-cam and uprated drivetrain, a family car to share daily duties with the Spider. I think the US market got wagons with the TC, but not here... so I'm making my own! Cheers, Eddie
I know this is too "new" for HAMB standards, but I'm just about finished with it. 1964 1/2 'vert with a 289 toploader 4 speed. My 14 year old son thinks this will be his first car. Think again. Got on HAMB to learn about hot rods and am in the planning/dreaming stage for a roadster. Lucky to live in Austin for all the great cars you can see in person. Thanks for the article.
Thats too bad that the transaxle was injured. I've got an old Mustang VHS showing some engineers running it pretty fast out on the test track.
If you look at this pic of it with the blacked out hood, The artist rendering of the redesign of the Lola GT ( which was used as a mule to create the GT40) And then the early GT40 prototypes, You can really see the progression and the family resemblance
The mustang II will be on display in our main museum,woodward at kirby,when we re-open in november.I was great to have her out in front of the public..
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