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European sports cars became popular in the early 1960’s. Some of the best sellers were made by triumph, MG, and Austin healey. North American car makers tried to compete with the eurepean cars. One of these companies is general motors. Their top sports car was the corvette. It was the most popular North American sports car of that time. Ford wanted to compete also. So to design the ford sports car the ford company chose Lee Iacocca. Lee started working at the ford company in 1964 he was 22 years old. |
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First Lee worked fore ford as an engineer. But he soon shoed talent in selling cars. His selling cars led to many permotions. He then became fords general manager in 1960.Lee then put together a team of men and woman with youthful ideas. They were called the fair line committee. The committee tasks was to come up with a small light affordable car. And from there the mustang was born. |
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On March 11 1964 Henry fords nephew drove a pre-production mustang convertible to a lunch in down town Detroit. Pictures of the mustang shoed up in the newspaper and on tellivishion. The photos were graney. They looked like spy photos. Many car lovers were curous about fords new sports car. | |
| The mustang was officially shown to the public ion april 17 1964 at the New York Worlds fair. The mustang looked and drove looked a European sports car.But the mustang costs half the price. Millions of working class people could afford it. People went crazy over the mustang. Ford had not had a car as popular since the Motel T. One million mustangs were sold between April 1964 and August 1965. It was a new record. |
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The people at ford wanted to make a raceing mustang too. Iacocca called a man named Carroll Shelby . Shelby was a successful race-car driver. Shelby had made his own sports car called the Cobra. It was powered by a ford engine. Shelby’s cobras were blowing corvettes off the race track. Iacocca shipped 100 white mustangs to Shelby ‘s plant in California. They were fastbacks. They had per-fomance, 289-cubic inch engines. |
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Shelby turned the cars in to racers. He redesigned the body. The Shelby engine had 306 horsepower. The car could go 125miles per hour. Shelby’s cars were approved for the 1956 racing season. Shelby made many different cobras and mustangs for ford. These were limited production cars. This means not many were made. The engines and body styles changed every year. They changed to stay ahead of the competition. Shelby’s cars were the first ford muscle cars. Muscle cars are made to performed like race cars yet be on regular roads. They accelerate quickly reaching high speeds |
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