A Deeper Look Inside The Ford Archives
We recently had the opportunity to hang out in a small, unassuming building a few miles down the road from Ford World Headquarters. Filed away inside is nearly every photograph Ford has ever taken in North America. If you haven't already read our 23 Things You Didn't Know About The Ford Mustang article, and what it's like hanging out with the car's designers, you should head over to the related articles below, then come back here. These are the extras we had leftover after those pieces, and they're some of the more incredible photographs that you've probably never seen.
A designer works on a very small scale model of the Mustang I in 1962.
A Shelby GT 350 Hertz edition sits in a courtyard so it can be examined by the design team.
An early Mustang advertisement teaches women to brag/not brag about their car.
Did engineers experiment with a mid-rear-engined Mustang? Of course they did!
The design team sometimes puts two concepts on the same model so they can see the difference in person. This car was an early design of the 1970 Mustang, shown here in 1965.
If they had put a top on the legendary 1962 Mustang I prototype, this is what it would've looked like.
From top: Shelby GT 350, Mustang, Mustang II concept, Mustang I prototype.
The Mustang II concept was intended to ease the design transition from the Mustang I to the production Mustang.
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Going Behind The Scenes At Ford
This sketch ultimately led to the car that Mustang was based on from 1979 through 2004.
The Fox Mustang was the first sign from Ford that the 1970s gas crisis was fading.
Yes, they thought about making a Mustang station wagon.
It was called the Mustang Aspen.
The incomparable Carroll Shelby, standing between a trio of his eponymous suped-up Mustangs.
A couple poses next to the Mustang II concept.
The Mustang makes its official debut.
Originally, the car was slated to be a Cougar.
At one point, Ford was working with British sports car company Lola to make some interesting designs. This would've been sweet.
The 1964.5 Mustang was the Indy 500 pace car.
A Mustang, or Ford's take on the Studebaker Avanti?
Somehow this car wasn't nicknamed Four Eyes.
Aaron Miller is the Rides editor for Supercompressor. He could spend a week going through the archives and still not see even a tenth of what's in there.