There are two answers going around for many years. One, Clark the designer, put a horse in his emblem design, which resulted in the Mustang name. Two, it was named after the Mustang P51 fighter plane. Take your pick.
#4
Ric
Rivets is right It was named after the Mustang P51 fighter plane.
That's only if you don't believe Lee Iococca, who says it was the horse, wild and free.
#6
Ric
John Najjar is credited by Ford to have suggested the name Mustang for the car, he was a fan of the P51. I heard it on Tv to night on a car show program. I'm like CZ, I thought it was after a horse.:laughing:
#7
Two-Stroke
And that hot new (new in mid-1960s) class of cars became "pony cars" even though the competitors included Camaros, Barracudas, and Javelins. :laughing:
It was a heady time for car design -- before the rise of government regulation. :thumbdown:
Well, even though, they did not put the P-51, one of if not the greatest prop driven planes, in their emblem but stuck with the pony.
They went on to model varients of Mach 1, Boss, Shelby, Cobra, GT, Anniversary models, SVO, Bullitt, Grande and Ghia.
Roush, Hurst, Saleen, ect were made by separate companies and Shelby was the only factory calaboration.
The Mustang was the first pony car and it defined and named the class. It's rather obvious where "pony" comes from, and it was described as long hood/short deck. Though Mopar fanciers love to say Barracuda was the first pony car because it beat Mustang to market by 2 weeks, fact remains Barracuda was NOT a pony car until it's final style iteration in 1970, 6 years later.
