Mac’s Motor City Garage: Mustang Two-Seaters That Never Were
Last week, Hemmings Blog provided a link to an article posted on Mac's Motor City Garage website featuring five two-seater Mustangs, including the 1963 Mustang III Concept Show Car.
The Mustang III will be participating this weekend in two car shows:
Saturday, May 14, 2016: 6th Annual Newsday Field of Wheels Exhibition & Show, Melville, NY
Enjoy,
Howard Kroplick
Mustang Two-Seaters That Never Were
Posted on April 30, 2016 by Mac's Motor City Garage
Over the years, Ford has often experimented with two-seat variations on the Mustang’s four-place pony car theme.
With the benefit of hindsight, we can see that Ford’s decision to make the 1965 Mustang a four-seater rather than a two-seater was the correct one. This savvy move made the Mustang a viable option for a far wider range of car buyers, including young families. And it provided a much-needed product differentiator, putting some distance on the Corvette and other high-performance sports cars. The Mustang’s rear seat may have been minimal, but it helped to define the pony car category.
Still, it’s fun to note that Ford repeatedly experimented with the concept of a two-place Mustang, both during the pony car’s development period and over its long production life. Many of these designs are interesting indeed. Here are a few examples.
1993 Mustang Mach III
Introduced at the 1993 North American Auto Show in Detroit, the Mustang Mach III concept foreshadowed a number of styling elements that would later appear in the 1994 production Mustang. However, the two-place cockpit and low, roadster-style windscreen signalled there was little if any production intent in the Mach III concept as a package.
1964 Mustang Coupe
This Ford styling proposal for two-place Mustang coupe is dated April 23, 1964, only days after the debut of the production four-seat Mustang at the 1964 New York World’s Fair. Obviously, Ford was at least contemplating a two-seater variant on the standard four-place Mustang platform right from the start.
1966 Mustang Fastback
Here’s another two-seater proposal from the Ford styling studios, this one dated October 19,1966. The fastback SportsRoof profile, badging, and overall styling theme are shared with the eventual 1969 Mustang production car. There’s no reason to believe the two-seater ever went beyond this mockup phase
1963 Mustang III Concept Show Car
Here’s possibly the best known of all the two-place Mustangs: the famed “Shorty” Mustang built for Ford by Vince Gardner and Dearborn Steel Tubing, Ford’s favored performance subcontractor. Based on an early pre-production Mustang coupe assembled in late 1963, Shorty had 16 inches sectioned from the stock floor pan and new rear fenders and sail panels designed and molded in fiberglass by Gardner. The unique two-seater toured with Ford’s Custom Car Caravan in 1964 and today resides in a private collection.
1962 Mustang I Prototype
The Mustang story begins here, with the original 1962 Mustang prototype that would later become known as the Mustang I. But with its petite mid-engine chassis, Ford Cologne V4 engine, and aluminum bodywork, the Mustang I contributed little to the eventual Mustang production car—the name, of course, and in stylized form, the distinctive side cooling scoops. Mustang I is now in the Henry Ford Museum.
Comments
Boy they really experimented with the styling of mustangs, didn’t they? the only one I don’t like is the 64 coupe, roof line is too high, really like the 66 fastback and then of course the 63 concept
I just picked up a 1994 5.0 convertible and it has many of those sleek lines and door scoop in the top picture. It may as well be a 2 seater anyway because the back seat is big enough for maybe a bag of groceries. But it has a great double cockpit reminiscent of the early corvettes and thunderbirds.
This reminds me to ask here, rather than privately, about the quarter-panel windows on your ‘63 III. Are they curved as they appear to be and, if so, are they glass? I assume they are fixed. Sam, III (no, I was NOT named after the car!)