Daily Archives: April 17, 2013


The 1970s were undoubtedly a nadir for automotive enthusiasts 1

One example of a car from the era that most people would prefer to forget is the 1973 Mustang II. In the linked article, the writer argues that the Mustang II very nearly killed the iconic franchise. I would argue otherwise.

The early 1970s hit automotive engineers with a perfect storm of new safety, emissions and fuel economy standards at the same time as the first of two oil supply/price shocks. A combination of a trying to meet all of these new rules and low point in style yielded some atrociously bad rides. 

All of this happened before electronics had advanced to a degree that would eventually bring us the automotive golden age of performance and efficiency we live in today. Engineers were aware of the coming regulations and had to make product decisions. 

At +Ford Motor Company they opted to move the Mustang to the smaller, lighter Pinto platform for the 1974 model year. While the performance sucked and the styling was unimpressive, Ford managed to sell a lot of them. As uninspired as Mustang II was, it was in fact enough to keep the nameplate alive through a very bad period in automotive history.

With Mustang II sustaining the brand, Jack Telnack's design team went to work on a whole new direction while the engineers developed the Fox-platform car for 1979.

Without the Mustang II, the original pony car probably would have been extinguished after 1974 and probably never revived.  

Happy 40th Anniversary to the Malaise Era
The Malaise Era marked a decade or so of thoroughly unexciting and drab vehicles in the wake of stricter safety regulations, pollution limits and the fuel crisis of the 1970s.

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While I am totally a proponent of marriage equality, this less talked about case is actually far more…

While I am totally a proponent of marriage equality, this less talked about case is actually far more important

This week the US Supreme Court heard arguments in a case involving the patenting of human genes. There is absolutely no way anyone should be allowed to ever get a patent on the instructions for growing a human or any other organism. At best (or worst depending on your perspective), patents could be granted on specific methods of detection, but never the genes themselves.

This week, the Supreme Court held arguments in an unusual case: whether a company named Myriad can patent a piece of DNA. The company says it spent $500 million and 17 years studying a pair of…

Yeah, about that debt being bad for growth; never mind

Yeah, about that debt being bad for growth; never mind

Back in 2010, economists Carmen Reinhart and Ken Rogoff published a report that stated countries with a debt-to-GDP (gross domestic product) ratio greater than 90 percent would find it…

The 2008 +Ford Motor Company Mustang Bullitt was one of my favorite ponies of all time

The 2008 +Ford Motor Company Mustang Bullitt was one of my favorite ponies of all time

Click above for high-res gallery of the Mustang BullittMy earliest memory of falling in love with a car was a Mustang. As a kid, a friend of our family had

My first photo shoot with the 2010 +Ford Motor Company Mustang GT convertible

My first photo shoot with the 2010 +Ford Motor Company Mustang GT convertible

Click the Mustang for a high-res galleryWhat we have here is the latest in an occasional series we’ll be doing here on Autoblog featuring some smaller

Since moving to Flat Rock Assembly Plant in 2004, 1 million Mustangs have been built

Since moving to Flat Rock Assembly Plant in 2004, 1 million Mustangs have been built

Ford’s Flat Rock Assembly Plant is where the current Mustang is built. And it’s built a lot of them. Today, the plant celebrates its millionth Mustang built, and names the top 10 to come from the faci…