AS THE SEVENTIES dawned, America was at the very zenith of her power.

The Apollo moon landing had propelled national pride (and hubris, some might say) to unprecedented highs. Vietnam was still a spreading stain, the full horror and shame of which hadn’t yet manifested itself. Watergate was yet to unfold.

IMAGE GALLERY HERE

Domestic oil production was at its peak. The OPEC nightmare of only three years later wasn’t even on the radar.

And the muscle-car era was at its apogee, reflecting all the machismo of a hard, fast, brash, rich, oil-drunk nation.

Bruce Springsteen encapsulated it best with Born to Run, of course.

‘In the day we sweat it out in the streets of a runaway American dream

At night we ride through mansions of glory in suicide machines
Sprung from cages out on highway 9
Chrome-wheeled, fuel-injected and steppin’ out over the line…’

American streets were ruled by tyre-shredding, fuel-sucking machines  whose names read like a roll of honour: the Plymouth Roadrunner Superbird, the Pontiac GTO Judge, the Chev Chevelle SS-454, the Chev Camaro Z28, the Dodge Charger R/T 440 Magnum, the Plymouth Barracuda, the Pontiac Firebird TransAm and, naturally, the Mustang in a bewildering array of guises.

The ’Stang story, of course, began on April 17, 1964 when the Mustang, billed as a ’65 model and created under Ford GM Lee Iacocca, rolled into showrooms across the USA, selling over 22 000 models in the first day – and more than a million in the first two years.

Along the way it entered popular consciousness as a bona-fide cultural artefact, appearing in films from Bullitt to Goldfinger, just months after its launch. Naturally, it also featured in song, from Mustang Sally (Wilson Pickett) to Mustang Ford (T-Rex) to My Ford Mustang (Chuck Berry).

Whether the name had equine roots or was spawned by the WW2 fighter plane is still debated. But in an age of oversized behemoths, the comparatively lithe Mustang was just perfect.

Decades later UK CAR writer Stephen Bayley summed up the original Mustang thus: ‘There was the air intake, a perfectly judged oblong slot with pretend lateral louvers which would irritate were they not executed with such conviction. American designers have a genius with orifices. Then there were the kicked-up haunches, the most winning interpretation of the Coke bottle look. And lastly there was the turned-up back bumper which gave the rear end a pick-up-your-skirts-and-run aspect.’

The base price of the hardtop car was just $2 368, including a straight-six 170ci (2.8-litre) motor and a three-speed manual box, but it looked far more expensive.

Over the years the ’Stang gradually got bigger, harder and faster. The even more iconic Shelby Mustang, born of the certainty that GM and Chrysler wouldn’t be taking Ford’s pony car lying down, upped the game.

And why was it called the GT350? Simple. Creator Carroll Shelby apparently asked how far a certain building was from where he sat with his chief engineer Phil Remington. They both guessed, and then Remington paced it out at 350 feet. The later GT500, meanwhile, was born for the very good reason that 500 was a bigger number than 350…