1964½ Ford Mustang Convertible

Check out this Cascade Green 1964½ Ford Mustang convertible! Officially, according to Ford and the VIN plate, it's a 1965 model, but the first Mustangs built from the spring of '64 until the actual start of Ford's 1965 model year later that fall are known by fans as "1964½" cars.

By building a sportily-styled 2+2 coupe with front bucket seats and a console-mounted shifter on the basic underpinnings of their compact Falcon sedan, Ford created a whole new class of automobile for the American market: the "Pony Car". It sold like gangbusters and was immediately* joined by the Plymouth Valiant-based Barracuda and, later, the Chevy Camaro, which shared the front subframe of the Nova compact.

The fender badges say it has a 289 V-8. Prior to the official start of the 1965 model year, there was no 2-barrel version of the 289 offered in the Mustang, with the cheap V-8 role being filled by the 2bbl 260cid Fairlane V-8. The 289 would be one of two 4bbl variants, either the 210bhp 9.0:1 compression version, or the hi-power "K-code" motor, which was considerably beefier, with an output of 271 SAE gross horsepower.

Car and Driver did a full road test on the '64½ convertible with the 210-horse 289 and the 4-speed manual and recorded a zero-to-sixty time of 8.2 seconds and a 16.4 second quarter at 81.5 miles per hour. Sprightly enough, if not exactly scorching. Figure a K-code car would likely shave a couple seconds off both those figures, although you had to drive it out of the hole carefully, because the hotter 289 would easily send those skinny bias-ply tires up in smoke.

This one was photographed in March of 2023 using a Nikon D700 and 28-200mm f/3.5-5.6G zoom lens.

*...and when I say "immediately", I mean immediately. Mopar fans will gleefully point out that the Barracuda was actually the first Pony Car to go on sale, having beat the Ford to showrooms by almost two weeks. The Mustang program was a poorly-kept secret around Detroit, and the rush program to put a glass fastback and bucket seats in a Valiant got iron on the streets before Dearborn did.