LOL...What is a Mustang II? A re-skinned Pinto.

What front suspension does a 1974/78 Mustang II use? 1971/80 Pinto.

The major difference is...that in 1975 and thru 1978, Ford shoehorned the 302 in, which means those cars, and only those cars have stiffer springs.

 

You are the one that is blind, clueless or both.

Would you use the N word on FTE? I think not.

The term you are using is as offensive to the Japanese as the N word is to African-Americans.

You are also clueless as to the quality of American Cars from the 1980/90's, prolly because you are not old enough to remember and/or never bought any of these piles new.

The Big Three built crap!

Ford alone had BILLIONS of DOLLARS of warranty claims because of defective TFI modules (Ford was forced by the NHTSA to recall 5 MILLION vehicles to fix the terds), defective DuraSpark ignition modules that were on national BACK ORDER for THREE MONTHS, causing 10's of 1000's of vehicles to sit on dealers service lots nationwide waiting for parts, cracked cylinder heads on 351M's, AOD's that would fry their guts in heavy stop and go traffic, C3 and ATX trans' that would do the same damn thing, draglinks on Ranger and Bronco II's, crappy A4LD trans' on the same two vehicles, brakes that got so hot on Taurus/Sable's that the calipers melted, defective cruise control switches that would catch fire...people had their homes burn down as a result.

And...if I was to think about it a bit, I could prolly name dozens more problems besides these as I was a Ford back (shop) parts counterman from 1962 thru 1997.

And....since the warranty period back then was far less than it is today, many people that owned these terds...had to pay for the repairs.

It's no wonder people began buying Japanese cars...by the 10's of 1000's....as the Big Three with their crap vehicles handed the car market to the Japanese, hook...line and sinker!

Editted to say "foreign". Carlene

 

Well...almost. The Mustang II had a 2" longer wheelbase than the Pinto so it had it's own Unibody chassis, other than that it shared all the Pinto's underpinnings...

 

Edsel died in 1943, Ford...as you said, was losing millions of dollars, the War Production Board was alarmed, because Henry was senile, had turned the company's daily operations over to Harry Bennett and his goon squad of ex cons. Bennett was head of Ford's Service Department...Ford's in-house security service.

The War Production Board got Henry Ford II (The Deuce) out of the USN, to take over operations. Henry refused...that is until his wife Clara said she would sell her Ford stock unless he stepped aside (Ford didn't go "public" till 1956).


When "The Deuce" viewed the new lineup for 1949, he deemed the 1949 Ford too heavy.

A crash program was initiated to design a new 1949 Ford in 30 days. Dick Caleal, who worked for Raymond Loewy (who had the Studebaker contract to style their cars), did the design work in secret, baking the clay model in his wife's oven. The only change to Caleal's design was to change the taillights from vertical to horizontal.

So, when the 1949 cars came out, everything moved up a notch, except one. There was the all new 1949 Ford, the former 1949 Ford became the 1949 Mercury, the Mercury shared its chassis and body with the baby Lincoln, the Lincoln Cosmopolitan remained the same.

 

well the fact is that the mustang II was the rite car at the rite time.. that was what ford needed in 1974 if they planned on keeping the mustang name alive. i had a freind who bought one brand new in 1975 and owned it till the day he died last year.. loved it and wouldnt sell it.... and ya got 73-79 ford trucks, they came from the dredded 70's. they are rite up there with the greatest ford trucks ever built i think, i mean how many chevy or dodges do you see from the early-mid 70's still pullin trailers, still unrestored.. i see them all the time workin hard... better yaet, how many pre 1990 ja cars do you see on the road compared to pre 1990 american cars.

i mean this is not a comparison, i know they build stuff now that is just about as good as anything, but saying thay built good stuff pre mid 90's is crazy, i seen the JUNK they passed off on americans in the 70's and 80's.

i mean i just parted out a 1999 acura tl, i bought it from a frind with the intensions of parting it out on ebay. when i got it, i first thought wow this is real nice even thiough it had a blown engine and bad tranny at 102,000.. but when itook it all apart and seen the cheap little bolts they used to hold it together and the hunreds of little plastic pop pins. ionce again relised why i would walk before drive one.....

 

There are 1000's of 1980's/90's Toyota's, Honda's and Nissan's (and every other car) driven daily here, because we have no rust issues.

In the rust belt and other states that use salt on the roads, these 1980's/90's cars from any country: US/Europe/Japan, have all but disappeared.

It hasn't snowed in LA LA Land since 1949.

I had a coupla friends fly here from MD recently to attend a major carshow. They could not believe all the older stuff they saw on the freeways heading back to my house from LAX.

Come on out and take a look-see.

 

i do believe that foreign car companies WERE ahead of american when they started making smaller cars, but in today's market, Ford holds it own against any other car manufacturer. Anyone I know with Dodges has a ton of problems that they deny are there, same with GMs(Check Engine Lights/Service Engine Soon apparently don't mean anything?), but that's not to say Fords aren't problematic. Japanese cars are still good, but the only thing foreign I'd get would be a european TDI or sports car because they handle better than american ones. This is a truck forum though and no one can deny that america's light duty trucks are the best out there. When you start getting bigger like F550 isuzu comes into play and they've got a hell of a medium duty truck, but it's all personal opinion. I don't talk down my friends crappy GMs or Dodges because they're American companies. I stopped talking down my friends prelude because he didnt buy it new so he gave no money to a japanese company. I just choose to support American business vs foreign business. Sorry for the rant

 

Look, I washed my hands of this thread weeks ago. It's fruitless since we all seem to be so devided. In response to your post about mine, jap is short for japaneese, the ''n'' word you felt the need to drag into this is not short for african american, its just a mean word. I do however get your point and apologize if I offended any ''Asian Americans''. Now, your rant about how bad cars were in the 80's/90's, I never said anything about the quality of our cars back then! That was brought up by someone else, my concern is the economic problems caused by buying foriegn cars. So, your rant about how worthless the big three were back then means absolutely nothing to me, I never claimed they were great, you wasted your time. I think I am a bit older than you assume, I own a $3,000,000.00 per year automotive based business. I know that doesn't qualify me to solve every economic issue, but neither does sitting behind a parts counter for 35 years. I own a 56' f100 show truck, seven 73-79 ford trucks, and a newer superduty - thats the reason I come to this FORD site, I should have kept my mouth shut about you guys loving your foreign vehicles so much and hating American businesses. Lets just try to let this one go now and move on, I'm done with this topic.
No hard feelings here to any of you, I'll just agree that we disagree.
Tim.

 

I all honesty, I can understand where this Japanese imports superiority complex ever came from. I am in the business of repairing cars and trucks for a living, and I just don't get the hype as i repair just as many imports as american cars. Truth be told is that i come across far more 80's gm products than any other, not just because they need repair, but the vast majority of the other cars have fallen off of the face of the planet. Though all cars seem to eventually rust, the japanese cars seem to be the wose ones here as I had a cousin who'd toyota pickup literally broke in half, still ran though on it second engine. I have encountered far too many 200K+ milage early 90's and 80's American vehicles to call them crap. Our 85 Dodge was a great little car. lasted 20 years. We sold our 1990 Pontiac last year still running great with no major mechanical failures including the intake gasket in it's 3.1. Been replaced with a VW Jetta which handles far better but is anemic in the power department.