Instruct: Given a question, retrieve documents that answer the question.
Query: When did Ford first produce the Mustang?
The first-generation Ford Mustang was manufactured by Ford from March 1964 until 1973. The introduction of the Mustang created a new class of automobile known as the pony car. The Mustang’s styling, with its long hood and short deck, proved wildly popular and inspired a host of competition.
The four-seater Mustang was known beforehand to be the car that would actually be produced for sale using the first generation Ford Falcon platform. Based on a four-seater configuration and using a front-engine layout based on the Falcon, the Mustang II was much more conventional in design and concept and closely resembled the final production variant that would appear in 1964. Nearly the only design element that remained from the original Mustang I were the fake louvers that recreated the radiator scoops of the two-seater.
Ford Mustang Ford Mustang Mach 1 Shelby Mustang
In 1982, the California Highway Patrol asked the Ford Motor Company to produce a capable and lightweight police car due to the bulkiness of current police cars like the Ford Fairmont and LTD/Crown Victoria and the problems incurred with Chevrolet Camaros with their camshafts and engine problems at pursuit speeds. Taking the Fox 5.0 Mustangs in production at the time, Ford produced the Ford Mustang SSP and modified them to suit the needs of the police and law enforcement departments.
Almost replicating the initial 1965 Mustang's sales rush, "even without any real performance appeal, the '74 Mustang II brought buyers running into Ford dealerships." Sales for the Mustang II increased in 1974, making it the 6th best selling Mustang of all time with 296,041 units produced.
The sixth generation is also the first Ford Mustang to be marketed and sold globally, and represented the first time that factory right hand drive Mustangs were produced in addition to the left hand drive models. This is part of the "One Ford" business plan, which also applies to the Fiesta, Focus, Fusion/Mondeo, Escape/Kuga, Edge, Ford Transit Connect, and Ford Transit, as well as other models.
An irony to the XR-400 story is that Budd tried to sell the idea to Ford first. In 1961, Budd combined a 1957 Ford Thunderbird body with a 1961 Ford Falcon chassis to produce a sporty convertible. When Ford turned them down, Budd shifted focus to AMC. Ford went on to base the Mustang on the Falcon chassis.
The Mustang Boss 302 is a high-performance variant of the Ford Mustang originally produced by Ford in 1969 and 1970, alongside its more powerful sibling the Boss 429 Mustang. Ford revived the name for another two year production run in 2012 and 2013. It was produced for the Trans Am racing series.
The Ford Racing Mustang FR500 is a highly tuned race variant of the Ford Mustang, featuring a V8 engine. These are turn key race cars not designed for public road use. Each FR500 model is built with a unique Ford Racing number, and not a DOT VIN. Each is built when ordered through Ford Racing. Each FR500 is built by the same plant, in Flat Rock (Michigan), as the standard Mustang.
The fourth generation Ford Mustang was an automobile produced by the American manufacturer Ford for the 1994 through 2004 model years. For 1994 the Ford Mustang underwent its first major redesign in fifteen years, being introduced in November 1993 and launching on December 9, 1993. The design, code named "SN-95" by Ford, was based on an updated version of the Fox platform. It featured styling by Bud Magaldi that incorporated some stylistic elements from the classic Mustangs. A convertible returned, but the notchback and hatchback bodystyles used in the earlier Mustangs were not available and now formed into a single fastback coupe bodystyle.
 The legendary Ford Mustang, the first of the "pony" cars, was developed and introduced in 1964 under the guidance of Lee Iacocca (Lehigh Class of 1946), former general manager of Ford Motor Company's Ford Division. Still in production, the Mustang combined fun, performance and styling at a low price and had the most successful first year sales of any automobile. In its first two years of production, three Ford Motor Company plants produced nearly 1.5 million Mustangs, a record unequaled before or since.
The 2004 Cobra was produced between November 2003 and March 2004. It was a short model year for the 2004 Terminator Cobra, as well as the entire 2004 Mustang lineup, due to a number of reasons. The 2004 Mustangs and Cobras were the last Mustangs to be built at Ford's historic Dearborn Assembly Plant in Dearborn, Michigan, and Ford Motor Company had made the decision to end Mustang production there rather than updating the plant for the 2005 models. Thus, 2004 production was scheduled to wrap up by May 2004. Another reason was the hype over the all-new 2005 Mustang, which meant that Ford needed to start production as soon as possible at the newly updated Flat Rock Assembly Plant in Flat Rock, Michigan, then known as AutoAlliance International.
In 1968 Henry Ford II hired former GM executive Bunkie Knudsen to be president of Ford. Knudsen recruited Shinoda to come to Ford in hopes of improving the styling and sales of Ford's lineup. Shinoda's first project at Ford was a high-performance Mustang known as the Boss 302 Mustang. Reportedly Shinoda chose the name "Boss" as a homage to Knudsen. He led design used for Mustang models for 1970-1973 as well, but when Knudsen was fired from Ford late in 1969, Shinoda left as well.
When Ford wanted to introduce the Mustang in Germany, they discovered that Krupp company had already registered the name for a truck.[31] The German company offered to sell the rights for US$10,000. Ford refused and removed Mustang badges from exported units, instead naming the cars as T-5 (a pre-production Mustang project name) for the German market until 1979 when Krupp copyrights expired.[31]
The only time a V8 option was available in a first-generation Falcon was the 1963½ model, and these cars were produced in very limited numbers (Sprint two-door hardtop (bucket seats) 10,479 produced and Sprint convertible (bucket seats) 4,602 produced). These first-generation Falcon Sprint cars were the basis for the 1964½ Mustangs released by Ford one year later. Many (if not most) of the interior, chassis, suspension, and drivetrain components were derived from those used on the 1963½ Ford Falcon Sprint and/or Fairlane models. In simplest terms, the 1963½ Falcon Sprint is nearly mechanically identical to the 1964½ Mustang while being aesthetically different.
The Ford Mustang SVT Cobra was built by Ford from 1993 to 2004, except 2000, due to engine power issues that surfaced with the 1999 model. The Cobra R was built that year though. The SVT Cobra returned to the 2001 lineup after Ford sorted out the engine issue. The SVT Cobra represented the highest performance version of the Mustang built by Ford, sitting in the model range above the Mustang GT model. On rare occasions, Ford produced a higher-performance Cobra R variant.
From its formal April 17, 1964 introduction by Henry Ford II at the World's Fair in Flushing Meadows, New York, the Mustang was an enormous sales success, launching the pony car phenomenon. Being fully operational with a 271-hp V8, and the first and only steel-bodied design study ahead of the definitive 1964 production Mustang, the Mustang II was saved from being scrapped when R&D engineers needed a test mule. The Mustang II was eventually donated by Ford to the Detroit Historical Society in 1975, where it still resides in storage.
Consumer reaction to the Mustang II was enthusiastic with a combined total production of the 1974–1978 models exceeding 1.1 million. "As the smallest, lightest Mustang since the original, it was a fresh start for Ford's pony car and a refreshing return to rationality. And it couldn't have been better timed, introduced just two months before the first "Energy Crisis" upended America. People came in droves to see the Mustang II—and to buy." "Not only did gasoline prices spike up, but its very supply looked to be in jeopardy. Economy immediately became a hot item, and this helped boost the smaller Mustang's first calendar year sales to 385,993."
Currently the Romeo engine plant produces engines for the F-150, Mustang, Shelby GT500, Explorer, E-Series van, Crown Victoria and the Mercury Grand Marquis. The plant is well known producing the Ford F-150 and the Mustang engines, due to the fact that both vehicles are iconic for Fords. The current engines the plant produces are the: 4.6 liter 4-valve V-8, 5.4 liter 4-valve supercharged, 4.6 liter 2 and 3-valve V-8 and 4.6 liter 2-valve flex fuel V-8 engines. In the past the plant has produced engines for the: Expedition, Lincoln Aviator, Lincoln Navigator, SVT Mustang, Mustang Mach 1 and Cobra. In 1996 is when the Romeo engine plant produced its first version of the 4.6 liter V-8 Cobra motor that was hand built. Production at the plant averages around 3,000 engines a day. Annually the plant produces on average 628,000 engines. The plant supplies to various Ford plants in: Dearborn, Mi.; Wixom, Mi.; Lorain, Oh; Norfolk, Va.; Kansas City, Mo.; Louisville, Ky.; Michigan Truck Plant in Wayne, Mi.; St. Thomas, Canada; Ontario, Canada; Mexico and Australia.
The Ford Mustang has arguably been Ford's most successful sports car. Jerry Titus won the 1965 SCCA Pro B National Championship with a Mustang and the model went on to earn Ford the SCCA Trans-Am Championship title in both 1966 and 1967. Ford won the Trans-Am Championship again in 1970 with Parnelli Jones and George Follmer driving Boss 302 Mustangs for Bud Moore Engineering. Ford took the 1985 and 1986 IMSA GTO Championship with Mustangs driven by John Jones and Scott Pruett before returning to Trans-Am glory with a championship in 1989 with Dorsey Schroeder. Ford dominated Trans-Am in the 1990s with Tommy Kendall winning championships in 1993, 1995, 1996, and 1997 with Paul Gentilozzi adding yet another title in 1999. In 2005 the Ford Mustang FR500C took the championship in the Rolex Koni Challenge Series in its first year on the circuit. In 2007, Ford added a victory in the GT4 European Championship. 2008 was the first year of the Mustang Challenge for the Miller Cup, a series which pits a full field of identical factory-built Ford Mustang race cars against each other. Also, in 2008, Ford won the manufacturers championship in the Koni Challenge Series and HyperSport drivers Joe Foster and Steve Maxwell won the drivers title in a Mustang GT.
The Ford Mustang is an American car manufactured by Ford. It was originally based on the platform of the second generation North American Ford Falcon, a compact car. The original 1962 Ford Mustang I two-seater concept car had evolved into the 1963 Mustang II four-seater concept car which Ford used to pretest how the public would take interest in the first production Mustang. The 1963 Mustang II concept car was designed with a variation of the production model's front and rear ends with a roof that was 2.7 inches shorter. Introduced early on April 17, 1964 (16 days after the Plymouth Barracuda), and thus dubbed as a "1964½" by Mustang fans, the 1965 Mustang was the automaker's most successful launch since the Model A. The Mustang has undergone several transformations to its current sixth generation.
The 2018 model year Mustang was released in the third quarter of 2017 in North America and by 2018 globally. It featured a minor redesign to the exterior. The 2018 Mustang engine line up was revised. The 3.7L V6 was dropped and the 2.3L 4 cyl. Ecoboost (direct-injection turbocharged) engine now serves as the base power plant for the Mustang, producing 310 horsepower and 350 lb-ft of torque when using 93-octane fuel. The 5.0L V8 gets a power increase to 460HP and 420 lb.-ft. of torque. The automatic transmission in both engines is now a ten-speed Ford 10R80. In January 2018, Ford displayed a prototype of the special edition 2018 Bullit model, to be released in the summer; this vehicle commemorated the 50th anniversary of the movie "Bullitt" that helped attract interest in the marque.
The Mustang made its first public appearance on a racetrack as pace car for the 1964 Indianapolis 500.
The Ford Mustang Mach 1 was a performance model of the Ford Mustang that Ford produced beginning in 1969. The original production run of the Mach 1 ended in 1978.
In 1982, the California Highway Patrol asked Ford to produce a capable and lightweight police car due to the bulkiness of current police cars like the Ford Fairmont and LTD/Crown Victoria. Taking the Fox-Platformed 5.0 Mustangs in production at the time, Ford produced the Ford Mustang SSP (Special Service Package), and modified them to suit the needs of the police and law enforcement departments. Nearly 15,000 of these special units were made from 1982 until their discontinuation in 1993.
The Ford SVT Mustang Cobra (also known as SVT Mustang Cobra, SVT Cobra, or simply as Cobra) is a muscle car/pony car model that was built in model years 1993 through 2004 by Ford Motor Company's Special Vehicle Team division (or SVT, for short). The SVT Cobra was a high-performance version of the Ford Mustang, considered as top-of-the-line as it was positioned above the Mustang GT and Mach 1 models during its era of production. On three occasions, the race-ready, street-legal SVT Cobra R variant was produced in limited numbers. The SVT Cobra was succeeded by the 2007 Shelby GT500.