1969 Ford Mustang Mach 1. Mike Mueller
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this personal hovercraft purportedly could be pushed to sky-high ground speeds by horizontal air streams, sorta like those that delivered George Jetson to and from work (in glorious color) every Sunday night on ABC television from September 1962 to March 1963. Of course, although this intriguing technology worked fine in Hanna-Barbera cartoons, it never managed to propel its way from the Rotunda into reality. Rorry, Reorge.
A second Mach 1 sighting came in 1967 when this concept car was created (by customizing that year’s redesigned production model) for the auto show circuit. Further modifications followed for the 1968 show season. (Photo Courtesy Ford Images)
Far more realistic was Ford’s first Mustang-based Mach 1, a show car initially captured on film in Dear-born’s design studio in November 1966. Basically a custom take on 1967’s restyled fastback, this red-painted beauty featured a radically chopped top and notably large rear-quarter scoops ahead of the wheel openings. Equally hard to miss were two hefty racing-style fuel fillers; one was countersunk into each C-pillar. A revamp for the 1968 show season lengthened the nose and duck tailed the rear, in the latter case tipping off a new exterior cue awaiting SportsRoof customers a year later. A hatchback roof also was added, foretelling a regular-production feature to come for the 1974 downsized Mustang II.
Ford reportedly spent $150,000 on another 1967 show car, the Mach 2, a fiberglass-bodied two-seater that featured a 289 small-block mounted amidships. (Photo Courtesy Ford Images)
Mach 1 concept updates for 1968 included more radical nose treatments and a hatchback roof. (Photo Courtesy Ford Images)
A second concept car, tagged Mach 2, appeared in 1967 with its engine mounted amidships. Ford reportedly spent $150,000 on this attractive two-seat coupe, with plans reportedly calling for it to pick up where Carroll Shelby’s comparatively rude, crude Cobra roadster left off. But again, life couldn’t imitate art. Too bad; in another time, the playful Mach 2 might’ve made the regular-production grade, if only briefly. Kinda like Pontiac’s Fiero.
Although the regular-production Mach 1 didn’t have its own exclusive brochure in 1969, it did star on the cover of that year’s main Mustang promotional publication, and rightly so.
With their feet firmly planted in the real world, Ford people apparently figured they didn’t need to go overboard when the moment finally arrived to launch their sales-ready Mach 1. No exclusive press releases were prepared, nor was the car given a coming-out party. It was simply mentioned, rather humbly, during Ford’s 1969 lineup long-lead press conference, held in Dear-born in July 1968.
“For 1969, we look for great things from Mustang Mach 1,” said merchandising manager William Benton before meandering on to speak in equally understated tones about the Thunderbird, Falcon, and Fairlane.
Mach 1 magazine ads in 1969 featured two-page photographic representations and artists’ conceptions. Note that the tail striping in this rear view does not feature the die-cut “Mach 1” lettering that apparently was a last-second addition to production models. (Photo Courtesy Ford Images)
“The Mustang in 1969 will have considerably expanded market coverage and appeal in all-out performance with the Cobra Jet, in luxury with the Grande, and in performance and luxury with the Mach 1,” added Light Vehicle chief engineer Tom Feaheny, reserving his unbridled enthusiasm, perhaps, for Mustang’s redesigned ventilation system. Hell, Benton didn’t even open with 1969’s pony car news, choosing instead “a slightly unusual approach” that first concentrated, with admitted pride, on Ford’s best-selling light trucks.
Motor Trend (August 1968) and Car and Driver (November 1968) also covered Ford’s latest and greatest pony car right up front. According to Motor Trend’s Robert Irvin, the “Mustang Mach 1 . . . will not put its namesake out of the picture, but rather, into a better one.” Notice Dearborn’s newly hired president, fast-thinking Bunkie Knudsen, beaming above. (Photo Courtesy The Enthusiast Network)
So what was the Mach 1? Chopped liver?
Not at all. Nor was it a shrinking violet. As far as publicity pushes were concerned, it was the car itself that honked its own horn early on. With a little help from speed demon Mickey Thompson, an old friend of Bunkie Knudsen’s from his days as Pontiac chief.
Both Sports Illustrated and Hot Rod were on hand in the summer of 1968 when racer Mickey Thompson took three 1969 Mustang SportsRoofs, striped up in Mach 1 regalia, to Bonneville to kick up some salt. Thompson’s team left Utah with 295 new USAC speed and endurance records, achievements that Ford’s ad guys wasted little time touting in black-and-white print ads. (Photo Courtesy The Enthusiast Network)
In 1960, Thompson became the first American to surpass 400 mph on the salt at Bonneville in his Pontiac-powered Challenger I. Eight years later, he was back at the Flats and again had Knudsen’s support. Only this time he brought three mucho-modified pre-production Mustang SportsRoofs, assembled at Holman-Moody (Ford’s competition contractor in Charlotte, North Carolina), then delivered cross-country to Thompson’s shop in Long Beach, California, for final prep, which included adding Mach 1 stripes for prime hype value. Painted yellow, red, and blue, the trio featured noticeably lowered NASCAR-spec chassis and radical tunnel-port V-8s: 427-ci FE big-blocks for the red and blue models and a 302-cube Trans-Am small-block for their yellow running mate.
Mickey Thompson also promoted the Mach 1 brand one quarter-mile at a time in 1969 using two funny cars, one blue, the other red, both powered by 427 single-overhead-cam (SOHC) V-8s. Danny Ongais was all but unbeatable in the blue flopper; Pat Foster piloted its red running mate. (Photo Courtesy Bob McClurg)
Thompson and co-driver Danny Ongais assaulted Bonneville’s test courses at various times during July, August, and September 1968, eventually setting 295 United States Auto Club Class B and C records for both speed and endurance. The United States Auto Club (USAC) B classification was for cars with engines displacing 305 to 488 ci; C was for displacements of 183 to 305 inches. Thompson’s two 427 Mustangs concentrated on top-end B runs beginning with both standing and flying starts. The yellow small-blocker went after those same straight-line speed standards plus various long-distance records, established on a rutted 10-mile oval. Kicking up sodium nonstop for 24 hours, it averaged 157.663 mph and piled up 3,783 miles, 405 miles farther, and 17 mph faster than the existing best 24-hour performance in Class C.
USAC officials were amazed, Knudsen was pleased beyond measure, and Ford’s advertising guys back East were more than willing to spread the word in no time flat. “All these records make an undeniable statement about the new 1969 Mustang,” touted the resulting magazine ad, placed in all the right buff books in the fall of 1968. “Never before has any car combined the performance to go so fast and the durability to do it for so long. What this means to you: The 1969 Mustangs are winners; at the track or on the turnpikes.” Curiously, not once was the Mach 1 name mentioned in this black-and-white one-pager.
Hot Rod, however, gave due credit, this after Thompson invited editor Ray Brock (and Sports