On Thu, 02 Jun 2011 09:33:59 -0500, Jim Yanik wrote:

" wrote in
:

On Wed, 01 Jun 2011 10:17:37 -0500, Jim Yanik
wrote:

" wrote in
:

On Tue, 31 May 2011 09:07:18 -0500, Jim Yanik
wrote:

" wrote in
om:

On Mon, 30 May 2011 17:35:31 -0500, Jim Yanik
wrote:

"Ralph Mowery" wrote in
:


"Ed Pawlowski" wrote in message
...

"harry" wrote in message

ps .c om ...
Heh Heh. Finally catches up with where Europe and Japan were
fifty years ago.


http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/30/bu...y/30auto.html?
_r =1 &s
rc=un&feedurl=http%3A%2F%2Fjson8.nytimes.com%2Fpag es%2Fbusiness
%2 Fi nd ex.jsonp

.

The car makers are not catching up, the consumer is. Detroit
built small car back in the 60's. I liked my '62 Corvair.
Then the Pinto, Chevette, Horizon, Vega, etc, but they just
never sold many of them.

The American cars did have the small cars as far back as the
60's. Just none of them were any good. The larger ones were not
any better.
I had a Ford , 3 Chrysler products , and 2 GM products. None
of them
made it to 80,000 miles. The last one was a 74 GM product and I
had to put two timing gears in it and the transmission went out
at 75,000. I have only bought Toyotas for the last several
cars. One went 100,000 with only standard maint. Traded it off
for a Camry and put 190,000 on it and only changed one sensor.
Just put tires on a Tacoma truck at 45,000 and no unscheduled
maint.

Glad RonB's wife has a better memory as to why not to go
American than he seemed to.

I hate to buy from another country,but if the American stuff is
junk, I am not about to help the big wheels in the US make the
100 million plus dollars a year for doing it
.





How many Pintos and Vegas do you see around these days,as
"antiques"? You do see a few Corvairs,but none of the others. They
were all crap.

I see a *lot* of vintage Mustangs. 64-1/2 models are quite
valuable and they aren't that rare. There is more to a valuable
vintage car than age.

the first Mustangs were a sports car,not an economy car.

Wrong.

No,RIGHT. Mustangs were never intended to be "economy" cars until the
Mustang II came out. they were -sporty- cars,AKA "pony cars".

Bull****. My brother paid $2K for his 64-1/2. It wasn't an expensive
"sports car".

Who was talking about "expense"?

Ah, so price has nothing to do with economics. I see.

"economy" is gas mileage and compact size.

The '64.5 was pretty compact. It *was* a Falcon. The 6-banger did pretty
well in the gas mileage area, at least for the times, too.

What made the Mustang so popular was it's sportiness.

But it *was* an econo-box with a pretty face. That changed pretty quickly,
though.

Same as today. People
didn't buy them for their fuel economy,and they still don't today.

They bought it because it was cheap and small, though.

The Mustang-II came after it had been bloated into a
full-sized whale.

You have a screwy idea of what is a "whale",particularly "full-size"
whales.(redundant)
the Mustang II was a SMALL car,although heavier than the earlier Mustang.
Nobody would call any Mustang a "whale". that's a term used for actual
full-size cars.

You're having trouble with your reading comprehension, again. I didn't say
the M-II was a whale. I said it "came *AFTER* it (the Mustang) had been
bloated into a full-sized whale".

It had a V-8.

Wrong. It came with either a small V-8 (289CID) or straight-6
(200CID).

Actually,the first Stang V-8 was a 260 CID. the 289 came later.

My brother had a '64-1/2 200CID and (his wife) a 289CID '65.

from Wiki;

Several changes were made at the traditional opening of the new model
year (beginning August 1964), including the addition of back-up lights
on some models, the introduction of alternators to replace generators,
and an upgrade of the V8 engine from 260 cu in (4.3 l) to 289 cu in
(4.7 l) displacement. In the case of at least some six-cylinder
Mustangs fitted with the 101 hp (75 kW) 170 cu in (2.8 l) Falcon
engine, the rush into production included some unusual quirks, such as
a horn ring bearing the 'Ford Falcon' logo beneath a trim ring
emblazoned with 'Ford Mustang.' These characteristics made enough
difference to warrant designation of the 121,538 earlier ones as
"1964½" model-year Mustangs, a distinction that has endured with
purists.[28]

The point is that you were wrong. It did come with either a V-8 or
I-6.

Few of them came with the I-6.

Bull****. Attempt to move goalposts noted.


The very first ones were also firetraps,worse than the Pintos.
there was no metal barrier between the fuel tank and the passenger
compartment,any rear end collision resulted in the fuel filler
breaking and gas spilled into the trunk and passenger compartment.

As was posted elsewhere, it was a *Falcon* with a pretty face. It
was still a nice car. ;-)

the Mustang IIs economy cars of the 70's were recognized as junk.
Later,Ford "redesigned" the Mustang to bring the pony car back
closer to the original. It was actually a whole new car platform,not
related to the Mustang II.

What relevance does any of this have to the topic at hand?


We -were- talking about American junky small cars,at their beginning.

The Mustang-II was not "at their beginning". It came out almost a
decade later.


At the beginning of "Detroit's" venture into making small,"economy" cars to
compete with Japanese and European small cars.

More bull****. What about the Maverick and even the, by then, ancient Falcon?