Pony cars were in disfavor by 1970, buyers preferred cheaper, fuel-efficient compact cars. The new-for-1974 “Mustang II” model was drastically smaller than the 1973 cars. On assuming the Ford Motor Company presidency, in December of 1970, Lee Iacocca ordered a smaller Mustang for 1974, initial plans required basing the 1974 Mustang on the Ford Maverick, a compact car of like size and power akin to the Falcon’s, the Mustang’s original base car. Those plans went undone in favor of a yet smaller 1974 Mustang based on the Ford Pinto, a sub-compact car.
Such a Mustang could better compete with smaller, imported, sports coupés, such as the Japanese Toyota Celica and the European Ford Capri (then Ford-built in Germany and Britain, sold in U.S. by Mercury as a captive import car). The introduction of the smaller Mustang II was well-timed — two months shy of the first “Energy Crisis”, in October of 1973. The first-year sales were 385,993 cars, almost that of the original Mustang’s twelve-month sales record of 418,812 cars.
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