Is the X1/9 really what the Mustang should have been?

[moretti124guy]

Having worked in the Mustang industry all my life I have always longed for a chance to drive the Mustang I protoype, I was thinking about it the other day and pulled out one of my old Mustang books, you have to admit, that the Original Mustang 1 (1962) and the Bertone Runabout (1969) are at least cousins in design terms, and the Mustang 1 had to be in the minds of the designers at Bertone. I just wonder what would have happened if Ford had developed the Mid Engine small displacement concept.

Mustang 1

Bertone Runabout

 

[BrettM]

I agree...

I have seen this car in person and the resemblance to the runabout is crazy. It is amazing to me that the Mustang I ended up as the current Mustang. The design and concept is not even close.
Brett

 

[avusblue98]

'If Ford had developed the.........

small displacement mid-engined concept,' I would have bought one, simple answer. As a kid in the 60's, no one was a bigger fan of the Ford GT's, of Ford with Lotus and Jimmy Clark at Indy, of Ford with Cosworth and the DFV. Ford could have taken their relationship with Cosworth and created a mass market version of the BDA, which was based on the Ford Cortina 1600 block after all; but it was the Japanese who eventually based their lineup of street engines on knockoffs of the BDA. There seemed to be a tipping point where Ford, with the rest of Detroit, started to deem innovation as virtually un-American, offering cup-holders instead.