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The Sad Story of the Dying Pony Cars

Boys and girls aspiring to get a driver’s license and enter the automotive world, gather around this old-on-the-inside fool to hear a story about the golden age of motoring and what it has created...
Old rusty Ford Mustang 1 photo
Photo: Flickr/edited by autoevolution
Once upon a time, the United States were established - a new world, created by people who flipped the bird in Europe’s face and decided to start a new civilization from scratch and be rebel and do wild things. A part of all these wild things are the cars America created; some love them, some hate them and others just tried the recipe with a bit of local culture aroma hoping to achieve success.

Back when gasoline was cheaper than a bottle of water and pollution wasn't even in the dictionary yet, Americans looked back at European cars and said: “How the hell can you people go around in those tiny boxes?” And thus, the era of big land yachts started, lasting from the late ‘40s to the early ‘80s.

“Big” and “opulent” were two characteristics each car designer started with when having to come up with a new model. Cars that rarely went below 5-meters in length, inspired by planes and rockets, with curvy shapes, heavy chrome ornaments, fins and big lazy V8 engines were everywhere.

In the meantime, Europeans and Asians were trying to be more realistic and were driving smaller, lighter cars, considering it a waste of resources to make and drive what Americans boasted with. That happened mostly because Europe was consumed by two wars, with the wounds not being completely healed.

Call it envy or whatever, but their mistake was not seeing that the US land yachts were designed for a specific type of driving. You see, Europeans had to drive mostly on twisty two lane roads and climb a lot, because of which their cars were lighter, more fuel efficient and came with better handling.

Across the pond, in a country where huge fields, plains and desert areas make for most part of the terrain, Americans had to drive on long straight highways. And due to their lifestyle and wealth, they tended to travel a lot across the country.

This meant they needed comfort and reliability, translating into those long cars with a lot of passenger space, powered by big lazy V8s. People who still don’t understand why those huge engines offered only around 200-300 hp should know they were all naturally aspirated and were running on a smaller compression ratio, which enabled them to work in a more relaxed way and last longer.

It made a pretty good deal for those days, but even then, people also needed sportscars and adrenaline. Still, the "bigger-and-better" scheme had been applied to coupes too, so they needed an improvement.

That’s when the Ford Mustang came around in 1964.

Along with the introduction of the first generation Ford Mustang, a new auto category was born - the pony car, which is best defined by affordability, simplicity, good looks and power. You could say the bases for this class had been built by the two-seater Ford Thunderbird, but it was the ‘Stang that made it all so popular.

The first gen Mustang became a hit by ticking all the boxes - it was an affordable, small, attractive coupe made out of a Falcon sedan. Which also meant parts were already available while the straight forward mechanics meant cheap maintenance and durability.

There you go, the recipe for a successful iconic car which others started to adopt. Chevy made the Camaro, Pontiac put out the Firebird and Dodge came with the Challenger, to which Plymouth responded with the Cuda. But that was not limited to America...

Because this handful of pony cars started to make a huge impact in the media, being associated with freedom and “badassery”, the phenomenon quickly started to influence the Europeans, who also wanted to taste some of that, but without having to import the cars from there.

The concept caught on all over the world

Although Europeans had small coupes long before the Americans made their own, they were too toned down for the people’s wish to be wild. They lacked strong muscular shapes, the deep-dish wheels, strong colors and the rumble at the back.

So designers started to work on and improve local models or even create new ones. This is how Ford of Europe came up with the Capri model, Opel brought the Manta and the Rekord Coupe, Triumph made the Stag and Aston Martin later created the V8 Vantage which, let’s be honest, looked like a Mustang from most angles.

Asia also decided to come up with its own versions so it created the Toyota Celica GT, the Datsun 240Z and later the Nissan Skyline KGC10 GT-X/GT-R or the Skyline 2000GT C110.

Although most of these designs are pretty famous now, the cars themselves never stood up against the real American pony cars. Everyone kind of failed with the proportions in some way or another, making the cars too narrow or too hunchbacked, forgetting about the iconic rear quarter hump or messing up with the interior design.

Yeah, the outlier pony cars sold relatively well and even if most people could look away from the design, not many could have said they were feeling that excited when burring their foot into the gas pedal hearing a four-cylinder engine buzzing and struggling to keep up with the owner’s wish to do wild stuff.

There were some cars offered with inline-sixes or V6 engines, but a V8 is a V8 and cannot be compared with anything else. The V8 Vantage was the closest one to be a true pony car, but then, it came with a huge price tag, so affordability was out of the question.

You simply cannot have a pony/muscle car without its V8 engine and that was pretty much confirmed when the oil crisis struck America in 1973 and a barrel of gasoline was hiked from a mere $3 all the way to a staggering $12. That’s when the American icon, the Mustang, almost died, along with the rest of the muscle cars.

Wanting to offer people pony cars during the hard times, Ford and the other automakers had to shrink the engine sizes. That’s how the handicapped second and third generation Mustangs were created.

The downfall of the original American dream

That’s when Americans realized why Europeans and Asians had to cope with smaller and underpowered cars. They had to watch their Mustang shrink, look like a shoe and drop the V8 for a crappy inline-four or a V6.

Sales dropped instantly and stayed that way until a small improvement in 1995, when the fourth generation Mustang came in with slightly better looks and no four-pot engines. Still, the 136,000 units sold in 1995 couldn’t be compared with those from 1966, with over 600,000 cars being sold in that year alone.

In the meantime, seeing that the freedom icon is slowly dying, European and Japanese automakers decided to abort the American theme and make their own style, which customers quickly accommodated with.

As the economy continued to recover, the iconic Mustang tried to return again and the fifth generation was introduced in 2005. That was exactly what the muscle cars needed to get revived. Mean aggressive looks influenced by a glorious past, and several V8 choices.

The Ford Mustang appeared to stay strong, and in 2006 managed to move 6,000 more units than the previous year, but then, sales started to drop out slowly, never reaching 100,000 again.

Chevrolet and Dodge decided to have a go too and brought back the Camaro and the Challenger, both coming with the aroma of the past in a modern package, but the same happened to them too.

Meanwhile, smaller underpowered sportscars from across the ocean were doing just great, with the Mazda Miata/MX-5 at the top of the list. What was wrong with the good ol’ muscle car? Why wasn’t it working anymore? It looked like a killer ride, had a big V8, the right sound and everything, but somehow, it wasn’t wooing people like back in the days.

That’s because modern times came by and brought some new ideas. Like the fact that everything new wearing a retro design had to be a bit more expensive. Aside from that, automakers had to comply with safety standards, reinforce the cars and add safety equipment.

If that wasn’t enough, emission standards forced them to invest even more into creating better engines and the list could go on with everything else modern people consider necessary to have on a car that ultimately raises the price even more.

The cold hard truth

The bottom line here is that modernity is killing the pony car. They tend to lose their affordability and get more complex, which also means expensive parts and more things that can break. They are ultimately large, heavy V8-powered traffic crawlers.

Don’t come with the turbocharged four-cylinder Mustang theory here because it’s lame and history proved it won’t work quite well. We’re talking about muscle cars, not Japanese sportscars. Of course, the Mustang EcoBoost is a different car, that outperforms the old four-bangers anytime, but no matter how well they're engineered, four cylinders and a turbo are never going to bring the organic badass feeling required by the original pony car recipe.

Speaking of which, it looks like some automakers are now trying to bring back that recipe in some way - the underdog way. The Toyota GT 86, or the new Mazda MX-5 and even the Nissan iDX, if it will enter production, might be better suited for the term “pony car”. They don’t come with the same appeal, but they are indeed affordable, compact, lightweight and they look good enough.

Power remains to be discussed here, but lets not forget the first generation Mustang fitted with a 5.8-liter V8 made around 54 more horsepower than the current 200 hp GT 86.

The only hope for you to drive the original pony car it to get a restored one from the ‘60s. Still, that comes at a price, which can even surpass that of modern-day examples. The purity of true driving is slowly dying out anyway, with automakers turning cars into computers on wheels. Soon, driving will become little more than pushing a button and choosing a destination.

The only thrills and freedom you could get then would probably come from a motorcycle. That might be your true pony…
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