Photo: Blue Springs Ford Parts
For a respectable petrolhead and a pony or muscle car lover in particular, horsepower is like the air he or she breathes. We mention pony car because we want to show you how the amount of horses inside the Ford Mustang varied in time.
So, why did we bring you here in the first place?
The answer is because we thought it would be interesting to see what amounts of horsepower found their way into the Ford Mustang since the pony car's inception 50 years ago until modern times, dominated by the 2015 Mustang.
Blue Springs Ford Parts put together an infographic that comprises Mustang's peak horsepower levels from the 1964 model year on. And their findings came along with an interesting conclusion.
Before we let you have a better look at the chart, we feel obliged to mention a thing or two about how the Mustang's grunt evolved over the last half a century.
You won't need to spend a lifetime on the chart to realize that the second, third, and fourth generation Mustang very much lived in the shadow of the first-generation 1971 Mach 1 429 Cobra Jet and its 375 horsepower. Much of the fifth generation Mustang did as well.
In fact, the only model that came with more horsepower than this one was the 2000 Cobra R, a special edition Mustang limited to a run of 300 vehicles. It packed 385 horsepower, only ten horsepower more than the '71 429 Cobra.
However, the biggest drop in Mustang power occurred at the 1974 launch of the Mustang II. This particular model was initially offered without a performance engine option, and the maximum output of the Mustang stayed below 150 horsepower until 1982.
The answer is because we thought it would be interesting to see what amounts of horsepower found their way into the Ford Mustang since the pony car's inception 50 years ago until modern times, dominated by the 2015 Mustang.
Blue Springs Ford Parts put together an infographic that comprises Mustang's peak horsepower levels from the 1964 model year on. And their findings came along with an interesting conclusion.
Before we let you have a better look at the chart, we feel obliged to mention a thing or two about how the Mustang's grunt evolved over the last half a century.
You won't need to spend a lifetime on the chart to realize that the second, third, and fourth generation Mustang very much lived in the shadow of the first-generation 1971 Mach 1 429 Cobra Jet and its 375 horsepower. Much of the fifth generation Mustang did as well.
In fact, the only model that came with more horsepower than this one was the 2000 Cobra R, a special edition Mustang limited to a run of 300 vehicles. It packed 385 horsepower, only ten horsepower more than the '71 429 Cobra.
However, the biggest drop in Mustang power occurred at the 1974 launch of the Mustang II. This particular model was initially offered without a performance engine option, and the maximum output of the Mustang stayed below 150 horsepower until 1982.
"It's hard to imagine that Ford would produce an engine in 1971 that couldn't be equaled in terms of horsepower output until 29 years later," said Kyle Harris of Blue Springs Ford Parts. "It's particularly amazing in contrast to today's marketplace, where every car seems to get more powerful every year."
On that note, feel free to examine the charts and discover more interesting facts.
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