LAST PONY STANDING

How the '90s Saved the Ford Mustang-and What It Means for the 2024 Model 

- CHRISTIAN SEABAUGH

1993 FORD MUSTANG COBRA

1996 FORD MUSTANG GT CONVERTIBLE

2024 FORD MUSTANG DARK HORSE

Perhaps nothing is more important to the Mustang story than the fans. This might sound like platitudinal BS, but it’s also true. At every turn when Ford could’ve either killed the famous pony car or made it worse, the Mustang’s wildly vocal and passionate fan base stepped in to save it from ruin (well, except for maybe the Mustang II). Everyone likes to wax nostalgic about the original “1964 ½” and Shelby Mustangs, but the truth is the two cars most responsible for keeping the model vital and setting it up for success into the 21st century are ’90s babies.

In 1990, a divided Berlin was becoming one again. Soviet citizens in Moscow were lining up for the communist bloc’s first Big Macs. In America, Vanilla Ice was cruising in his white-on-white “5.0” Mustang, lyricizing over Queen and David Bowie’s “Under Pressure.” The Mustang was still a hot commodity, but sales weren’t quite cooking the Chevrolet Camaro like a pound of bacon, as Ice rapped in his hit single. Popularity of the long-in-tooth Fox-platform Mustang, new for 1979, had slumped since 1986 and was two years away from flatlining at 79,280 examples sold. Worse, the Camaro was about to outsell the Mustang for the first time in six years. The fact this was a self-inflicted wound didn’t make the pill any easier to swallow.