What were they thinking?
Imagine working for an ad agency back in the mid-70s when you get the assignment of making the 1976 Ford Mustang lineup look exciting. Suddenly, your current job probably doesn’t sound all that bad. Pretty much everyone agrees the Mustang II was the worst pony to shamble out of the stable. But if your job is to make people want to buy one despite it being a complete dog, you start pulling out all the things you can from your bag of tricks.
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The most important ingredient in this spin job of a commercial is the chipper, upbeat jingle complete with non-offensive, water-down rock/pop music. That literally sets a fun tone, going perfectly with all the lifestyle shots of men and women at play, which look like they could’ve been lifted out of any beer ad.
That’s right, to have a fun, adventurous life where the ratio of attractive men and attractive women partaking in all these activities together is driving a Mustang II. It’s a pretty ridiculous claim being made implicitly, but the ad agency did its best to sell it. They even put in the part of about “how does it feel to be a hero?” Probably nothing like driving a second-gen Mustang, that’s for sure.
Perhaps the most incredulous claim is that the Mustang II is the perfect way to stave off boredom. Sorry, but we know better now. Maybe someone back in 1975 was fooled into thinking they were getting a product that was superior to a ’69 or ’70 Mustang, but time has not been kind to these cars at all.
Now I’m sure to get some hate mail from some Mustang II fans, because feelings matter more than facts and all that. But the truth is there’s a reason people are scooping these pieces of turds up for big money today like they do with first-gen Mustangs and increasingly the Fox Bodies.
Go ahead and check out this ridiculous commercial for yourself.
