As Lee Iacocca’s assistant general manager and chief engineer, Donald N. Frey was the head engineer for the Mustang project — supervising the development of the Mustang in a record 18 months from September 1962 to April 1964.[5][6] — while Iacocca himself championed the project as Ford Division general manager.
Drawing on inspiration from the mid-engined Ford Mustang I concept vehicle, Lee Iacocca ordered the development of a new “small car”[7] to vice-president of design at Ford, Eugene Bordinat.
Bordinat tasked Ford’s three design studios (Ford, Lincoln-Mercury, and Advanced Design) to create proposals for the new vehicle.[8]
The design teams had been given five goals[9] for the design of the Mustang: It would seat four, have bucket seats and a floor-mounted shifter, weigh no more than 2,500 pounds (1,100 kg), be no more than 180 inches (5 m) in length, sell for less than US$2,500 (equivalent to $25,346 in 2024)[10], and have multiple power, comfort, and luxury options.
A total of 559,451 Mustangs were produced for the 1965 model year. The hardtop was the big seller in 1965 with 410,260 units sold, with convertible
1965 Mustang Engine Options
200 CID In-Line Six.
289 Challenger V8.
289 Challenger Special V8.
289 Challenger High Performance V8.
Both the coupe and the convertible were available with a 170 cid 101 horsepower 6 cylinder engine, a 260 2-V 164 horsepower V-8, a 289-4V 210 horsepower V-8, and beginning in June, a powerful 4 barrel, solid lifter, 289 cid 271 horsepower V-8 engine.
The 1965 Mustang used a Ford 2.77 Toploader 3-speed in the 170 and 200 Six engines and used the Ford 3.03 Toploader behind the V8 equipped cars. The Borg-Warner T10 or Ford T & C Toploader were used in all 4-speed applications. The tried and true Ford Cruise-O-Matic was used in all automatic transmission applications.
My great uncle ordered a 1965 silver fastback 289 back in 1965. My Dad ended up with and it had the 4 speed and the air conditioning unit on the floor in the photo below.
