Ford Mustang (second generation)

The second-generation Ford Mustang, marketed as the Ford Mustang II, is a pony car which was manufactured and marketed by Ford from 1973 until 1978. It has a front-engine, rear-wheel-drive layout with seating for four passengers and either a two-door coupé or three-door hatchback body. Introduced in September 1973 for the 1974 model year, the Mustang II arrived roughly coincident with the oil embargo of 1973 and subsequent fuel shortages. Developed under Lee Iacocca, it was an "entirely new kind of pony car." Ford "decided to call it Mustang II, since it was a new type of pony car designed for an era of high gas prices and fuel shortages."

The Mustang II was 490 lb (222 kg) lighter and almost 19 in (483 mm) shorter than the 1973 Mustang, and derived from the subcompact Pinto platform. While sharing a limited number of driveline components with the Pinto, the Mustang II employed an exclusive subframe, isolating its front suspension and engine mount subframe. The steering used a rack-and-pinion design.

Named Motor Trend's 1974 Car of the Year and reaching over 1.1 million sales over four years of production, the Mustang II is noted for its marketing prescience and strong sales, for introducing numerous features that would become Mustang hallmarks and for possibly saving the Mustang itself — and simultaneously for abandoning essential aspects of the Mustang heritage, for its commonality with the Pinto and for embodying the worst aspects of the automotive Malaise era.