as a kiwi i never knew that mustangs had such an ugly model in their historical closet.....
man that cars equivalent of the ugly girlfriend you pretend you never dated...

Aside from some peeling, fading and waviness, that Landau roof has held up admirably.

These were such sad little cars; I remember how ungainly they looked with their tiny wheels lost in the well openings, rococo side moldings, canopy vinyl roofs with opera windows....

Thanks for the close up of the tail light. This was America's first use of amber colored turn signals....just like the "European" cars have!

The owner of the Covered Market in Clacton-On-Sea had a '76 Mustang Ghia. I was about 8 at that point and had never seen one before, but recognised Ford and Ghia (Dad had a Sierra Ghia at that point) I guess I thought it was some kind of invigorated Cortina.

It sure sounded like a Cortina, thanks to that 2.3.

By the time I was 10 i was well aware that the Mustang II wasn't all that hot. Now though, I really want one. Especially one of the hilarious Cobra IIs.

Murilee, you forgot one version: the Mustang II was also grafted with body panels that made an already fugly car even worse:

Does anyone besides Jalop use "Malaise Era" for this time period? I could not find a better term for it, everytime i see it written on this site, i giggle sadly. It's SUCH a car nerd term.

Its funny cause as much as people lament the Mustang II, it was one of the best selling Mustangs evar!

385,000 sold in '74 alone!

@Rust-MyEnemy: oh yeah, i want a Cobra II also

lol

And for those of us who were there, how could you ever forget this campaign?

[www.mustangiiregistry.com]

Score: Mustang 2, Boredom Zero !!!

Ack!

1978 King Cobra II: [static.howstuffworks.com]

I still love the Toyota Chaser 2-door from the 70's. It was a mashup of the Mustang 2 and the Monte Carlo.

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[IMG][img.photobucket.com]]

Let's see. Smaller than the original, yes. But heavier and less powerful. Geez, couldn't we have a sub 3000 pound Mustang again?

(Some kind of hero...)

@FLB: I think that car was on Charlies Angels...

lol

@CharlzR: You could go buy a Fox body. My 88 LX 5.0 weighed in at 2850lbs

@Papercutninja: Car nerd term??? I was impressed because its NOT a car nerd term. I'm used to hearing car guys call it "smog era" or "gas crunch time" or "Joan Claybrook years".

"Malaise Era" is actually a reference to an address given by Jimmy Carter where he--in a way--blamed America's troubles on itself. He stared into the camera and claimed we had fallen into a deep, national malaise: Stag-flation, regulatory strangulation, dying industries, America's flagging place in the world. He captured the whole zeitgeist in that one word: Malaise. Of course, it was our fault and he couldn't do a thing to help us until we pulled ourselves out of our deep funk, supposedly by continuing to keep our thermostats at 55 degrees in the winter, driving no faster than 55 MPH on the Interstates, and giving 55% of our income to the federal government.

He lost his bid for re-election in 1980. By shitloads, in case you didn't know.

@FLB: I don't know how they went from that to the 81 Cobra.

The 78 looks a little silly, but it still has style.

I meant car nerd term in a good way. As in if you're reading this site, you're probably a car nerd. "Smog era", "gas crunch time"...maybe not the "Joan Claybrook years" are all standard descriptions of mid-70s cars. "Malaise Era" is perfect because it's sad and true.

@FLB: Looks like my Dad in a pair of Converse sneaks and an NYY baseball cap.

but I still want, no, need one.

@Beluga: Thanks for the history lesson! I was a bit young to remember and/or understand that at the time.

I loved SNL of the era, but didn't get about 85% of the jokes because they were too political/current event related & I just wasn't registering.

Thanks for unearthing painful childhood memories on a Tuesday morning. Really, thanks so much.

@Papercutninja: Oh, it's good to be a car nerd! Nothing negative about it here. I like "Malaise" because it shows a familiarity with the political happenings of the time, not just what showed up on the pages of Motor Trend. So beyond just a car-nerd term, it's an uber-nerd term.

Anyway, an orange Mustang II is the perfect poster car for 1970's "Malaise". Good find.

A good friend of mine had one identical to the DOTS car these back in the 80's. He and his girlfriend called it "the love machine", with little not-so-secret smiles on their faces.

One day he asks me to help fix it up so he can sell it. I tell him he'll be lucky to get $1000 for it. Of course, he wants a lot more. A Mexican guy who buys and ships old cars back to Mexico comes to check it out. He declares it a piece of junk and offer $500. My buddy is offended and is getting pissed when the buyer revs the piss out of the engine to prove his point, creating a massive cloud of oil smoke. My buddy is so horrified that he doesn't sell the car to anyone and just leaves it in front of his hours for the next few years. I think it went to a local junkyard for $100 and a free tow. The car was barely 10 years old.

"...leaves it in front of his hours..."?

Crikey, I can't even blame that on a typo. I meant house, not "hours". Sorry for that.

76 Mustang II is "Malaise/Quaalude era", while the 81 Cobra was more "Terrence McKenna on DMT era"

Don't forget it isn't a Mustang, it is a Mustang II. Sequels tend to be crap.

Malaise really makes the sandwich.

uhhh, I totally had blocked out that version of the stang. I thought the 80s stang was bad, but that's awful. Okay maybe the 80s style was worse, I can't say. Whatever you might criticize about the current iteration, at least they brought it back from the depths of depravity that the mustang lineage had fallen to.

I always thought the proportions of he Mustang II were pretty correct -- from the top of the wheel wells up. Below that, it's got that Pinto-ish taper, as if the body was too wide for the running gear. I guess the wheels and axles shrunk in the wash.

I'm not American, and my daddy's eye hadn't even started twinkling by 1980, but I still think 'malaise era' is a great phrase. I may not have been around at the time, but I can see it in so many things produced in that era.

Not to mention a useful preview of "Malaise Era II", starting in early 2009...

@Beluga: Well said.

But yeah, Papercutninja, malaise pretty pretty much sums up the entire country from '72 to '81 ... Want to know how bad it was? I remember standing on the playground in the first grade singing with other kids, replacing the words of the Oscar Meyer jingle with "Jimmy Carter has a way of screwing up the USA" I have no idea where we learned it -- and the extent of his fault can be debated -- but when first graders assemble to collectively mock the President and acknowledge the state of the nation, you know things are bad.

And the 'why-bother-trying' design philosophy and build quality of Big Three products clearly reflected that national sentiment of the decade... and many contend the Big Three carried that approach into the next decade as well.

This summer I found a very thorough and interesting article on the automotive industry, circa 1980. www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,924408-1,00.html ... The author viewed that moment as a pivotal point in the industry and, interestingly, many of the same concerns expressed in 1980 are the exact same concerns that plague the Big Three today. What's old is truly new again. The kicker? The author optimistically points to the new K-car as the key to Chrysler's success and viability. Shyeah, we all know how *that* turned out.

@Beluga: While "malaise" is no doubt a good term to describe the era as well as Carter's accusations, I'm pretty sure the word "malaise" wasn't in the infamous "Crisis of Confidence" speech at all.

Also, is this the coveted Ghia edition?

I saw a Cobra II in a storage yard not far from the Reno airport about 10 years ago. Was in good shape. I think there was a Javelin too.

@thekaiser: You're correct, but the "Crisis of Confidence" speech is more commonly known as the "Malaise Speech" nonetheless.

Whenever I think Mustang II, I think turquoise, because so many of them were.

One of the weird bits of trivia I recall about the Mustang II was that the gait of the horse emblem in the grille was slowed considerably from previous generations. Compare the emblem to the '66 from a few days ago. A sad commentary on the car itself, too.

@Uncle_Bo: Ummm, if your good friend and GF called it the "love machine," then they must have had side gigs as yoga instructors or Cirque du Soleil contortionists.

I had a girlfriend in my high school daze (early-mid '80s) who had one of these lovely Malaisemobiles (with screamin' German Ford V6--more HP than the 302 V8 and the engine vibes that a girl might love). It was challenging to do anything in that car at all. Birth control back seats, anyone?

@Dr.Danger: @FLB: Thanks for those pics. I never knew old Mustang Cobras tried to compete with the Screaming Chicken with some fantastic hood decals of their own.

Apparently I'm the only one who thinks one of these with a built 331, fat tires, and some tasteful body mods would be an awesome ride.

@00solstice: Despite being unlovable rides, the K-car basically did save Chrysler. Dunno the numbers, but they sold a lot of them compared to whatever came before. It also spawned the minivan, which became Chrysler's cash cow through the 80s.

Damn...looking at this makes you understand how they thought the Probe would be a good replacement.

@eCurmudgeon:

Yeah, I'm not particularly looking forward to that one...

@LTDScott: I'm in with you as long as its a fastback, and don't bother with the body mods.

Slam it all you want, but this car kept the Mustang alive through the mid-'70s.

If it hadn't been for these, there probably wouldn't have been the Fox-bodied Mustang the existed for so many years, bringing back true muscle to the car once all the emissions stuff was figured out.

@Papercutninja: I may or may not have made up the term "Malaise Era," (didn't Reagan use it in a campaign ad in '84?) but I'm definitely the one to blame for its use on this site.

Gotta stay awake, gotta try and shake off this Creeping Malaise

Pink Floyd, Animals, 1977.

@00solstice: It turned out great for Chrysler, I hope thats what you were implying.

I'm not big on any hardtop Mustang (the fastback is where it's at), but like so many Malaise era rides, the fastback Mustang II is a metal turd, so there's technically potential to polish it. I'd still prefer a Fox-body, but RWD and a V8 is always a decent start.

Yeah, I'd ride the hell out of this.

@LTDScott: I wonder what the theme song would be for that car.

Tough call.

I remember the Mustang II well, and it was a hit when it came out. I lived during this time period (Grad HS in 1974, College in 1979, Service until 1981) and you have to know what pressure the car companies were under during this time period. They had to clean up the emmissions, add 5 mph bumpers on all their cars, make warning buzzers for 3 point seat belts (and during 1974, you had to buckle your seat belt BEFORE YOU COULD START THE ENGINE), unleaded fuel became manditory, and inflation rates were in double digits.

Ford did the best they could do at the time, and basically took a Pinto, and updated it as a Mustang II, right at the same time as the first Arab Oil Embargo. People traded in their old (Large) Mustangs, and full size Fords for these (rather) stylish sub-compacts. You took what was available.

On this particular car, it's nice to see it's still running, and in decent shape.