[Tigers] Tiger versus Mustang

[Rense, Mark (GE, Appl & Light)]

Too much caffeine this morning Rande?

I know Ron and I were taking jabs at both of these cars out of affection for
their heritages and their unique characters. I owned six Mustangs, and was one
of the GE Lighting engineers that helped develop the 9004 flush headlamp
system on the SVO Mustang (and Lincoln MK too). I even suffered through the
ghastly inadequacies of a Mustang II Mach I with the German V-6. I still
shudder at that one. My '86 SVO had well over 1000 miles of track day duty
between Nelsons Ledges and Mid-Ohio and with bigger injectors, manual
wastegate, and open exhaust was quicker than most GTs of the time. That
version of the Fox chassis had serious shortcomings, it flexed so badly I saw
daylight through the hatch seals as the chassis loaded up and twisted like a
spring when exiting Nelson's carousel. But you just drove the shit out of it
anyway, marveling at how much fun and fast it was, because that SVO was still
the best handling ponycar of the era. On a later GT I managed to squeeze in a
351-based 427, it was an impressive stoplight contender.

As for Tigers, between my father and I there have been five, and hopefully a
couple more before I sign off. I could write a book just on what NOT to do
when restoring and maintaining Tigers, never mind their inadequacies, but
somehow I still manage to put about 5K miles a year on them, most of the time
with a wide grin.

So, I believe I have earned the right to disparage both of these marques, just
understand it is with only the greatest of fondness and respect.

'Nuff said.

Bugz

-----Original Message-----
From: tigers-bounces at autox.team.net [mailto:tigers-bounces at autox.team.net] On
Behalf Of snakebit289
Sent: Tuesday, April 22, 2014 10:03 AM
To: tigers at autox.team.net
Subject: [Tigers] Tiger versus Mustang

It will probably be apparent that I'm not crazy about notion that the Tiger is
a 'tarted up' Alpine any more that I like the dismissive idea, often repeated
endlessly now during the 50th Mustang anniversary, that the first Mustang  is
just a fancy Falcon.

First, calling something tarted up implies it's a little dressed up, and not
very tastefully. Is anyone prepared to say the Tiger body is less tasteful
than the Alpine's? Save the chrome moulding on Tiger I's and IA's, they're
pretty identical. Even interiors are close, the Alpine GT even closer still.
What separates them is the powertrain, and that changes the driving
experience, going from Alpine to a Tiger.

Sure, some of the Mustang
version 1 (1965-1966, I'm not adopting the '64.5 mantra of the Mustang gold
card inspectors) share some Falcon components, and that's probably what helped
the powers that be at Ford to give the Mustang project a green light. What
really separates the two models is the point that the Mustang was meant as a
niche car for Ford. You can argue the point that Barracuda and Corvair Monza
technically was there first. But, neither Monza, or Barracuda, or Falcon was
so popular that they sold 1.2 million examples during the same time, and they
also didn't need to set up three separate assembly plants and institute 10
hour work shifts to meet demand. Today, with more drivers and more buyers,
when we rave about selling in such large numbers(cars like Camry and Accord,
light trucks like F-150 and Silverado) manufacturers are happy to push out
400,000 each a year. To me, the surprising sales numbers for Mustang is what
is remarkable, given  that it was not a family sedan with attendant larger
potential market.

Rande
Bellman