Ford’s Mustang II Traded Muscle For a Pinto Engine
By the mid-1970s, Ford leaned hard on its Pinto platform, stretching that humble economy car’s bones into the new Mustang II. The idea was a coupe with roadster manners, but the execution mirrored the Pinto’s own weaknesses, soft performance chief among them. Critics were not kind, with one memorable dig branding it the poor man’s AMC Gremlin, a swipe that stung because the Gremlin itself never sold especially well. Being compared unfavorably to a car nobody wanted said everything about where the Mustang name had landed. Enthusiasts who remembered the original pony car’s V8 growl found little to love in this smaller, tamer successor, and the Mustang II remains the version most owners would rather forget existed.