Walt, I can understand thats your opinion. I've owned, and rebuilt nearly from the ground up, three vintage Mustangs myself and I couldn't disagree more. Overall, when looking at what was coming from Mopar and GM at the same time, I think the Mustangs weren't any different. Sure, the original Mustang was based on an economy car platform (the Ford Falcon) and as such it was a bit lacking in sophistication. However, when compared to it's competitors, a few of which I've also owned and worked on, I don't see anything which sets the Mustang apart as being cheaper or of worse quality. Specifically, when you're talking about brakes and suspension, sure, it's your typical 60's American car technology, so what do you expect. If you're then comparing that to the handling and braking of a Spitfire then of course the Mustang is going to come up short, but it's a completely different type of car, you're trying to compare apples to oranges here.
As far as quality goes, I'd say the opposite. I think the quality of the parts, especially when it comes to castings and overall quality of the machine work and manufacture of parts, the American car companies were far ahead of the Brits, especially Triumph. When I pulled the trans on my TR6 a few weeks back I couldn't believe what the casting for the bell housing looked like, all sorts of imperfections, voids, you name it. I've never seen that on any Ford tranny, ever. Also, not to continue beating on the Lucas dead horse, but electrical problems that have plagued british cars since year one are relatively unheard of, at least in my experience, in Mustangs and American iron of that era. I've also never had a cooling system problem with a Mustang like I see so many people with British cars having, and thats with running a 300hp V8. Maybe thats more a design issue than a quality one, but it effects the quality of the ownership experience at the least. I don't know what the condition of the cars you've worked on was, but my cars seemed to stop and handle just fine when put into the context of the time the car was built. Considering the size and weight of the car, and the power level of the drivetrains, they seemed to do OK. Sure my TR6 handles better than my Mustangs, and it brakes better also, but I suspect thats more a result of the lower size and weight of the car and has little to do with the technology or quality of the brakes themselves. Plus, with a little work a Mustang can be made to handle very well, and I'd go so far as to say that the unibody construction of a Mustang isn't any more prone to twisting than the flexible flier frames that Triumph built. I don't know what transmission you were working on to say that they were the worst ever built, IMO the C4 and C6 were excellent units. If you're talking about the FMX then yes, I'll give you a little there, that wasn't the best auto box that Ford ever built but it wasn't all that bad. Chrysler had far more problems with the torque flight. The best auto box of that era though was easily the GM TH350 and TH400, the TH350 in my small block Nova SS was near indestructible and with the B&M shift kit it could lay rubber between all three gears shifting by itself. The FMX in my Mach 1 could do that but I never felt good about asking it to.
We could go back and forth on this for a year and not get anywhere. Lets just agree to disagree and leave it at that. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cheers.gif
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