23 wild Ford Mustangs

Reimagining the Ford Mustang

The Ford Mustang was, famously, a huge hit for the Blue Oval after its 1964 launch.

However, that didn’t stop others from trying to improve on perfection.

With Mustang Day on April 17, the annual celebration of the model’s launch, we’ve decided to bring together some of the more celebrated Mustang makeovers, plus a few that languish in obscurity.

Some were the work of Italian styling houses, others were by enterprising customizers, while a few were conceived in-house. None were boring.

So join us as we look at a selection of the most extreme Ford Mustangs.

1. Mustang III ‘Shorty’

This oddball was referred to as the Mustang III in period, but today is better known as ‘Shorty’, for obvious reasons.

Based on a pre-production ‘pilot’ convertible made ahead of the Mustang’s 1964 big reveal, it went under the knife after designer Vince Gardner pitched a short-wheelbase fixed-head variant.

It subsequently toured the USA as part of the Ford Custom Car Caravan.

2. Mustang Zebra

Self-anointed King of Kustomizers, George Barris, was tasked with creating a brace of cars for the 1965 movie Marriage on the Rocks, starring Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin.

It featured this kooky Mustang and a brutish-looking Thunderbird.

The Mustang received a targa-style roof, minus a lift-out panel, various parts of the car’s body being covered in a fur-like material that mimicked the stripes of a zebra.

3. Automobile Quarterly

Conceived by Automobile Quarterly founder, L Scott Bailey, sponsored in part by Alitalia Airlines, and built by Bertone in 1965, this handsome steed was styled by Giorgetto Giugiaro.

The only parts of the donor Mustang that were carried over were the grille mascot (which was modified…) and the filler cap.

4. Intermeccanica

This attractive shooting brake-style Ford Mustang was built by Intermeccanica in 1965 for the JWT (J Walter Thompson) ad agency.

The flat roof appeared to be one long uninterrupted piece but, in reality, it was two panels welded together.

The tailgate section integrated four of the six tail-light lenses, along with the donor car’s original rear windshield.

5. OSI

This long-forgotten Ford Mustang one-off from Ghia’s OSI offshoot retained the donor car’s V8, but much of the chassis was cut away and replaced with a tubular, semi-spaceframe structure.

Unlike a regular Mustang, this 1965 concept featured independent rear suspension.

Not only that, it was 63.5mm (2.5in) shorter and had a fiberglass body.

6. Ford Mustang Mach I

One of umpteen Ford Mustang design studies, this 1966 offering featured racer reference points such as twin ‘Monza-style’ fuel-filler caps and fixed side glazing with sliding slots.

Confusingly, it was followed by another, ostensibly similar concept a year later with the same name.

The front-end styling foretold the 1969 Mustang body style, while the rear hatchback would be employed on the Mustang II from 1974.

7. Zagato 

According to some sources, Carroll Shelby tasked Zagato with coming up with this car (pictured on the left, next to a standard model), ahead of producing a limited run of replicas in 1967.

This has the whiff of the apocryphal, given that the base car’s body style would no longer have been in production.

Whatever the truth, the Milanese coachbuilder reworked a GT350’s nose, lengthening the hood while adding rectangular headlights. Zagato also added a wraparound rear window.

A second, less-modified, non-Shelby Mustang was also produced.

8. Mach 2

Strictly speaking, this wasn’t a Mustang, but it shared DNA with the original pony car.

In 1966, Ford’s Advanced Concepts Department considered making a mid-engined, two-seater sports car.

Three prototypes were made. One was a non-runner, while Machs 2B and 3B were based on reconfigured Mustang platforms.

9. Mustang Milano

Unveiled at the 1970 Chicago Auto Show, the Milano represented a factory custom car in that it was a modified ‘SportsRoof’ Mustang.

It was reconfigured rather than built from scratch, the donor car’s roofline being considerably lower (thanks in no small part to the 67-degree rake of the windshield).

It was painted in a searing shade of ‘Ultraviolet,’ the cabin being awash with purple leather with blue-violet cloth inserts.

10. Shelby Europa GT500

Belgian racer and Shelby concessionaire Claude Dubois, a Belgian car dealer, unveiled the Europa GT500 at the Brussels motor show in January 1971, having licensed the name.

Cars were based on Mach 1/’SportsRoof’ fastbacks and offered with small- and big-block V8s.

That said, as many as three drop-tops were also converted.

11. Monroe Handler

The Monroe Handler was variously a promotional tool and a magazine project car.

It was created as a means of promoting the new line of Handler shock absorbers, Monroe joining forces with Hot Rod magazine to build a showstopper powered by a Jack Roush-built 363cu in small-black V8.

This 1977 media magnet spawned less-hardcore clones that were used for publicity purposes.

12. Mustang III

The Mustang II wasn’t warmly received by the pony car faithful. They would probably have had a collective coronary had the Mustang III concept car entered production.

This crisp Ghia offering was based on a Ford Fiesta platform and exhibited at the 1978 Geneva motor show.

13. Ghia Mustang RSX

Based on a shortened ‘Fox’ platform, the Rallye Sport Experimental was built by Ford’s Ghia studio in 1979.

The gimmick here was that the doors appeared to be made entirely of glass. This was achieved by bonding black-tinted Plexiglas to the lower door panels.

Power came from a 2.3-liter four-cylinder unit.

14. GT Enduro

This big-arched Mustang borrowed its racy look from the Roush team’s IMSA track weapon that competed in 1980-’81.

It employed a hot, 5-liter V8, suspension upgrades, fiberglass add-ons and oh-so-period BBS wheels.

This 1982 show car ultimately spawned two further replicas.

15. Mach III

This 1993 Los Angeles Auto Show debutant prophesied styling cues expected on the new-for-1994 Ford Mustang.

This was sufficient to worry some about what the near future held in store, this wild concept car being branded a ‘jellybean’ by some quarters of the media.

Power came from a supercharged 4.6-liter V8 that (allegedly) produced 450HP.

16. Ford Bullitt Mustang Concept

Given the cult of Steve McQueen, it was inevitable that Ford would create a concept car with Bullitt connotations.

Based on a Mustang GT, and unveiled at the 2000 Los Angeles Auto Show, changes were cosmetic rather than structural.

Such was the response, Ford decided to put it into limited production a year later, albeit with stylistic differences.

17. Ford Mustang Fastback Concept

This is the car that, for better or worse, launched the restomod movement.

This was, however, an official Ford concept car, one that was based on a 1965 Mustang fastback.

It was built by the Ford Racing Performance Parts division, the car receiving a 5-liter Cammer V8 ‘crate engine’ plus a five-speed Tremac ’box and modern-ish suspension tweaks.

It was a big hit at the 2003 SEMA show.

18. GT-R Concept

Based on a fifth-generation Ford Mustang, this 2004 show car echoed the look of the Bud Moore Boss 302 cars driven by the likes of Parnelli Jones in the Trans-Am series at the dawn of the 1970s.

Partially bodied in carbonfiber and packing a ground-hugging stance, it was painted in a searing shade of Valencia Orange which emulated the original race cars’ color of Grabber Orange.

19. Classic Design Concepts

Conceived by George Huisman, this fifth-generation Ford Mustang makeover did away with the car’s metal roof, replacing it with a fixed glass panel.

This arrangement was arrived at by Solutia Automotive, a firm which provided glazing to OEMS.

It was unveiled at the 2005 Speciality Equipment Market Association (SEMA) show.

20. SEMA/WD-40

The sexily named SEMA/WD-40 Mustang GT featured a raft of go-faster and ‘visual enhancement’ parts sourced from SEMA members.

WD-40 sponsored the project which was revealed at the November 2010 edition of the show, the latest GT fastback receiving a Paxton supercharger, a Street Scene Equipment bodykit and assorted suspension upgrades.

21. Italdesign

While Giorgetto Giugiaro had styled the Automobile Quarterly/Bertone 1965 show car, this stubby offering was the work of his son, Fabrizio.

First seen at the 2006 Los Angeles show, the car’s signature feature was its one-piece, single-pane glass roof which predated the arrangement latterly employed by Tesla. It also had scissor doors.

22. KHM Motor Warszawa

One of the more recent ‘boutique’ Mustangs, this distinctive machine was created by a Polish company that had form ‘reimagining’ Eastern European classic cars, which made the move into reskinned pony cars all the more improbable.

The donor car was a 2016 Mustang, the end product – complete with Mercedes-Benz rear lights – being unveiled at the Economic Forum in Krynica-Zdrój two years later. 

Above it is pictured with a Polish-made FSO Warszawa to its right.

23. Ford Mustang Lithium

This 2019 SEMA show car was built by Ford in association with Webasto and represented a strange amalgam of old and new.

It acted as a rolling laboratory for the German company’s line of modular vehicle batteries and charging systems, the intriguing part being the use of a six-speed manual transmission on an electric car.