In an upcoming entry I'll discuss my belief that automotive styling is, for the most part, dead. I believe the success of the retro craze--which has now mostly dissipated, it seems--was a response to the uninspiring designs of a majority of today's cars. A modern take on a classic look proved to be a sales success, yet some persist on taking classic looks and making them barely recognizable.
A large part of it is the desire to personalize one's own car. When Detroit (or Stuttgart or any other factory) cranks out tens of thousands of a model they are often differentiated only by color. In the 1960s manufacturers assisted owners in creating an individual car via the long option list. Ticking certain boxes while ignoring others could result in a car being "one of one", or at least one of very few. The chances you would encounter an identically optioned car in your area of residence would likely be quite small. These unique build sheets of equipment today make some cars more valuable and interesting than others. Unfortunately in the quest for cost containment the option sheets have typically shrunk to a few 'packages'. Though a Pony Package S197 is rare-er they are hardly rare.
Today's solution lies with the aftermarket. For any moderately popular model of vehicle there will be catalogs and web sites teeming with personalizing accessories for your vehicle of choice. When I first picked up a catalog for S197s I was astounded by the myriad of 'billet' aluminum doodads one could screw or snap onto their car. Having attended a fair number of shows I've observed some cars that appear to have rolled through the Mustangs Unlimited warehouse with a super strong magnet in the trunk (of course, billet aluminum doesn't respond to magnets but you get the point). Little dress-up items like door lock knobs are nothing new and have been around since J.C. Whitney first put out a catalog. I succumbed to adding an aluminum shift knob and door lock pulls to my own S197 to replace parts that were worn or cheap looking. These little touches move it slightly away from production line and make it my own along with the dual exhaust conversion, GT rear bumper, GT500 rear spoiler and little plastic chin spoiler I added under the front bumper. I'm not certain I'm done sticking things onto the car as the blackout rear deck panels beckon along with tail lamp trim to match. But my endeavors to change the car's appearance are held in what I believe to be strict accordance with the spirit of the original design. S197 harkens back to the 67-68 Mustang, and to a lesser extent the 69-70 models. Most of my changes are in keeping with that specific style of vehicle and thus look like 'factory' options to my eye.
Where I often cringe are seeing the addition of an array of scoops, spoilers and skirts that significantly change the appearance of the base vehicle. Though I like and respect the changes someone like Chip Foose may make to a classic production car it often seems that these 'catalog' parts do little to improve upon an original design. The featured car above has an 'Eleanor' kit which is an assemblage of parts that try to make a classic car look like...I'm not sure what. It isn't really modern. It isn't mimicking a race car. The Eleanor package seems to have a purpose of simply making the car 'different' and I don't think it works at all.
Side note: bad enough the car is--to me, anyway--hideous; that it isn't a real Eleanor (which is a 1973 Mustang and a topic for a future entry) adds further insult.
Changing up a car so drastically has me beg the question: If you bought a classic or retro Mustang because of the way it looks then why are you so intent on changing how it looks? But...do my own changes/additions to my S197 then make me a hypocrite? I suppose this comes down to "It's your car; do with it as you like". Just don't expect the rest of us to like what you've done. If your motivation to personalize is to make it more pleasing to yourself I suppose I have no quarrel. If customizing your car is done simply to get the attention of others then I think you need to review your thinking.
The artists that penned these cars had great vision and talent, no different than the engineers who designed the engines under the hoods. Perhaps some things are best left to the professionals. Sometimes less is more.
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