Autos: Ford's Young One

(10 of 10)

Wrong-Way Runaway. Rarely, in fact, have Ford and its 167,000 employees been so excited about a new model—and the effect it will have on competition. Into Iacocca's office one day recently strolled Don Frey, triumphantly carrying a grainy photographic print of a competitor's 1965 model, obviously made with a telescopic lens under conditions far from ideal. "You've got to see this, Lee," he said, Iacocca took the picture, studied it, then broke out in a broad smile. "So that's what it's going to look like," he said. "It looks as if they are going to go sedanish instead of sporty. That's good news."

Amid this imperturbable optimism, amid the computers, the market studies and all the intuitive executives, it is almost a relief to discover that Detroit has not yet reached perfection in every detail. No one at Ford noticed—until it was too late—that the galloping horse emblazoned on the front grille of the Mustang is running the wrong way. Instead of going in the traditional counterclockwise direction of a U.S. racing horse, Ford's Mustang has bolted off in the wrong direction, like a runaway. That does not seem to bother Iacocca and his men, who know a good deal more about horsepower than about horseflesh. Even in the stable atmosphere of the Ford Division, they know that runaways are hard to catch.