Mustang Automobile

Almost 35 years have passed since a Ford Mustang named Eleanor tore up the streets of the South Bay in the cinematic crash-fest "Gone in 60 Seconds." The crudely crafted indie flick found a cult audience and inspired a 2000 big-budget sequel starring Nicolas Cage, Angelina Jolie and, of course, a vintage Mustang named Eleanor.

The last time Eugene Brakke drove his honey-gold 1965 Ford Mustang, he was young and single, and the throaty little sports car "certainly didn't hurt" with the ladies. He parked at work that day in May 1970, at the Lockheed plant in Burbank, and when he came out later it was gone. The police asked him how much gas was in the tank, suggesting the thieves may have just taken it out for a joy ride. But with gas at about 36 cents a gallon then, he thought they could probably afford to buy some more.

The latest version of Ford's iconic Mustang appears to be growing old, and back-to-back monthly sales declines to start 2007 have the struggling company a little worried. The new Mustang, which made its debut in the fall of 2004, has been a bright spot for Ford at a time when bright spots have been few. So when Mustang sales dropped by 19% in January and February compared with the same months in 2006, executives became concerned.

Ford Motor Co. will put soybean-based foam cushions in the seats of the 2008 Mustang and may do the same with other models as well, eventually saving thousands of barrels of oil in the manufacturing process, the automaker said Thursday. Ford is teaming with supplier Lear Corp. to install the seats at a joint Mazda-Ford factory in Flat Rock, Mich., the company said. Most automakers use petroleum-based foam, with an average of 30 pounds going into each vehicle, Ford said.

Forty years after the legendary on-screen car chase, there's a new Mustang Bullitt ripping up the roadways. Ford Motor Co. will debut the latest variant of the growling, retro-styled Mustang at the Los Angeles Auto Show, which opens to the public Friday after two days of media previews. The 2008 Ford Mustang Bullitt, an update of the iconic 1968 pony car driven by Steve McQueen in the movie "Bullitt," goes on sale in January.

NOT to go all Pauline Kael on you, but "Bullitt" -- the 1968 crime drama starring a Ford Mustang GT390 and some guy named Steve McQueen -- is a fairly tedious bit of Aquarian cinema: the chicka-chicka-waah soundtrack, the inscrutable plot, the anaerobic dullness of every second that McQueen is off-camera. "Bullitt" scrabbles to its minor footnote status in film history on two counts.

Hau Thai-Tang was still a car guy in the making when he saw his first Mustang, a white Mach One, in Saigon during the Vietnam War. He was about 5, and that American muscle car -- on display to boost the morale of U.S. troops -- looked nothing like the cars he had seen on the narrow, tree-lined streets near his home. "We had very few cars to start with, and the cars we had were mostly French because we were a French colony," he recalls.

Japanese and European carmakers may cut as many stars from the automotive firmament as they like, but they can't build a pony car, never mind the pony car. You will look in vain for a direct competitor to the Mustang -- redesigned from the treads up for the 2005 model year -- but there are no other V6- or V8-powered, rear-wheel-drive coupes out there between 20 and 30 grand.

Ford Motor Co.'s oldest manufacturing plant, built under the guidance of founder Henry Ford and later the birthplace of the iconic Mustang, made its final car Monday. The last vehicle -- a crimson red Mustang GT convertible -- rolled off the line at the Dearborn Assembly Plant. Since the Mustang's introduction in 1964, Ford has built roughly 6.7 million of the muscle cars in Dearborn, a Detroit suburb and home to Ford's world headquarters.