By Travis Smola
The Ford Mustang turns 50 this year, since it was 1964 when the Ford Motor Company first introduced the car at the 1964 World’s Fair. At that event, Ford received pre-orders for more than 20,000 cars. As a result, Ford started rolling the new model off the factory floor some five months before production would have normally started. The unique 1964 ½ year designation refers to these earliest models with 121,538 1964 ½ Mustangs being produced. The majority of these early Mustangs were the standard coupe model.
Technically, these early Mustangs are considered to be 1965 models, but there were slight changes made to the Mustang’s design between the first and second run so that most car enthusiasts consider them separate vehicles. The main difference is that the 1964 ½ cars had a generator instead of an alternator that was fitted onto the later models. The original retail price of a 1964 ½ Mustang convertible was $2,557.