Since its launch in the spring of 1964, the Ford Mustang was an instant hit with the Baby Boomer generation, ingraining it into our culture almost overnight. The Mustang brand has been a huge financial boon to Ford, which makes money off of every cap, clock, and Mustang toy sold across the world (or at least the officially licensed stuff).
Ford recently rolled out a couple of videos looking at Mustang-themed toys. While one video looks at the pint-sized Mustang Hot Wheels replicas, the second video focuses on Mustang toys you can actually drive. For a lot of us, this is a trip down memory lane.
Because of the initial popularity of the Ford Mustang, the first Mustang toys rolled out shortly after the first Mustangs hit the road. AMF produced a ‘64 Mustang pedal car that originally sold for $12.95 and was on the market for a few years. The tooling for the pedal toy was lost for 30 years before being rediscovered by Mustang fans. Now new versions of this old toy are on the market alongside modern Power Wheels that celebrate everything from Barbie to the BOSS 302.
Then there are the smaller Hot Wheels Mustangs that have been sold by the tens of millions since 1969. The Hot Wheels Mustangs have covered every Mustang variant made, from the GT350 to a remake of the original Steve McQueen Bullitt.
Toys of the past too have hinted at what future models might look like, and shown various trends in car pop-culture, from the heyday of drag racing in the 60’s and 70’s, to wild concepts of the 90’s, to low slung stanced Mustangs and classic replicas of the last decade and a half. Mustang toys have seemingly always kept up with what’s cool. These toys were feeding our pony car lust long before we ever had a license, hooking us young and never letting us go. No wonder we still love this amazing pony car.