Front End Ouch! 1973 Ford Mustang Mach 1

Sales of the popular Ford Mustang peaked at 607,000 units in 1966. But by the end of the first generation in 1973, barely 135,000 customers placed orders. The 1971-73 run had become big and bloated, so the car was reborn in 1974 as the Mustang II, a subcompact pony car. The seller has a 1973 Mach 1, which was sidelined due to a low-speed collision with a fence a few years ago. Needing to be revived with a new front clip, this project ‘Stang is in Dothan, Alabama, and is available here on Facebook Marketplace for $11,500. Thanks for the tip, William Troup.

By 1973, the Mustang weighed 800 lbs. more than it did in 1965 and was longer, wider, and lower than before. The SportsRoof (aka fastback), as used on the Mach 1, had little to no rearward visibility. Buyers were becoming scarcer as the years went by, so the car was reinvented as a sporty Pinto in 1974 – just in time for the OPEC oil embargo. Demand ballooned again, but maybe not for the reasons Ford had intended. The Mach 1 was still the performance model, though a 302 cubic inch V8 was standard.

Finished in Medium Bright Yellow paint with a black interior and body stripes, this Mustang was left in neutral one day and rolled into a fence, causing the damage that you see in the photos. Because the car wasn’t moving fast, the impact may be superficial, i.e., no undercarriage issues. The mileage may have been only 38,000 miles at the time as the cockpit looks to be in very nice original condition.

This Ford has a 4-speed manual transmission paired with the base Mach 1 302 V8. The Mach 1 was one of 35,000 built out of a total Mustang universe of about four times that number. The seller says the machine is otherwise complete, but it’s doubtful it runs (one of the battery cables is disconnected). The paint has issues not related to the impact, so the overall car will need a respray once the front-end problem is corrected. Any takers at the seller’s price point?