The 1970s Japanese Ford Mustang Copycat

In 1964 Ford’s two-door Mustang sports car landed on showroom floors. Ford had expected to sell 130,000 units per year – a rather ambitious target at the time. They got it completely wrong: 22,000 Mustangs were sold on the first day.

The Mustang would become the most successful new car launch since the 1927 Ford Model A, and an unprecedented one million cars were sold by 1966, just two years after its launch. The pony car genre had galloped onto the motoring scene.

In The Beginning...

The Ford Mustang. A motoring icon, with more than 10-million units sold since the first car launched in 1964, 60 years ago.

An internal Ford memo dated from 23 May 1962 stated: “Ford Division recognizes its need for a sporty-type car, particularly one with appeal to younger buyers. The Division has under consideration a 'Special Falcon,' a sporty car having maximum interchangeability with the Falcon. This car would offer a special body to be used with the Falcon chassis and drivetrain components.”

The communication also stated: “The Special Falcon would be uniquely styled, and would be sufficiently distinctive to be offered with a 6-cylinder (or V8) engine.”

Several designs were considered. In 1962, computer-aided design (CAD) was not an option, so full-scale clay models were created and presented to management.

Below are some of the original clay models, and it's quite clear the Ford executives chose the right one.

And so the now legendary shape was selected. The 1960 Ford Falcon formed the basis, and by April 1964 the new Ford Mustang was launched to the media with great fanfare, and started landing on showroom floors.

There were two engine options: a 101-hp 2.8-liter inline-6, and a 4.3-liter V8 with 164 hp. The V8 was available in a 4.7-liter format too, with 210 hp, or 271 hp for the High Power version.

Ford expected to sell less than 11,000 units per month, but dealers sold 21,000 cars on the first day the new Mustang went on sale.

Meanwhile, In Japan...

Toyota had been operating in the USA since 1958, and after a slightly shaky start, was slowly but surely finding traction in North America. The tough Land Cruiser was the brand’s main export focus, and the FJ40 was the best-selling Toyota in the USA between 1961 and 1965.

The Corona sedan arrived in the USA in 1965, and took over the best-selling Toyota title from the Cruiser. The introduction of Ford’s Mustang, and its instant sales success, clearly made the Toyota executives in Japan sit up and take notice, instructing an international team of designers and engineers to start working on a Toyota competitor, with the world market in mind.

They were obviously not the only ones – in the USA car companies were all in on the affordable two-door sports car concept. Chevrolet created the Camaro, Pontiac the Firebird, AMC the Javelin and Dodge the Challenger.

Toyota’s contender, the Celica, was based on the Carina’s platform with a 1.9-liter engine from the Corona. Revealed in 1970 at the Tokyo Motor Show, the new Celica went on sale the same year. The first-generation Celica’s four-cylinder engine had 108 hp, a manual four-speed gearbox and a coil-sprung rear suspension.

This was at a time when the competitors, notably the popular Mustang, had archaic leaf-sprung rear suspension set-ups.

The Celica did not just tick the obvious Mustang boxes with regard to styling and performance criteria. In typical Toyota fashion, the company’s first 110 mph ‘pony car’ came standard with a heated rear window, wipers with intermittent action, wood-grain finish for the dashboard, steering wheel and gear lever and wheel covers. Air-conditioning was an optional extra.

The single overhead cam engine revved to a sporty 6,500 rpm, and with only 2,200 lbs to shift around, the compact Celica was nippy, dishing up a sporty drive. With a 0-62 mph time in excess of 11 seconds, the Celica was no rocket ship, but it was just about on par with period pony cars (except for the likes of Ford’s Mustang HiPo V8, which had 271 hp in the game).

Thanks to customer input, Toyota introduced upgrades to keep the Celica at the sharp end of the field. This included adding a crossflow head for more power and better consumption and a new five-speed manual gearbox – relatively small updates, but this willingness to take customer feedback on board and actually make the changes went some way in cementing Toyota’s reputation in the USA.

Also, In Europe...

In 1974, a man called John Markey entered the British Touring Car Championship in a Toyota Celica 1600 GT. The virtually standard Toyota competed in the 1.6-liter class, and Markey won his class in the final round of the championship. Clearly, the Celica had some racing potential.

For the 1975 season, Toyota teamed up with Samurai Racing, recruiting Win Percy to drive the 1600 GT. With more power and a revamped suspension, the Celica GT won its class nine times, with driver Win ending the overall championship on equal points as Andy Rouse. Win had fewer wins in the season though, so the championship went to Rouse.

The foundations for Celica’s long-standing association with motorsport were cast. It would become an intrinsic part of the model’s DNA.

Meanwhile, In Dearborn…

After the Ford executives in Dearborn basked in the glory of all the profits of selling 2-million Mustangs in the first two years the car was on sale, in the Sixties, they noted that Mustang sales were slowing in the early Seventies. With a horde of new competitors throwing their names in the hat, the cool but slightly archaic facelifted Mustang was feeling the sales pressure.

Ford – and the rest of the motoring fraternity – was facing another dilemma: the 1973 fuel crisis. That 271-hp HiPo V8 may be cool, but the shortage of fuel availability forced many customers to buy into a more fuel-efficient class – Toyota’s four-cylinder Celica already had that part covered.

The Mustang II, launched in 1974, followed the same basic recipe as the original. It was based on an existing Ford platform, shared parts, and was an affordable two-door sports car.

The new Mustang was based on the smaller Ford Pinto platform (but with an exclusive subframe), and for the first time, a 2.3-liter four-cylinder engine was available (83 hp), alongside the more familiar 3-liter V6 (97 hp) and Windsor 302 V8.

The smaller Mustang ensured that Ford not only competed against the likes of Toyota’s increasingly popular Celica and the spicy Nissan 240Z, but also American sporty sub-compacts like the Buick Skyhawk, Oldsmobile Starfire, Pontiac Sunbird and Chevrolet Monza.

The Mustang, with its distinct liftback look, had in effect abandoned the segment it created with the original Mustang, but downscaling the popular two-door sports car turned out to be a stroke of genius. On sale from 1974 to 1978, in a tough economic environment and a fuel crisis along the way, the Mustang II sold more than a million cars in four years.

Yes, the base models were underpowered and not nearly as polished and sporty as advertised on the box. But the Mustang still sold, and sold really well.

A Designer In Japan Had A Plan

The Toyota Celica was based on the original Mustang’s affordable two-door sports car concept – but with a good dose of Japanese efficiency, attention to detail and a unique look that set it apart from the Mustang (and other competitors).

In 1976, it introduced the Toyota Celica Liftback GT to the US market. This Celica was more Mustang than ever before. Viewed from the back, the resemblance is particularly uncanny.

The new GT came standard with dual outside racing mirrors with remote control for the passenger side, an AM/FM stereo radio, a tachometer, an electric clock, simulated woodgrain finish for the interior, and a fold-down rear seat which could increase cargo space to 27 cubic feet.

Under the hood, the GT came with a 96-hp 2.2-liter four-cylinder engine coupled to either a five-speed manual or 3-speed automatic gearbox, a longer final drive ratio for improved fuel economy, and steel-belted radial tires.

It is estimated that about a quarter of a million Celica models were sold in the USA from 1976 to 1977. Not quite on Mustang's par, but still very impressive, with the GT going a long way in bolstering Toyota’s reputation for reliability.

In 1980, Toyota offered the limited-edition US Grand Prix Liftback GT model following the brand’s involvement with the US Grand Prix West in Long Beach, California. Only 600 units were made available. By 1981, the GT was upgraded with the same 22R 2.4-liter engine that did service in the Pickup.

Also in 1981, to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Celica, the GTA Coupe was released. It had a 2.4-liter engine, a four-speed automatic gearbox, power windows, a higher-end sound system and alloy wheels.

Game, Set… Celica

Since the 80s, the legend of the Celica has continued to evolve. From the mighty 320-hp Celica Group B rally car from 1985, to the famous GT-Four that formed the basis of Toyota’s world rally championship-winning car.

2005 was the final year the Celica was on sale in the USA. The final model still featured the same design ethos of the first model, combining efficiency with reasonable (but not mega) power, light-weight, two-doors and a smile-per-mile driving experience.

There are rumors that Toyota is planning to reincarnate the Celica with a brand-new two-door version of the legendary sports car. In an interesting twist of fate, it may be Ford that this time takes some notes, and not the other way around, as the Japanese car company continues to provide buyers with the right cars, at the right time.