Styl'ist (stil'ist), n. and the Mustang

Over the years, it has been astonishing how little the barebones of automobile design has changed despite annual manipulations of the body and model lines that have come and gone. In this video from Ford Motor Company there are two amazing concept cars described. The first is the Ford Aurora "designed for the whole family to enjoy" that never made it into mass production and the second, the Ford Mustang which did.

The Aurora has a few quite astonishing features: a clam shell rear entry to the children's seating area; swivel passenger front armed bucket seat; a three adult passenger limo-style couch; termo-elecric oven and refrigerator; three AM/FM radios; advanced position indicator map (an early conception of GPS); a steering wheel that wasn't round (shocking!) and a whole different headlight scheme comprised of 12 lamps stretched across the front of the vehicle.

Looking at today's automobiles, very little has changed: The front seats are still mounted facing forward, the middle seats straight benches, steering wheels are still round (and roughly the same diameter), the instrument gage and user interface are approximately the same except for cosmetic variations and with the exception of modified roadsters and mobile van/homes there are few extras like multiple radios or TVs refrigerators or ovens proposed in the Aurora. While concept cars appear radical in the proposal stage, eventually they all seem to conform to a narrow design specification.

The first real cool automobile my family owned was the Ford Mustang in 1967. This was the first car my father went out and bought new off the dealer lot. All other family cars prior to the Mustang had been hand-me-downs or used klunkers just to get us by. In the 1960s, the Mustang set the standard for stylin' ride.