1966 Mustang GT

For 1966, little change was made to Ford’s hot-selling Mustang. You don’t mess with success, so why change a good thing? Minor Updates were all that were needed. A revised instrument panel that looked less like the Falcon’s was used. The grille retained its now-familiar shape, but had teh Mustang horse emblem “floating” in the “corral” in its center, with no horizontal or vertical dividing bars. A wind split ornament was added at the end of the “cove” on the body sides.

Federally mandated safety equipment that was formerly optional — including seat belts, a padded instrument panel, emergency flashers, electric windshield wipers (with washers) and dual padded sun visors — were made standard features. To cover the added cost of these must-have items, prices increased $44 for the two-door hardtop, and $18 for the 2+2 and $49 for the convertible.

The GT Equipment Group continues to be available in 1966 as a $152.50 option package for Mustangs with high-performance V-8 power plants. The GT Equipment Group included a dual exhaust system, front fog lamps, special body ornamentation, front disc brakes, GT racing stripes (in place of rocker panel moldings) and handling package components. The handling package (normally $30.84 extra by itself) included increased-rate front and rear springs, larger-diameter front and rear shock absorbers, a steering system with a 22:1 overall ratio and a large-diameter stabilizer bar.

The Mustang’s base V-8 engine for 1966 was the Code “G” 4.00 x 2.87-inch bore and stroke 289-cid with a 9.3:1 compression ration and an Autolite two-barrel carburetor, which produced 225 hp at 4800 and the Code “K” Challenger High-Performance V-8. This cersion of the “289″ featured a 10.5:1 compression ratio, a four-barrel Autolite carburetor and solid valve lifters, which helped it to make 271 hp at 6000 rppm.

A Mustang 2+2 with the Challenger High-Performance V-8 could do 0-to-60 in 7.6 seconds and needed about 15.9 seconds to make it down the quarter-mile.

The GT package proved to be twice as popular as it had been in 1965 and its sales increased from about 15,000 the earlier year to approximately 30,000.