Pony Cars, popular as the American category of high performance automobiles, gained immense popularity in the 1960's with the Ford Mustang and other subsequent models with similar styles captured the wild motor dreams of young America. The Ford Mustang, which hit the booming American automobile market in 1964, ruled the Pony Cars scene till 1972, with its first generation model, was to pave the way for leading automobile manufacturers to build the attractive Chevrolet Camaros, Pontiac Firebirds and amongst another 5 - 6 classic Pony Car models of the 1960's and 70's. Style was undergoing a revolution in that era, and the Mustang was definitely an outcome of the deluge of reformation that washed away the earlier designs like the Corvair Monza.

The late 1950's and the early models

The Corviar Monza was the immediate predecessor, also having come out in 1964 with a luxury sedan kind of appearance, attracting buyers across America and the rest of the First World. Actually the late 1950's was the time when only Ford, having released their evergreen Ford Thunderbird hit the market as a personal luxury car. A convertible, the model had the streamline that would be hard to imagine in the late 1950's and a design that looked snazzy enough to pull through two decades. Well, actually it still holds a candle to the latest crazes amongst fashionable cars. The Ford Thunderbird having seen its survival through till the 21st Century survives as one of the most coveted speedsters readymade to attract buyers younger at heart.

Mustang and the other models

When the Ford Mustang came out, other leading manufacturers were left with no choice but to model at least some of their cars in a similar style, especially owing to the market value. A significant shift was seen in the mid 1960's after the Mustang hit the market, and that was enough for the American automobile industry to truck out the 1965 Plymouth Barracuda, the '68 Chevrolet Camaro, the '70 Dodge Challenger and some other favorites. Mercury came out in 1970 with the Cougar. However, the brand Cougar was under the ownership of a Ford operational division - Lincoln-Mercury. Ford having made a prominent suction of all the attraction and expectations of the buyers, was seen to come out with later generation models of the Mustang, and released the subsequent generation models of the classic favorites, all with the same traits, including the "sports car with cheap car insurance" label.

Further developments

As the years went by, a deeper prominence of the Pony Car features were noticed in the models. The Doge Challenger, for example, came out in 1972, with a serious botheration about fuel consumption. Like most other Pony Cars of the 1970's heavier bodies caused owners to rethink the usage value of the vehicles as they were major gas suckers. America had the 1973 gas crisis which was enough to get these later models out of the market or modified into more efficient models. This is where the prices started rising, especially due to having to maintain the grandeur in the look, but work on fuel efficiency through cutting edge engineering.