10 Iconic Design Features of the Ford Mustang

Happy birthday, Ford Mustang, you officially turn 50 years old tomorrow. If the Pinto hadn't been such a massive failure, you'd have adult children by now. Luckily for you, you're a car, so the company that makes you has continued to update you, and as a result you've just become more distinguished and beloved, like Anthony Hopkins, rather than frightening, like that dude at the gym who has decided to "finally get in shape" and will attend a maximum of two and a half times.

Every Mustang has looked both like a product of its own era, and firmly like a Mustang, and it's because of how Ford has adapted a few design elements in order to simultaneously show off something new and poke the parts of our brain responsible for nostalgia. See what we mean with these 10 Iconic Design Features of the Ford Mustang.

RELATED: Snap Impressions of the 2015 Ford Mustang
RELATED: Gallery: The Evolution of the Mustang's Pony Badge

Best seen on: Every one but the Fox body, which committed heresy and wore the blue oval.

Yes, it's a Ford, but a galloping, wild horse is a way cooler badge than a blue oval with the word "Ford" written in it. A lot of thought went into that badge, too. Did you know that it's intentionally oriented so that it isn't running against the direction of tamed race horses? Check out our history of the pony here.

Best seen on: 1964.5-1968, 2010-2014

You know why the side of a Mustang always looks like the side of a Mustang? It's because of the hockey stick-shaped line that runs low down the side and then makes a sharp turn upwards just before it hits the rear wheel.

Best seen on: 1969-1970, 5th gen, and 6th gen

The Mustang doesn't just feature a solid grille and headlight unit, the headlights are slightly recessed, external from the grille, and often set at an angle, sloping towards the rear of the car. This serves to highlight the overbite, and make the car look more like it's cutting through the air... angrily.

Best seen on: Late '60s models and 2015

The grille on the Mustang has always been more or less rectangular, but that is indeed flexible. What isn't flexible is that the top end of the surround must jut out more than the bottom. This overbite gives the Mustang a significant part of its aggressive, in your face attitude, so we're happy it's here to stay for another 50 years.

Best seen on: 1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th, and 6th generations

That little triangle of glass is what makes the greenhouse area of the Mustang distinctive. It's not strictly unique to the Mustang, but without a rear quarter window in the shape of a triangle, with the angles of the tree sides matching the belt line, the front window, and the roof precisely, a coupe cannot be a Mustang. Bonus points if you add louvres.

Best seen on: Every Mustang except the Fox Bodies.

In all kinds of design, including automotive design, proportion is key. The difference between a guy who looks awesome and a guy who looks mediocre or bad is often the proportion of his clothes with regard to his body. Needless to say, the long hood and sleek-yet-still-chunky roof-line of the Mustang is a huge part of the car's identity.

Best seen on: 1st and 6th generation

Mustangs are always easy to spot at night because of the three bar tail lights. These days they're most often founding entertaining people in turn lanes with their sequential timing, but the general shape and proportion hasn't changed at all.

Best seen on: 5th gen drag racers

When the Mustang graduated from pony car to muscle car it gained a bulge more prominent than a body-builders' banana hammock. The bulge says "POWER!" even to those who don't know cars.

Best seen on: 1st and 5th generation cars.

It doesn't matter if they're chunky spokes, split spokes, or the ultra-classical tapered spokes, Mustangs, like Ferraris, just don't feel right when they're not riding on five-spoke wheels. Yes, Mustangs have been offered with other kinds of wheels, but they jut never seemed right.

Best seen on: 1968 GT 390, specifically with Steve McQueen behind the wheel.

The Mustang has come in a variety of body-styles throughout the years, but there has always been one that is most indicitive of Mustang-ness: the Fastback. Thank you for bringing that back in the 2015, Ford.