Gale Halderman, credited with the exterior styling of the original Ford Mustang, based on a sketch he created some 21 months before the car’s April 1964 public debut, died Wednesday. He was 87.
The cause of death, at a hospital in Troy, Ohio, was cancer, the Dayton Daily News reported, citing the family.
Halderman was a fairly young designer whose early sketch of the Mustang emerged the winner among a competition during a secret project to create what became the first so-called pony car.
Along with Hal Sperlich, he was the last survivor among the small group of key players — some called it a dream team — that created one of the auto industry’s most successful cars.
The Mustang, with a long hood and sleek body, proved an overnight sensation when it went on sale in April 1964. It remains one of the last remaining cars in Ford Motor Co.’s current lineup and one of the auto industry’s few nameplates to be continuously produced for more than 55 years.
Halderman attended the Dayton Art Institute in Dayton, Ohio, where he studied art with comedian Jonathan Winters. Yet he struggled with whether to become a commercial artist or a car designer. At the Dayton Art Institute, he studied under Read Viemeister, who played a role in designing the Tucker automobile, and helped convince him to pursue a career in the auto industry.
Upon graduation in 1954, he was hired by Gene Bordinat, another designer born in Ohio, as a designer in Ford’s Lincoln-Mercury studio. He soon transferred to the Ford Design Studio.
Halderman designed the 1957 Fords, notably the retractable hardtops, as well the Mystere concept car.
He was soon promoted to design manager of the Ford Design Studio, under Joe Oros, who became director.
In July 1962, Oros handed Halderman a new assignment: Come up with an entry for a competition among studios, spurred by Lee Iacocca, to create a sporty personal car that arose out of secret Fairlane Committee meetings.
Iacocca and others were eager to create an affordable sports car to challenge the Chevrolet Corvair Monza. With Henry Ford II opposed to new product programs so soon after the Edsel flopped, Iacocca had to work clandestinely on the Mustang.
“We were so busy doing Ford cars that the only design time that I had to work on it was at home,” Halderman said in a 1985 interview with The Henry Ford museum. “So I went home, and I sketched on this project. And, actually, the car was clay modeled from a sketch I did on my porch.”
