As far as the unwashed masses were concerned, the most interesting thing in the United States in 1849 was California gold. In 1959, it was the automobile. In 2016, it?s the internet. California gorged on all three, because California is a fundamentally progressive place. Not necessarily capital-P Progressive, though its lefty elements are often part of the state?s perception. And if the Mustang GT caved to progress by finally parting with its live rear axle, it is, in concept, very much a dinosaur of an automobile. Despite ABS, traction and stability control, and a modern infotainment system, the manual-transmission Mustang is about as analog-feeling as a mass-market automobile gets these days. It?s a car that plays well in California?s impossibly vast middle, a ?middle? that somewhat confusingly, exists not only in the Tennesee-sized Central Valley, but also in the deserts, the more remote regions of the state?s coast, and sees itself littered throughout the mountains that ring the place.
More than any other state in the Union, California exists as much in myth as reality. Grand statements tend to be thrown about, musing on either its perfection or its utter awfulness. The truth is that life in California is as varied as its geography. But in 1967, when California Ford dealers petitioned Dearborn for a Mustang variant of their very own, they certainly weren?t thinking about the rise of the United Farm Workers, the Free Speech Movement, or the nascent Black Panther Party....