As we all know, the 71-73s were basically the end result of Bunkie Knudsen's influence. He had come from General Motors to Ford as President in 68, trumping Iacocca, a long time Ford executive, for the position.
His hiring created a lot of dissention within the halls of Ford, and there were definately two 'camps': Knudsen's and Iacocca's.
Gale Halderman's styling group came up with the original 'clays' along with the other styling studios who were all vying to have thier design picked as the impetus for the future 71 Mustang.
Halderman was instructed by Knudsen to incorporate as much of the 69 Shelby styling influence into the 71 clays as he could. Plus it had to big enough to hold the 429 Cobra Jet and the Boss 429 engines, with a suitable suspension to match.
Knudsen also heavily influenced some details of the design, and he used a lot of his habits and ideas that were developed at General Motors.
For instance, he insisted on flush, lift up door handles, wcich GM pioneered.
He also insisted on having a full length hood that would go all the way to the base of the winshield, hiding the air/cowl intakes and the wipers, plus the hood did not have a header panel. Just like GM style. No Mustang before or since has had a hood design with those design elements.
Significantly, Bunkie was a big fan of the 'Coke Bottle' look, where the top of the fender and the top of the rear 1/4 'kick-up' is higher than the belt-line through the door. He also demanded that this be used in the upcoming 71 Mustang.
All of these features, plus many more GM influenced features were designed in.
For the record, Larry Shinoda (everyone's favorite Ford designer), who came over from GM with Knudsen, hated the 71-style Mustangs. He called it "Halderman's aircraft carrier. The one that looks like it hit the wall."
All these obviously GM style influences that were forced on the long-time Ford engineers and designers really pissed most of them off, considering that most of the original 'Fairlane' group and thier 'crew'were stll around. They felt like thier 'baby' had been stolen away from them.
So when the big strokes of the 71 were 'cast in stone', it was up to the designers to come up with the various details and trim/ornamentation designs.
There was absolutely no internal support from Iacocca's followers, and the designers that were 'forced' to work on 'Bunkie's Mustang' wanted to make sure that they let it be known that this car may be called a 'Mustang', but it certainly didn't have to say 'FORD' Mustang on it.
That is the reason that there was never a single place anywhere on the 71-73 Mustangs that actually said 'FORD'.
Under the hood, and on the 'corporate' hub caps it says Ford on parts that are common to other models, and of course it is in the part numbers on the individual parts.
But nowhere on the 'trim' of the car inside or outside did they put a 'FORD' badge on it.
This was the disgruntled employees way of letting everyone know what they felt about Bunkie and his Mustang.

Very similar story about the 70 and 71 Thunderbirds, even more strongly influenced by Knudsen.
He forced the T-bird to be a virtual clone of the Pontiac Grand Prix, with a carbon-copy long, pointed beak on the tip of the hood.
This became known as 'Bunkie's beak'.

This car got zero support from Ford lifers, sold miserably and consequently it died a quick death. It had the shortest life-span of any generation of T-bird to date, just 2 model years.

Knudsen stepped on so many toes, even HFIIs, that he was fired 18 months after being hired.
Iacocca, along with 2 others, then took the 'reigns' of FMC in a 'troika' management set-up.
That lasted a couple of years or so, and then Iacocca became the singular president...finally!

Only to be fired a few years later for insisting that mini-vans would be the next 'big thing'!

Interesting info indeed...hm.

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Originally posted by cobravenom71:
That is the reason that there was never a single place anywhere on the 71-73 Mustangs that actually said 'FORD'.
Under the hood, and on the 'corporate' hub caps it says Ford on parts that are common to other models, and of course it is in the part numbers on the individual parts.
But nowhere on the 'trim' of the car inside or outside did they put a 'FORD' badge on it.

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It says it on the sill plates, in addition to the corporate hub caps. You also see the Ford oval in the tail and sidemarker lights. Also, every Mustang hood from '65-'73 {except the '67-'68 Shelby} doesn't have a header panel. You are right about the hidden wiper feature, also seen on '71 and on Torinos.

And I did say that the 'FORD' emblem appeared on some corporate pieces, like the dog-dish caps and such. Of course it appears in tiny molded-in print on the lenses and such, but I was referring to the 'beauty badges' prominently located on the inside and outside of the vehicle.
Its kinda' difficult to say exactly what I mean, but there is a definate lack of 'Ford-iness' in the badging.

I tend to believe just about everything Jack told me about his days at Ford, because most of the storys he told me turned out to be printed as true many years later in some publication or another.

Thinking about it, neither does the '69-'70 Mustang.