The Ford Mustang is a series of cars introduced in 1964. Although Ford introduced the Mustang in early 1964, resulting in an unofficial 1964-1/2 model year, the first official model year for the Mustang was 1965. The Mustang is one of the world's most well known automotive models, and is credited for launching the 'pony car' segment and forcing competitors to launch their own equivalent models. Since its introduction, the Mustang has been in continuous production, and has been available as a coupe, convertible, hatchback, and fastback. A wide range of notable performance variants have been built using the Mustang, including the famous Boss 302 & Boss 429, GT, and Mach 1 variants. The most well known performance Mustangs are the Shelby Mustangs, these high performance machines were finished by Shelby American, and are among the most sought after collector cars. Ford has produced the Mustang in six generations: 1st Gen (1965-1973), 2nd Gen (1974-1978), 3rd Gen (1979-1993), 4th Gen (1994-2004), 5th Gen (2005-2014), 6th Gen (2015-2023), and 7th Gen (2024-).