Welcome to Cars and Guitars, our ongoing column where we match an iconic car with a popular song from back in the day. The key criteria are the song and the car must have debuted in the same year, at the peak of their fame and relevance. In this installment, we showcase the “Big Nose” 1971 Ford Mustang and Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway To Heaven.” Although we don’t have a crystal ball, we suspect every 1971 Mustang had “Stairway To Heaven” wafting from its speakers at one time or another.

While choosing “Stairway” might seem a cliche and obvious choice, especially since 1971 is considered the greatest year of rock and roll, this era of Mustang and Zeppelin have much in common. Both were brash, bloated, and overwrought franchises that created a firestorm of controversy back in the day. Both soared too close to the sun and sadly, met their untimely demise.

Only after decades of reflection and debate, has the merit and significance of each entity been validated. Probably the best way to kick off this episode is with the backstory of “Stairway To Heaven.” Guitarist Jimmy Page, who fathered the song, walks us through the making of the eight-minute masterpiece in a video from the BBC. It’s a fascinating account of the origins of Zeppelin’s magnum opus, the finale from “Led Zeppelin IV” and a must-see.

Just as Jimmy Page was the patriarchal figure behind “Stairway,” the 1971 Ford Mustang was fathered by Ford’s “Bunkie” Knudsen. Little did either know they would be connected together here decades later. Knudsen oversaw the evolution of the Mustang from a lithe compact buggy to a bigger, heavier “personal luxury car,” following in the footsteps of the company’s Thunderbird.

The 1971 Mustang grew in every dimension except height and gained almost half a ton of weight. The swoopy styling made the car look even bigger. The car cribbed two hot Corvette design cues that most folks overlooked back in the day. The sugar scoop rear window treatment and the fall-away instrument panel were lifted almost intact from the C3 Corvette which debuted in 1968.

Almost as big as the Torino, its divisional sibling, the 1971 Mustang was more Clydesdale than a pony. The new model came in three flavors, a coupe, convertible, and a wild fastback sporting an almost horizontal roofline. It was as if the designers at Ford sent the Mustang into a hip Hollywood boutique and it emerged two sizes bigger, packed into a halter top and flowery bellbottoms.

Yes, the new Mustang was bigger, but it diverged from the proven blockbuster Mustang formula and that didn’t sit well with fans. The new design employed the familiar taillight design that looked like they melted in the sun, a single inlet grille that ditched the traditional Mustang “face” and dowdy styling on the coupe. The latter was the kiss of death for sales because women drivers who had flocked to earlier Mustangs, (and drove base coupe sales through the roof,) were turned off by the low seating position and the poor sightlines of the new body style. The car wasn’t an ugly duckling, just a shock to some eyes. Dig this old TV ad with funnyman Sid Caesar portraying an “Italian designer.”

The 1971 model did have some serious firepower with Boss and Mach 1 models sporting hot V8s, from 351 cubes all the way up to the big-block FoMoCo fire breathers. By 1972, the performance car segment from the Big Three began to wilt under insurance ratings and looming safety and emission mandates. By 1973, the big news was the Mustang was endowed with a 5-mph safety front bumper.  The car was probably the driving factor that resulted in Lee Iacocca’s downsized Mustang II that debuted in 1974.

The 1971 Mustang has been forever enshrined in celluloid history as well. In the James Bond movie. “Diamonds are Forever” a very fetching red fastback model, does a tricky two-wheel stunt to escape bad guys on the streets of Las Vegas.

Meanwhile across the pond, a British quartet was beginning to rewrite the rules of rock and roll. Like the 1971 Mustang, Led Zeppelin took another proven formula, the blues, and pumped it up bigger than life with bravado, and bombast. When they burst on the musical scene in 1968, their sound was unlike anything before it and they became the new kings of “hard rock.”

More specifically, they invented modern rock music as we know it today. Remarkably, unlike early Mustangs, Led Zeppelin was never the darlings of the press. Van Halen’s David Lee Roth once said, “Music critics like Elvis Costello because they look like Elvis Costello.” Despite the poor press, Led Zeppelin soared to the top of the charts and became the hottest band in the world.

The band was mysterious too. They released “Led Zeppelin IV” with no pictures, title, or words on the exterior album artwork. They wanted the listener to experience the album solely on its musical merits. The compositions included on the vinyl were so otherworldly, if you told me back in the day that Robert Plant lived in a castle with a winged dragon in the basement, I wouldn’t have blinked an eye.

For years, it was rumored that Led Zeppelin made a pact with the Devil, following in the footsteps of one of their main influences, bluesman Robert Johnson. The story of Johnson’s pact with the Devil at the crossroads is the aspiring musician somehow managed to transform himself from being “embarrassingly bad” at the guitar into a blues master in such a short period. Those who witnessed the phenomenon could only explain it by supernatural interference.

Although Led Zeppelin were master musicians, there was something intangible and supernatural about their music, especially from their fourth album. Erik Davis, the author of a book about Led Zeppelin IV, suggests the album was “A feat of magic witnessed by millions…”

I’ve always thought Led Zeppelin’s management cultivated the occult rumors about the band and why not?  The mystery fueled interest in the group, created a big buzz, and helped sell millions of records. For those following the band though, evidence began to mount of the supernatural, even though it was brushed off as bad luck. Jimmy Page bought Aleister Crowley’s mansion on Loch Ness. In 1975, Robert Plant, his wife Maureen, and their children were involved in a severe car accident, and in 1977, the couples’ youngest child died of a mysterious stomach virus. In 1980, drummer John Bonham OD’d from alcohol at 32 years old.  The band called it quits after that citing that the quartet would never be the same without Bonham.

After Bonham’s death, years went by and all the occult chatter faded into the mist. Robert Plant embarked on a successful solo career while Jimmy Page and bassist John Paul Jones flickered in and out of public view. In 2003, 23 years after Zeppelin disbanded, the surviving members released a DVD full of never before seen live performances from the 1970s, at the zenith of the band’s popularity. As a devoted fan, I rushed down to buy the compilation DVD in the now obsolete format and carefully watched it from beginning to end.

I was especially enamored with a performance of “Stairway” from Earl’s Court in London in 1975. One night, I selected the video track and watched it again, sober as a judge. The performance fades in from black, then a blue light hits Jimmy Page and his double-neck Gibson guitar and for a moment, I saw a glimpse of something I couldn’t explain. Jimmy looked otherworldly. Like a deity, a sorcerer, an angel with a broken wing. All the rumors came rushing back and for that split second, I thought, “Maybe what was said all those years ago was true.”  I’ve included the performance here for you. The moment occurs at 0:17 right at the beginning notes of the song. I’ll let you decide.

In retrospect, the 1971 Mustang was the product of another kind of magic. Designers in a now-bygone Detroit were allowed to run free with scant oversight from committees, focus groups, or HR departments. The late sixties and early seventies saw some of the coolest automotive sketches ever produced come to fruition. The 1971-73 Mustang has aged remarkably well, not only the fastback but the coupe and convertible as well.

In fact, this era of Mustang has really grown on me, and dare I say, I prefer it to earlier vintage ponies. Compared to a brand-new Mustang, the 1971-73 model is downright dainty. Everything is relative and the photo below makes one wonder what all the fuss was about. Led Zeppelin was misunderstood as well, but now even the most diehard skeptics admit the band and its repertoire were probably rock and roll’s greatest achievement. Redemption is always sweet, too bad it took so long.