Man goes to car meet and is left baffled as to what the Mustang-looking car is as it’s one he’s never seen before
This Redditor went to a car meet and found a Ford Mustang that wasn’t a Ford Mustang at all.
In fact, it wasn’t even a Ford, and it wasn’t even American.
The car you see here is the great-grandfather of a relatively popular sports coupe that sold well in Japan and Europe, but practically never existed in the US.
And there’s a huge giveaway.
The Mustang that’s not a Mustang is actually from Japan
A Redditor named gajendra_01 took to the aptly called Whatisthiscar sub-reddit to ask a question about a car he saw at a car meet.
Painted yellow with chrome wheels, the vehicle looked shockingly similar to a Ford Mustang, especially from the back.
In reality, this is a second-generation Toyota Celica Liftback.
Introduced in 1973, the Celica featured C-pillar louvers and vertical bar tail lights that are clear homages to the Mustang.
It was never sold outside of the US and it’s super rare, especially where this Redditor saw it.
“The car meet was in Riga, Latvia,” he told Supercar Blondie.
In general, Japanese icons from the 1970s are already difficult to find in car-centric countries like the UK, Germany or perhaps Italy or France, let alone Latvia, where there are only 424 cars per 1,000 inhabitants.
“This was the only 1970s Japanese car I’ve ever seen in this country, and I’m not surprised,” he said.