Posted on 04/20/2012 6:21:08 PM PDT by rhema
The greening of a classic car makes it unrecognizable to drivers.
The Ford Motor Company is giving its Mustang a unique 50th birthday present: death.
Detroit will still market an automobile called the Mustang. It just won't bear much of a resemblance to the iconic roadster driven by the likes of Lt. Frank Bullitt and James Bond.
Ford's new "Evos" concept features gull-wing doors, a rounded, aerodynamic body, and a smaller design clearly inspired by Europe. When Ford officially unveils its new Mustang in 2014, company insiders insist it will embrace this visual transformation.
More pertinent than its changing look will be its changing feel. Rumors abound, to the chagrin of drag racers, regarding the introduction of independent rear suspension. The five-liter engine supposedly morphs into a two-liter one. There is even talk of a hybrid Mustang.
Why not a hang-glider F-18?
A 2012 Ford Mustang boasting an eight-cylinder, five-liter engine goes from zero to sixty in less than five seconds. It takes a lot of fuel to generate all that power. The muscle car travels an average of twenty miles for every gallon of gasoline consumed. It's a performance car, albeit one that performs the way that drivers, rather than bureaucrats, want.
Twenty miles per gallon is considerably less than fifty-six miles to the gallon. That is the 2025 industry fuel-efficiency standard announced by the Obama Administration last year. With automakers having to produce a fleet of cars traveling an average of further than 56 miles per gallon by 2025, and further than 34 miles per gallon by 2016, a Mustang guzzling a gallon of gas every twenty miles would be certain to bring the fleet average below the mandated standard.
(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...
Ford's thinking (from the WSJ):
The Mustang, which has had a strong retro look since 2005, is losing steam, too. Last year Ford sold 70,438, down 4.4% from 2010 and less than half the 166,530 it sold in 2006.
The average Mustang buyer today is 51 years old.
The change is part of a bid to make the Mustang appeal to Generation Y, the roughly 80 million people who were born between 1980 and 1999. This demographic group is entering its peak car-buying years. Cars that their parents drive—and hark back to the days of Woodstock, 20 years before they were born—don't really interest them.
As long as it is rear wheel drive there is hope....
The average buyer of a new Mustang may be older, but that is matter of economics. I see a lot of young drivers in used Mustangs.
My God, it’s my sister’s ‘76 Mustang that I taught her how to shift when I was 14 years old. She bought it new and couldn’t drive a standard shift.
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Gen Y will never have a peak of buying cars, because these dumb asses keep their faces shoved in an I-pod or I-pad for the rest of their lives, lest someone 'dis them electronically.
Can't believe they've kept it alive so long.
And then, of course, there are the Shelby's...
All I’ve read so far on this is that the future Mustang will take styling cues from the Evos ... it won’t be exactly like it. Yes, it will lose the real axle and go independent, and will probably have a shorter wheel base, but it will not be a re-badged Evos.
I guess only time will tell.
Back in the day when I was a yut (late 50’s early 60’s) my group of teenage friends and I prided ourselves on our ability to name the make, model and year of every car that we saw on the streets. Now they all look the same. ;-(
The 2013 Shelby GT500 has 650hp.
True. This article is FOS
That reminds me of an old drawing I saw years ago drawn by some engineer. It was a cowboy on horseback, AFTER OSHA.
I wish I the picture now.
wow! and convertible too!!1
“prided”, yea, I know.
I’d like to see that 429 with dual overhead cams, 32 valves and the electronics to make it work. The 4.6 (281 cu/in)DOHC is over 300 real hp in stock NA form. Add another ~150 cu/in... The new 5.0 Coyote is something like 630 hp.
Biggest problem with the BBF or FE in a car was the weight of the engine made handling less than optimal.
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