DEW98 sedan didn't have a 31mpg 305HP V6 and 6 speed transmissions. The Mustang suspension is good enough for me. Basically, I like everything about the new Mustang, but need 2 more doors and a little more back seat room.

 

Probably about as insane as a 2011 Camaro SS with GMs supercharger kit that makes 650HP for the same price

 

Is this the kit that Joe and Mike from HorsepowerTV installed on a GT?

It made like +120HP out of the box. Not too shabby. Just a thought though... running that big one would likely void your warranty no? what good is all that power in a street car if it voids your warranty?

Not dissin Ford, I wouldn't warranty a vehicle that had it's engine blown up by the owner either

 

Like I said, it would probably have the new V6 if they were still making DEW98 sedans today. So basically you're asking for them to bring DEW98 back from retirement, cheapen the suspension and put in the new powertrain.

I think they're better off sticking with the Fusion and Taurus. To 99% of people they're preferable to what you're describing and they don't care that they're FWD... in fact they probably prefer it that way.

 

Perhaps, but note that he said "I wish" Ford made such a vehicle, not that Ford would have a good business case to do so.

 

It also allowed the Mod Motor V8 to fit, which DEW98 did not. Talk about a stupid design flaw....

 

Ford has done the 2-tier warranty kit for awhile - the 07=09 GT500's could be had with 600hp and a 12/12 warranty or you could got to 750 (IIRC) with no warranty, the 2010 and 2011 GT500's start at 660hp for 12/12 IIRC and I don't know what the top kit is. The 05-10 GTs started at 440 (maybe a bit less or more) with a 12/12 and a bit over 500 with no warranty.

Fix'd The DEW98 was anice chassis, but with an SLA and IRS it was a bit more maintence intensive. IMO I like the current Mustang chassis, toe adjustment aside, they generally do not go out of alignment unless you wreck'em up. I bought my first Mustang in 1994 and the last time I've had to get an alignment was in "for never".

 

Very good point, however, the Mod motor does fit. The issue was that it didn't have the minimum side clearence that Ford requires.

For those of you not in the know, the Lincoln LS' V8 is a Jaguar based "Mod" engine, which is a bit narrower than the Ford based version.

Intrestingly enough, both engines have (or had...when both were new) similar design. The Jag Mod engine was based on Ford's.

One of the key items that put the far-too-premature nail in the DEW's coffin was the fact that Ford couldn't use their own version V8s in the chassis to power new Ford sedans for both here and Australia. Under very early new Mustang development (end of the 1990s), the Mustang was to be a DEW based car with the 3.9 V8, IRS, and was to move upmarket to, say, a G35 competitor. Fortunately, Jac Nasser's Mustang was scrapped and a back-to-basics Mustang based on the DEW came to life.

Rear suspension on the DEW was loosely based on the MN12.

MN12's was extremely rugged and pretty close to indestructable (save my son's sideways slide into a curb about 5 years ago). The DEW's IRS was lightened up quite a bit, so it's not quite as friendly to abuse.

But at the same time, i don't think it's exactly a high maintence item. It can even handle the output from a McLauren supercharger kit that was available with barely a hiccup.

Also, the MN12s IRS had no maintence required since everything was a sealed system. Of my 4 SC's, 2 I ran up to over 200K miles, my black one I sold at 218K. Never had a rear end issue, never spent a dime in maintence.

Although Ford was hitting new depths of cost cutting and durability was suffering pretty badly at the time (pretty much everything Ford made at the end of the last decade wound up being recalled for one thing or another) , I don't think there was an issue with the DEW's IRS.

 

Y'know every time you bring up something about Nasser its always craptacular and just cements in my mind that Jac Nasser was an grade A #1 total and complete douchebag. I really dont like that guy.

Anyways, I remeber getting a survey awhile back that asked something to the effect "do you prefer the engine in your Mustang american derived" as well as asking about a 5 liter displacement.

 

Personally, I'd much rather see a Russian engine in my Mustang. I don't know about the rest of you though.

 

Daygonnit, engine in my engine - lmao, speaking of which, my brother wa telling me about a russian 8 cylinder that used 7 cylinders to burn the fuel and the 8th cylinder as a sort of supercharger IIRC it was a truck engine.

 

Yep and those people actually bought a performance car for what it really is. I just laugh when I come on a website geared towards performance cars and most have never set foot on a racectrack and have no clue what their cars are capable of.

 

Wouldn't exactly go as far as to call him that. Perhaps misguided, yes.

On the plus side:

* he was aiming to get the Aussie Falcon over here (he ran Ford of Australia for awhile).

* He had a plan to position Lincoln premium division just below Jaguar before Cadillac seriously started taking on global luxury cars.

* He planned to use the DEW extensively, not just for Lincoln and a basis for the next Mustang, but to replace the full sized Panther cars.

* And finally, hhe early decade Ford F-series is almost entirely developed under his watch.

However,

* He was more focused on diversifying into areas outside of automobiles, including auto recycling.

* He was more intrested in sending cash to redo the PAG brands over Ford and Mercury.

* He instituted a evaluation system (whose fairness was called into question) that dropped a fixed percentage of white collar workers, regardless of senority or importance to the company.

* He had a pretty brutal (or at least, very abrasive and arrogant) management style.

* And finally, his push for cost cutting (his nickname was "Jac the Knife") helped create an enviroment that gave us exploding Explorer tires, last edition Thunderbirds whose batteries shorted out the system before they even got to dealers, and a endless number of brand new cars winding up on recall (in all fairness, his predecessor is responsible for those V6 water pump bearings, too-thin paint, head gaskets, and all the other mid/late 90s Ford quality issues).


Ford kept him on despite many of his more questionable actions simply because he made Ford simply staggering amounts of profit. At one point, Ford had enough money in the bank and profits each quarter to easily purchase just about anything it wanted, including other car makers. If I recall, Ford actually entertained the idea of buying General Motors (Chrysler had merged with Daimler a few years before, and Ford was looking at economies to scale..... read: "near-Monopoly").

After a string of embarassing recalls, the Firestone-Explorer debacle, including his completely and typically abrassive Jac Nasser response to the whole thing finally forced the Ford Family to remove Jac, and Bill Ford himself took over running Ford (something he did because he had to, not because he particularly wanted to).

 

I don't know, if it weren't for RWD and the Hemi V8, there would be no reason to look at any of the cars at Chrysler dealerships.

I won't pretend to know how the economics would work out, but it'd be really cool to have a modern RWD sedan from Ford to compete with the G8, Charger, and 300....wait....okay, just the Charger and 300.

 

GM doesn't sell anything but the supercharger, you have to get it tuned yourself with no testing from GM on the Camaro, GM isn't supporting the Camaro anywhere near the way Ford does with the Mustang. Not to mention that pesky little 300lb weight difference between the 2 cars.