the one thing I am a little iffy about with this news is the fact that the mustang will apparently be on the new global rwd platform. Taking a look at the new camaro's weight would lead me to believe the next iteration of mustang will be a bit of a porker.

 

One other thing you MUST understand... Ford is changing the way they view business - have been for a year now.

It's really kinda hard, but try to grasp this concept...
Ford does NOT want to be the "cheap rental car" company.
They don't want to be the "fleet car leader".
They don't want to be known as "cheap transportation".

They are trying to establish a brand identity that says' "this is a QUALITY vehicle at a REASONABLE cost." Lincoln and Mercury can take that a step further to say "this is a QUALITY vehicle with even more styling and class, that is priced very competitively against the competition."

Lastly, Ford is more interested in selling cars (and trucks) at a profit... period.
There was a day and time when the push was to make a zillion vehicles because you were #2 or #3 or #4 based on the # vehicles you made. Well, it turns out that you are better-off to be #4 making $1-billion in profits than to be the #1 carmaker that is losing $1-billion a year. It's also obvious which one will be around longer.

This is why Ford pulled out of fleet sales, dropped programs for rental fleets, and has refined their offerings to specific markets - especially retail sales to "street people". Hence, you will likely see more "targeted" adiences and more specialized vehicles for those markets (though based on fewer platforms), as opposed to trying to come up with a single car that is everything to everyone (like the old Taurus or modern Camry).

I'm all for the changes personally.

 

BULLSEYE!

GM pioneered what Ford is now doing (globalizing platforms and cars). That's why I'm curious as to why GM needs time to make the Beat able to pass US standards while Ford is bringing a number of cars and a van directly over from Europe in tact and make them here in little more than the time it takes to set up a factory. Yet, GM has absolutely massive resources compared to Ford.

I can't say it's because of Ford's desperation because GM is in similar if not considerable worse shape.

I don't get it.

The Camaro is a porker mainly because enthusiasts demended a chassis engineered to handle a mountain of horsepower, an independent rear suspension to handle all this power, and related supersized components like brakes & cooling. Zeta is a chassis built to handle all this.

The Ford's global RWD chassis much like GM's is primarily for the US and Australia. Unlike the Zeta, the Ford RWD chassis is being led by Ford North America. Also unlike the Zeta, Ford's RWD chassis is being developed with technology of 2007-2008. Because of the length of time it takes to develop a chassis, the Zeta chassis was developed around 2002-2003.

Consider Ford's record at weight.

First you have the featherweight Fox chassis. Then absolutely physically massive Ford 4.6 DOHC V8 is lighter than a physically smaller LS1. The truly huge Crown Victoria weighs 3942 pounds. The current Town Car (which is likely the largest car made in the US) is 4129. Yet a comparitively small G8 GT is 3995, a similar sized Chrysler 300C is 4046 (4160 in SRT form), and Cadillac's STS V8 (which is by no means anywhere near the size of a Town Car) is 3995. Even a DTS (again nowhere near the size of a Town Car) is a mere 100 pounds lighter.