blackrat

See, and there's the conundrum.

You love the car and it sells well, but it has a history of leaving performance enthusiasts out in the cold unless they're willing to mod.

ProudPony

Signs of a rough childhood...
I can't help with this... I'm an engineer and a car guy. You need something I can't offer.
I will answer the questions though (if those were "questions").

Recognition - Mustang is THE most recognized car model/name in the world... by all people, men, women, or otherwise.
Admiration comes from the most loyal fan base in the world - largest club(s), largest following, largest activity, etc.
Acceptance comes from BillyBob in the trailer park to corporate CEOs that ALL drive Mustang - guys, girls, young, old, American, foreign... it has permeated all markets.

All that stuff above did not happen because Mustang is the fastest production car on a dealer's showroom floor. OK - Figure it out yet?

I digress.

latinspice-94T/A

Umm.. I digress, but.. the most recognized nameplate in the world? I'm sorry man, but that would probably be Scuderia Ferrari. In the US, maybe the mustang, in the world, nothing touches the prancing horse.

Z284ever

Holy crap! This thread is still going!

I've been around this Camaro-Mustang-lifestyle-hobby-thing for a looooooooooooooong time. And I've got to say, that Camaro guys and Mustang guys are essentially the same guys. Sure, you may find 4 or 5 percent of outliers on either side of the bellcurve, who wouldn't be seen dead in one or the other......but the other 90% are pretty much the same dudes.

There! I've said my piece.

guionM

I've personally seen Mustangs in Australia, the Philipenes, Japan, Hong Kong, Equador, & Panama, not to mention in Dubai and Bahrain. You can find Mustangs all over Europe.

Mustang is most certainly one of the planet's most known nameplates. When you get to a point where individual wealthy Russians are importing Mustangs for their own use, you know you're on to something.

Ferrari is a company brand name, like Ford.

guionM

I agree. But as I think you're pointing out, the real enthusiasts of both brands have sharply different outlooks.

I've never heard any arguments in Mustang camps about what car should get top billing, while here simply thinking about the SS or Z28 will result in a 20 page thread.

Another thing, at Mustang gatherings, there's always people thrilled about the changes they've done on their cars, even if it's just cosmetic. Camaro enthusiasts don't seem to have fun unless it's about horsepower upgrades.

I can see people who know nothing else about cars showing up at a Mustang gathering. But I don't see the same people showing up at a Camaro. At a Camaro gathering, there tends to be more performance crazed people than at a Mustang gathering who seem attracted by the car itself.

Ford's Mustang 40th anniversary gathering at Nashville drew 5,000 Mustangs and 100,000 people. It's going to be intresting to see how many people and cars show up at the 40th anniverasry Camaro (and Firebird) gathering at Warren.

latinspice-94T/A

I am not going to argue that case, but still. F1 is the biggest motor sport in the world. Ferrari has always been dominant/contender. As an American, one would like to argue the Mustang over the Ferrari, but I still think Ferrari is more recognized. There are two things the world follows, soccer and "I only follow the ferrari"...

I understand the car model vs. brand issue, but ferrari's are so distinctive, you could make the argument...

What about the 911? It has also been in world class motorsports for decades.

Sharker524

You could have quoted my post and just said,

"Yes."




I have never argued that performance = sales. Marketing and overall hype produce sales in this segment. That's why the mustang rules it.

Even if the fifth gen is 5 times the car of the mustang(performance/style/interior/ride/value/etc...), it would still take a miracle to sell better than the mustang. It may happen, but I very much doubt it.

bossco

Well its happened before, occassionaly

guionM

All the hype in the world isn't going to make something more successful than word of mouth.

I'll give you marketing, since marketing also includes actually finding out what the public wants and then relaying that information to the people actually creating the cars, and then make those cars available to the public. In that case, because Ford listened and stayed focus and true to what a pony car was, yes, indeed Ford has a great marketing machinary in place regarding Mustang.


As for it taking a miracle to beat Mustang in sales, IMO that's 4th gen mentality. Even though I've own 3 of them, I feel the 4th gen has destroyed Camaro more than anything else in it's history. Prior to 1993, you'd be hard pressed to find that attitude among Camaro fans. Even up to the mid 90s, there was still belief in the Camaro. Yet today, there's no shortage of people who actually think there's nothing wrong with not selling alot of Camaros. WTF?!

There has been a few years when Camaro outsold Mustang, and even more years when Camaro came damn close. Camaro had a clear deficit of acceleration to the Mustang in the 1980s, yet sales see-sawed between the 2 most of the decade.

Again, IMO (and again, 3 time owner here) the 4th gen represents the failure of Camaro. Sure, it was the closest thing to a Corvette than it ever was in performance, handling, and even looks. But it grew to gargantuan size at an age where most sports coupes became tidy. The quality of the 4th gen was spotty, things that would have never escaped GM's testing in the past was allowed to make it to the streets in the Camaro (junk power window motors, fragile differentials, short life clutches for a start). The 4th gen had plastic skin so it could have regular restylings on the cheap...which never happened.

But what was the most destructive is the general change in attitudes about Camaro... even to it's own fans that actually accept the junk with nothing more than a shrug and who have gotten to the place where they they look at good sales as impossible or even a sign of weakness.

Sharker524

I meant overall hype as in everything outside of marketing, including word of mouth. The more people get excited about something(hype), the better it will sell. A company can try to build hype for a product, but its the public that truly builds it for them.

I have the utmost faith in GM to do their absolute best with the Camaro, but it's up to the public to decide whether its better than a mustang, and as mentioned earlier, there's far more to "Mustang" than the car itself.