I have to disagree, I know of a few doctors who buy these cars like Mustangs and Camaro's etc, for their children and for everyday/work vehicles. Most of them are money conscious and if the quality is good, resale is decent, they'll buy more of them...

 

Oh no doubt...but at what price??? For that matter, when is a Mustang/Camaro not a Mustang/Camaro anymore? That is the age-old question that Ford at least may be determined to answer.

 

I think the Mustang looks cool. I would like to test drive it.

 

You guys are forgetting....BMW has "peaked" ... Their newer cars are not as good looking as the ones they replaced (Z-4, 5-series, 7-series....) and have lost some of the "BMW-ness" focus on ride and handling - now they are focused on crap like i-drive and electric variable steering (how can you have handling perfection when you never know exactly how much the front wheels will turn when you turn the wheel??) Their quality is also hurting compared to compeitors...

It's a perfect time for Ford, Cadillac, Pontiac and Infiniti to go after BMW. They've lost their focus and don't even know it.

 

I too agree - I don't want to see the Mustang - especially the entire lineup - go to an upscale, high-dollar tecno-ride. I've said that time and time again. In fact, that's why I've stuck to my guns about this IRS-thing.

However, as long as substantial effort is made to distinguish the "Super Mustang" model from the base and GT models, I have no problems with a $50k offering. It serves many purposes, like development of cool parts and upgrade equipment that base-car buyers can aspire to "add" to their base units as DIY's for starters. It also keeps the whole car line in respectable light as far as public perception goes - nobody will associate a $50k car with "trailer-park-trash", right?

Again, my approval for such upscale projects is based on separation and independence from the base units. Notice how there are NO MUSTANG EMBLEMS or names in the SVT Cobra? No Running Horses on the outside? etc.
And don't go charging the mass buyers for all the development costs of the "super Mustang" units either. Let the upscale parts and peices justify themselves. The base cars eat all the cost for body, chassis, and system development anyhow - don't make them any more burdened with costs for "toys" that they can't use IMO.

But also, I'd like to see us (Ford AND GM) not specifically target a particular maker or brand, but instead concentrate on simply doing things the right way - great designs, great quality, great craftsmanship, and delivering the styles people want... if we do that, BMW, Mercedes, VW, Toyota, Honda, and everyone else will have major problems to deal with, not just one model!

 

except for that big-*** running horse in the grill,you are correct.

 

It's Mazda's new platform that Ford is using world-wide. Yep, I've heard of it.

Mustang's Chief Engineer is Hau Thai-Tang. His responsibility is the engineering direction of the car (he ran Ford's CART program & was development manager of the DEW98 (Lincoln LS & Jaguar) chassis. Ford essentially made the platform's father the head guy of Mustang (much the same way Dave Hill ran F & Y bodies). Like Dave Hill, he has no bearing on design and has to take orders from the people allocating the money and the people doing the actual design.

He has as much to do with Mustang's rear window as John Coletti (SVT director) does.

Any design issues anyone has should go to Larry Erickson who is Mustang's actual head designer.

Issues with Mustang's live axle instead of IRS is well advised to direct their correspondance to Richard Parry-Jones who runs product development, and the allocations ($$$) for the Mustang program.

Any general issues you have with anything about the Mustang, your point of contact is Mark Rushbrook, vehicle development manager for the entire 2005 Mustang Program.

All the above mentioned have close contact with actual Mustang owners and related surveys, input, etc..., and take these inputs & surveys very very seriously I can assure you. A few of them are also amazingly accessible to the average Mustang enthusiast.

For the record, I love the rear windows, and the IRS that was initially to be on the Mustang was actually opposed by Mustang enthusiasts in owner surveys. The back tracking to a live axle is at least as much a response to these surveys as it is to cost cutting.

Any idea that Ford simply stuck a live axle on the Mustang in opposition to owner preference, or did it simply to save money is completely and totally false.

Hard to believe, but totally true.

2005 Mustang overview:
http://www.mustangheaven.com/2005mustang/drivingd.htm

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/aut...-1883794c.html

 

I agree that Ford is truly fantastic about listening to their enthusiasts. SVT owners in particular, are allowed great access and input.

But I have a feeling that Ford really lucked out on this one. A large segment of Mustang enthusiasts wanted a live rear axle......Ford management wanted a live rear axle......what a beautiful thing! Ford can save afew bucks and make some enthusiasts happy.

I just wonder what might have happened if Mustang enthusiasts, demanded a DEW98 chassis/suspension in Mustang, unchanged,....multi-link IRS and SLA front and all. Would Ford have coughed up the cash to make everyone happy?

Or ........ I wonder if a live rear axle offered no cost savings, (or say it was even more expensive ), over IRS.....what would Ford have done......would they have listened to their fans?

 

http://forums.stangnet.com/showthread.php?t=412897

Stangnet poll. So far 92 have vote.

For:
IRS - 54 votes - 58.7%
Live - 38 votes - 41.3%

While most would prefer the IRS, a good chunk seem to want the live axle as well. This is among enthusiasts though and so i don't know how the general buying public would factor into it. They probably couldn't tell them apart anyway.

The best thing to do was have the IRS as an extra cost option. That way, those who want it have that option, and those that don't want it have the option of sticking with the standard live axle.

 

Yeah, interesting poll and thread, 5.0.

Over the past year or so, there have have been some raging debates on this at BON. I always got the impression that the IRS proponents were in the majority.

 

One thing that gets lost in the IRS debate is whether the IRS is designed worth a damn.

In other words, the Ford guys have been burned for the last 3 Cobra revisions by a POS IRS, and they're gun shy of the whole damn thing.

So before the bowtie fans go off chanting IRS for the 5th gen, think about this. You may get what you ask for.

The camaro is a budget performance car. The 2 key words are budget and performance. In other words, you may expect vette quality IRS and instead get some flimsy cost saving kluge like the current stang has got.

Course we have the GTO to examine first. If its IRS passes all the torture tests of serious drag racing, then I'd say 5th gen fans have nothing to worry about in a future IRS.

 

I think Cobalt SS is the new budget performance car from Chevy. Camaro will remain the "attainable" big bang for the buck, performance car.

It is inconcievable to me that a 5th gen Camaro will have anything less than an excellently engineered IRS. I certainly think that dynamics as good as Sigma's are to be expected.

Bob Lutz even said so, when asked about GM's new volume RWD platform a year or two ago.

 

Ask this on the Corral.

 

I think the general public would prefer the IRS definatly. For people that know even a little about cars, they probably know that IRS is good and a live axle is old and antiquated and is a throwback to another time..................so they always say. So I think that it is only the enthusiasts that want the Live axle for drag racing but this puzzles me a bit since the GT has never been the drag racer and has always been kinda behind in power. It would seem to me to make both types of rears available on the Cobra, or at least on a higher model ala Mach 1.