Vaughn Gittin Jr and his “hoonigan” car was there. Vaughn talked to the group about the history of Ford and the Mustang. How that the 2005 redesign got his attention and that is how he started driving them. Vaughn has taken the car all over the world, and even though the car hasn’t been sold outside the U.S it was a car everyone knew. It brought stares and attention everywhere it went. Vaughn talked about the performance upgrades in the last few years, and how it now has a base V6 putting out the same power a V8 did just a few years ago. He talked about how even with a live axel the car handled well. He said on the Drift Circuit this car commands attention.
Ford isn’t saying much about the technical details, specs and performance coming with the 2015 Mustang. They do have some basic on their website Ford.com. The haven’t given a hard on sale date for the new car either. One rep I spoke with did indicate “summerish 2014″. As a bit of trivia the first Mustang sold was on April 15, 1964 as a 1964 1/2 model. With this being the 50th Anniversary of the Mustang I’d be willing to bet that April 15, 2014 as the sale date to commemorate the anniversary of the first one being sold. Just a wild guess with no information to support.
What we do know is that the new Mustang is a bit longer, a bit wider in the rear and certainly has the wheels further out to the corners than the current generation. The rear decklid is lower and much wider visually than the current model. It was said by several at the Venice Beach reveal that their is more leg room in the rear that potentially makes this much more comfortable for those passengers.
Looking at the car you know it is a Mustang, even without the large legacy Mustang embedded in the grill. It has the long hood, short deck of the original. It even has strongly sloped front and rear rooflines much like the original fastback. Other cues like the gills by the headlights as seen on the original is there. One also knows that its a Ford, carrying the current Ford design language seen on the Fusion and new Fiestas, trapezoidal grill, windswept curves and artfully placed creases on the rear quarters.
Performance is something they are pretty silent about. We do know that even though slightly bigger than the current model it lost 200 pounds. May not seem like much but it would be enough to enhance the 0-60, cornering and final MPG numbers across the board.
Power-trains have changed some. Unchanged is the base 3.7L V6 remains and that puts out a healthy 305bhp. The 2014 5.0L “coyote” V8 starts out at 420 bhp and is tuned upwards considerably in the aftermarket world, for 2015 power is up with reports being in the 450-500bhp range for the base trim.
The real news is the return of the legacy displacement 2.3L this time in EcoBoost trim. Ford is pretty quiet on its power expectations in the Mustang, in the Lincoln MKC it puts out 275 bhp, but has 300 ft lbs of torque which is more than the 280 ft lbs of the current 3.7L V6. On person I spoke to did say that in Mustang specs the 2.3L EcoBoost will put out more power than the MKC. Its possible as the 2.0L Ecoboost in the Fiesta ST puts out quite a bit more power than it does in the Fusion. We’ll have to wait and see.
Handling is going to change significantly with the 2015 Mustang. The Mustang will dump its live axel that dates back to ancient history in favor of an independant rear suspension. Something the Mustang saw only once several years back in an SVT limited run. I have read reports that the new Mustang has had its handling tuned on the Nurburgring, but no facts or figures have been published on how fast it did it. Yet. Am certain at some point in time it will serve as bragging rights and marketing will publish and exploit.
Ford will give the Mustang a healthier dose of Technology with the 2015 Model. Sync with MyFord and MyFordTouch with navigation will be available. Things like blind spot monitoring will also be available. Interestingly the 2015 Mustang GT they had for us to view and photograph has tons of buttons for heating/AC, Radio etc., that would be duplicates of what MyFord and MyFordTouch can do. The duplicitious buttons are welcomed as its sometimes more practicle to simply turn a knob than go through voice commands for some things, well at least that has been my experience with my cars.
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