A question foremost in the minds of motoring enthusiasts around the world is what direction Ford will take for the next Mustang. And thanks to a leak from the UAW, it’s not a secret that a new Mustang, code-named S650, will be released in April 2023 on the anniversary of the original Mustang.
Breaking news this week from Ford: a new two-pronged market strategy has been announced to target both the high-brow and low-brow ends of the market, resulting in the outright purchase of BMW. BMW will be folded into Ford as a new division. And, in keeping with the “One Ford” plan, BMW’s existing product plans will be modified to use Ford chassis technology and parts.
The new BMW division has been ordered to adopt Ford Performance “muscle” styling clichés in order to appeal to the market demographic known as “old fat guys in their 50s”. These are former straight-liners who have reached their economic plateau and seek the appearance of sophistication, but because they have passed their physical and mental prime, need the comfort and reassurance of familiar Ford styling and technology. The Ford Performance M4 will feature wide flat seats, special door hinges for ease of ingress for “larger” customers, a “tried and true” inline 6 cylinder engine sourced from Ford of Australia, raised white letter tires, and a 4-link solid rear axle with “quad shocks”. And the newly announced Ford Co-Pilot360 will be enhanced with warning buzzers to rouse sleepy drivers.
The Ford Performance M4 It will be the first product on the market from the new BMW division of Ford Motor Company. The prototype was spotted on the streets of Munich earlier last week:
In the Dearborn side of the house, spy photographs have revealed that the new 2023 Mustang will adopt styling “influences” suggested by Generation Z demographics in an attempt to retain anxious Mustang buyers who otherwise have been leaving for Hyundai and Kia. To speed the new product to market, and as part of Billy Ford’s continued campaign against all things “Jac Nasser”, the Mustang will abandon the DEW/S550 lineage and return to the SN95 platform. The tooling for the SN95 had been sent to Venezuela in 2005 to be used for a new product there, but the dictator Chavez had stopped shipment at the entry port and sent it home saying he didn’t want a “Yankee hand-me-down”. A plan was then formed to use it as the basis of a new Jeepney in the Philippines in 2008, but that plan failed as well. As did a sale of it to the Chinese in 2010, where Hau Thai-Tang, Chairman of the Peoples Original Superior Car Company (POSCC), was quoted as saying “we’ve already copied it”.
So it was conveniently available for use by the 2023 Mustang, and handily met the financial budget as well. The following spy pictures show a final production sign-off prototype, captured outside the palatial suburban Dearborn home of returning Team Mustang Chief Janine Bay. When told that the secret plans had been revealed by the press, Ms. Bay was quoted as saying that “the SN95 platform, an update of the FOX platform designed in the middle 70s, ain’t broke and will continue to provide a loyal and faithful basis for the Mustang at least into the 22nd century”. And, in an interview last year in Dearborn, Raj Nair, executive vice president, Product Development, and chief technical officer (CTO) before he was disgraced and left Ford, promised that “this time, for real, unlike when we promised it last time, the Mustang will actually lose the 200 pounds we promised to take out for the S550. In fact, going back to the SN95 platform, we will lose over 900 pounds with resorting to aluminum. But that doesn’t count the 400 pounds we will put back in for the battery powered model”. But the hybrid model is expected to be delayed, as former CEO Jim Hackit was quoted as saying when he initiated this plan that “Mustang fanboys don’t want no damned ‘lectrons”.
So here is the 2023 Mustang, captured by our spy photographer on the streets of Dearborn:
;-) Happy April Fools Day (or is it?)