Roush just announced a Mustang built specifically for Europe... which conbsists of better suspension tuning and some brake work... and lots more power.
I have some problems with this... Roush has been putting lipstick on a pig for years. Some bigger wheels and tires might help this car handle the serious driving styles of Europe... the Autobahn and such, but it doesn't solve the basic issues of making the car truly competitive in the world outside of North America:
- - It's too big. Except for the 71-31 Mustangs, this is the biggest one ever.
- - It's too heavy. With loaded GTs over 3600 pounds and Shelbys a whisker under 4000 (and with a 58.5% front weight balance to carry around), this isn't a car to drive fast on small roads.
- - It's crude. Europeans see a solid rear axle as a product of the last century, not the one we live in.
- - It's underpowered. 300 horses from 4.6 liters is a joke to Europeans... whom would expect 80 hp/liter and enthisiast-shop for 100. Naturally aspirated.
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- In fact, all of these issues are also what's wrong with the Mustang inside the North American market.
And there is the bigger issue: if you look at the Mustang as representative of America's competitive ability... the answer comes up very short. The Mustang is promoted and seen as an "All-American" symbol... and that's exactly what it is. But it's also exactly what's wrong with the car... and with Americans. We too often settle for too little... we've lost leadership in technical and industrial design... we settle for status quo ("good enough") instead of trying to stretch ("ground breaking"). Appearances count for too much and substance too little.
The Mustang is an example of what is wrong with our country, not what is right. And it's an example of what is wrong with Ford, not what is right.
I love this country.. but I'm alarmed when I see people with little vision beyond their own narrow existence, and ill-informed pacifists who try to impose their worldly limitations on those who have poked their heads up and looked around. The lessons of history have been forgotten by many people in the past year or two, and this is unfortunately a repeating pattern in history. Every time our country remembers and re-embraces our core values, we win.
Taking the conversation back to Ford, we've seen renewed success for the Mustang every time it gets back to it's original roots. 2005 is one of those times, probably the greatest example. But you have to understand what the original car meant to understand my bold-font statement above. The original car in the early sixties was a truly original idea, a fresh and new idea that had tremendously broad appeal (where, for example, a 6-cylinder car could have great daily appeal, instead of being nothing more than an unsatisfying low-end cost-cutter) to a tremendously wide range of people and one that changed the basic paradigm. It was the perfect example of how this country moved forward on any number of innovative fronts in the sixties. The Mustang was also technically state-of-the-art in the early sixties, it was indeed sophisticated in it's time. Every single little detail of the all-new car received extraordinary attention and was important to the total realization of the car.
Can we say this about the 2005 Mustang? I don't think so, I don't see any original thinking here - only the latest interpretation of somebody else's original thinking in the sixties. Original thinking for 2005 might have been:
- "we'll figure out how to put a modern suspension on all models of the car - designed in instead of tacked on" (a suspension we could live with for a very long product cycle).
- "we'll figure out how to offer an appealing 6 cylinder car, not a cost-cutter but something that is fun to drive without the overhead of a large V-8" (there are a lot more potential mainstream buyers than just readers of Mustang modification rags)
- "we'll plan on offering a hybrid 6-cylinder car" (is this radical? No, it's exactly the current thinking of Japanese car companies where the latest hybrids and more to come will use the electronics to build performance, in addition to economy)
- "we'll offer a performance engine that honestly produces high and fun-to-drive hosepower, not a lump that relies on cubic inches or unnatural aspiration" (the Yamaha-header 5-valve Tremor engine comes to mind here - the engineering was done and put on the shelf).
And, lastly, not an original idea but one which makes financial and competitive sense: "we'll reuse this same chassis to compete effectively with Dhaimler-Chrysler, as well as for Lincoln to compete with Cadillac".
Interesting item on eBay: prototype Lincoln LS supercharger parts. I'm very interesting in learning more about the origin and design of these parts. It's well known that Lincoln had planned a supercharged variant of the LS - they talked about it in the press almost from day 1. 
The aptly-named company "LSD" 
