What do ya think about the new Mustang?

[sammyb]

Just to follow up--

The problem with Ford is that ALL of their halo cars are retro. Other companies have gone retro, but have also used retro cues with majority of the design being modern (or ultra modern.) I believe the Mini is a good representation of classic+modern=winner.

I agree that Mustang must not go "ricer." I wasn't suggesting this, but the design needs to sell 130,000 units per year minimum. The majority of the buyers are in their 20s and don't remember '69 Mustangs on the street. They want a car that is a step up from a tricked-out Integra. The car needs to say "don't buy the 3.2CL Type-S, buy me!"

 

[Bret]

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by sammyb:
Just to follow up--

The problem with Ford is that ALL of their halo cars are retro.
<<SNIP>><hr></blockquote>

Hey Sam,

I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that you are far more into the marketing side of things than I am.

But anyway the formula (“classic+modern”=??) you mention would seem to vary from one design studio to the next. Like it or not we are blessed (or cursed, depending on your point of view) with the current “retro” trend in automotive design. Sometimes it works great, other times is doesn’t. This seems to hold true from the concepts all the way down to the production products regardless of who’s stable you want to look at & judge. Again I feel you can’t criticize Ford without holding the rest of the industry to the same standards.

GM for example has shown far more creativity in the past than with some of the latest offerings. Unless you’re a diehard bowtie guy or gal, you’d have to be blind not to recognize some of Bob Lutz’s redheaded stepchildren have some serious shortcomings. Some examples: The Vibe, GTO, The New Vette and the SSR Truck. Many of these are truly only faces that only a mother could love. Likewise Chrysler has its share of swayback nags as well – the Crossfire and the Pacifica (a retro minivan? – please pass the Dramamine I think I’m going to be sick). The good news here is that for every lemon, I see there are plenty of successes out there.

That out of the way – you make a great point when you ask how many 20 year olds really remember the ’69 Mustang. But looking at it from that perspective, I have to ask how many of those buyers that flocked to Mini (BMW) showrooms really know anything about it’s lineage? But again I don’t think Ford ever intended to target the young ricers & tuner crowd with the new Mustang. That’s a job for the Focus.

IMHO regardless of how strongly you feel about it, all I’m trying to say is that it’s all-subjective. But on my score card this year my money is on Ford.

 

[Baxter]

From the rear, the Mustang looks just like a Nissan 240sx, doesn't it?

And I think the Pacifica has surprisingly nice lines for a minivan, although it's ridiculously overpriced in my view.

 

[sammyb]

I agree that GM has lost its way as well. And yes, I am into the marketing side of things, because market segmentation and sizing is what usually determines if a product will be successful.

The primary difference between Ford and their competition is that while BMW took the Mini and made it modern, as was the case with the Beetle and PT Cruiser, Ford has either taken modern cars and make them look retro (Mustang and T-bird) or all-out make the car look identical to the original (GT/GT40 -- yes I know the GT is larger than the original, but my guess is that no layman could tell the difference unless they were parked next to one another.)

Please don't get me wrong. I love old cars. I write a classic car column for a living!

My complaint is that all the American car companies have been going retro without much thought or planning. I can't say it's self-indulgent, but rather more: "It worked with the Mini and PT Cruiser, what can we pull out of our past." Retro cars as we know them have a very short sales life. The T-Bird, PT Cruiser and Beetle prove this. The luster wears off.

Now, cars like the Miata and Boxster have a long product lifecycle. This is because they take the heart of a classic concept and apply it in an offering that the modern market will want for many years. The Miata is 13 years old and still selling extremely well. The Boxster is 7 years old. The T-bird sold poorly over 3 years. The GTO, well that's a different story. I'm not impressed, but mostly because the style is from six or eight years ago. I do think it will sell well for a few years until they can frame-up create a new one. I wouldn't buy one, but then again, I don't plan to buy any GM cars in the future that weren't made before 1972.

Again, if the Mustang doesn't speak to its prime target, the 16-30 year olds, it doesn't matter how many of us out of the target talk about how much we like the look. (Hey, I like the look!) They won't sell enough and they'll be back at the drawing board.

There's a reason that Toyota is now outselling Ford worldwide!

 

[Sherlock]

No one has mentioned my favourite retro car so far, the Audi TT coupe

The convertible looks a little compromised style-wise to me, while the coupe has great looks and I've heard it performs well too.

Anyway... I wonder if it is mostly North American consumers (laying Japan aside for now) that are into retro styled cars. I read somewhere once that the New Beetle had terrible sales in Germany, and I assume the rest of Europe. Whereas we know how popular it was here in North America. Maybe North Americans like a little more flash in their cars than Europeans. Now the Japanese... that's a whole other story, I've seen pictures of some of the wacky Japanese car designs they don't sell over here

, and apparently those cars sell reasonably well over or they wouldn't keep making them.

I think retro-styling to a degree is good, but without copying an old design too closely. I suspect the New Mini will do well, why the Miata has done well, why the Audi TT has done well, and why the Dodge Viper did well, just to pull one example from the above... the Viper copied the basic concept of the Cobra (open-top roadster, very spartan) but without copying the actual body of the Cobra so they didn't look like identical twins, and I think the same holds true for the other cars mentioned above.

 

[Baxter]

Bad example, Sammy. Toyota has all but abandoned the youth market, and has an embarrassing shortage of enthusiast cars. What they do have doesn't stack up that well to the competition. There's basically nothing in the lineup to attract the young market (don't say Celica, any 16-year-old will tell you it's an also-ran). The Scion sure isn't the answer, if you ask me, but that seems to be Toyota's best effort right now.
It's a shame, too, because they used to make some real hot cars cheap. Heck, even their old econobox AE86 Corolla is approaching legendary status.

However, they do make a fine, fine product, and people do notice things like that. Get out of the youth market, and it seems like the whole world wants a Camry or Corolla.

Maybe that's the real lesson for Ford (and the other US makers) build a better car, and people will buy it.

 

[MGA Steve]

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by sammyb:
Again, if the Mustang doesn't speak to its prime target, the 16-30 year olds, it doesn't matter how many of us out of the target talk about how much we like the look. (Hey, I like the look!) They won't sell enough and they'll be back at the drawing board.

There's a reason that Toyota is now outselling Ford worldwide!<hr></blockquote>

My 29 year-old son is dead-on that "prime target" range and even drove my '65 Mustang to high school. However, he spent the first 3 years after graduation working as a mechanical engineer in the Detroit area and now wouldn't buy any "Detroit iron," regardless of looks. He loves rally racing, so he recently bought a Suburu WRX STi and regularly takes it out to a local track. And he has begun building his old Nissan SE-R into an SCCA rally car.

For him, and probably many others his age, it's obviously not "the look" (an STi-ugly!), it's what's under the hood that counts. When he was driving my Mustang, what he really wanted was an original Mini-Cooper S. And now he has one--a non-BMW, Japanese version of a turbocharged, 6-speed, AWD, 300-HP "Mini-Cooper S" that holds the road like no Corvette or Mustang ever did, but still does 0-60 in 4.6 seconds. It may not outsell the new Mustang, but it ain't no Toyota either!

 

[Bret]

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by sammyb:
<<SNIP>>

Again, if the Mustang doesn't speak to its prime target, the 16-30 year olds, it doesn't matter how many of us out of the target talk about how much we like the look. (Hey, I like the look!) They won't sell enough and they'll be back at the drawing board.

<<SNIP>><hr></blockquote>

Well Sammy,

I guess it’s easy to say that we are pretty much on the same page on most of this, except for “who” the primary target customers are of the new Mustang. Correct me if I’m wrong - but you think that it’s target buyers are (or should be) the 16-30 year olds out there. I contend that it was a much older segment of the auto-buying marketplace that was the “main” driving force behind the new Mustang design and it’s ultimate target buyers. Oh sure the new Stang will draw buyers from 17 to 70, but personally I don’t think it was ever really intended as an import (Asian) Ricky Racer fighter that is so popular with the younger set today.

I don’t know the actual numbers (perhaps you do) but I always thought that we older baby boomers (40+) besides accounting for a larger segment of the general population, are by & large vastly more affluent than younger buyers and more willing & able to put down a larger amount of money for what we like. While not true in my case (with two little ones - 10mos & 4yrs) most of my friends in my age group or older, now have empty nests and want to play now that the dog has died and the kids have moved out.

FYI Mustang totals sales for 2003 & 2002 were well over 106,000 & 111,000 units respectively. That’s almost 70% of the one full market share percentage point. Very respectable numbers when you look at the handful of passenger cars that actually out sold the Mustang. Thanks to the “new” design, I predict that those numbers will rise significantly.

 

[sammyb]

Mustang has always been a young person's car. Taking out the sales to rental agencies, Mustangs are certainly targeted to younger consumers. If memory serves -- from the last demographic study I saw the primary target was 16-30.

Yes, you are right, Toyota doesn't have any enthusiast cars right now (short of the Celica)...that wasn't necessarily the point of the statement. The statement was more that Ford has taken their eyes off the ball. Toyota builds rock solid (albeit boring) cars and trucks. They give the market what it wants. They sell what people will buy.

Again, retro design can be quite cool. And I like the new Mustang look (much better than this last facelift.) But most of us aren't in the target.

I'm not sure Mustang sales will significantly increase. Other than the "first year blip" from people holding off from last year to buy the new model, I'd expect Mustang sales to actually decline ever so slightly over the next 5 or 6 years. The car is becoming less relevent to its target. Luckily, the Focus is becoming more relevent.

Read this month's Car and Driver editorial by Brock Yates.

Of course, these are just predictions, and I could be wrong. I'm just basing it on my background in marketing and as an auto journalist.

 

[Basil]

To be honest, I have never been a big Mustang fan, but when I was in highschool, a friend's dad had a very rare Boss 429 - now THAT was a bad car (bad being a good thing)

Basil

 

[tony barnhill]

I owned a 1967 Mustang convertible - soft yellow - & then Vietnam got me....would prefer to have it back but I do like the new rendition...will reserve my final opinion till I see it in person - pictures can be made to tell a different story than reality, you know!

 

[Baxter]

Sammy, you're dead on about the Focus. I suspect Ford knows it, too... yes, the Mustang has always been a young person's car, but what young people want has shifted. I bet their marketing guys have figured this out, too, and the plan is to market the 'Stang more at baby boomers (would explain the facelift and retro look), and send the Focus out to battle in the pocket rocket wars. I hear the new modular 2.3 they're putting in there (duratec?, ecotec?) has gobs of potential.

But even giving Ford that scenario, which is mighty favorable to them, I still have to say I think you're right, and they do seem a bit mystified by what people really want.

For youth, I think both the Focus and the Mustang are going to end up as also-rans with cars like the SRT4 Neon and the base WRX filling the about-$20k range.

 

[Bret]

I will concede that the Mustang was “originally” at it’s introduction was targeted at the youth market place as in subsequent model years. However the Mustang not unlike many automotive icons (the Model T, the 55 Chevy or the E-type to name a few) have transcended their humble Pony Car beginnings.

While the Mustang has had their share of blunders & mistakes that have made it off the designer’s drawings boards into production (ala the Mustang II). The basic formula like it or not has worked well.

A little Mustang history:
Way back in the mid-80s – while most of the current 16-30 yr olds today, were either just getting their learners permits or hadn’t even been born, Dark days loomed for Fords Pony Car. Starting around 1980, Ford started working with Mazda on the next generation Mustang. Without going too deep into this the plan was to use the same front wheel drive platform as the Mazda 626 and MX-6. Luckily, word of this abomination got to the Public. The idea of a FWD Mustang with Nippon heritage and no V8 option didn’t sit well with Blue Oval fans. This subsequently led to a enormous grassroots letter writing campaign to Ford, coupled with a run on the Mustang currently in production at the time, led to Ford change their minds. They then dropped the Ford/Mazda joint Mustang project and redesigned the Stang using the existing “basic” formula.

So what happened to that joint Ford/Mazda FWD project? Well, with so much time and money invested, it became the Ford Probe. Question is – where is the Probe today?

It's gone & the Pony Car still lives.

 

[racing girl]

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Baxter:
...And I think the Pacifica has surprisingly nice lines for a minivan,...<hr></blockquote>

The Pacifica isn't actually a minivan, it's sort of a hybrid suv

. It was developed to be a cross between the old station wagons, a minivan and an suv, and yes, I agree, it's way overpriced, but please buy one 'cause you'll be keeping me in a job!!

RG

[ 01-14-2004: Message edited by: racing girl ]</p>

 

[Baxter]

Sorry, but I won't buy another Chrysler product for a VERY long time. Got a serious love/hate thing going with my Neon RT... It does so much so well, and so much so wrong...

Minivan, SUV... these day's they're definitely converging into one new Big Box category.

 

[sammyb]

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Baxter:
Sorry, but I won't buy another Chrysler product for a VERY long time. Got a serious love/hate thing going with my Neon RT... It does so much so well, and so much so wrong...
<hr></blockquote>

I'm running out of car companies to boycott... I've had 2 Chrysler/Dodge convertibles -- both had the tranny go out (as did my dad's and my roomate's LeBaron conv'ts.) So no more Chryslers.

After two new Corvettes and an Oldsmobile, I'm done with GM. I have a Expedition (got it free-long story) and it's such a cheap piece of doodoo (which is amazingly hard to fix even the most basic things on,) that I'll never buy another Ford.

My dad owned a '79 Audi 5000S. That thing couldn't get out of its own way if it had to...so gutless and things started breaking on it a month after we bought it. No more Audis (too small for me anyway.)

I hate to say it, but it looks like the next car for my wife will be an Accord or Lexus sedan. For me, I don't know what. Maybe I'll win the lottery and buy a BMW 745I and deal with all the technical gizmo woes.

 

[UltimateQuestion]

The Pacifica is a station wagon, as are all the so-called car/minivan/SUV things out there now. I wish all the manufacturers would quit making up silly names like "Crossover", "All-Activity Vehicle", "Touring Vehicle" "Lifestlye Vehicle" etc. and just call them station wagons. Even the minivan is nothing more than an over-tall bodied station wagon.

[ 01-14-2004: Message edited by: UltimateQuestion ]</p>

 

[Bret]

In fairness to Chrysler (& RG) I’ve owned many of their products over the years and have few complaints. I’ve owned everything from a 1967 Barracuda, a Dodge Datona, a Rampage PU, several of their Minivans, a 97 Intrepid and now a 2000 Dodge Intrepid that serves as my daily driver. Heck at one time I even owned a 85 Dodge Aries and while it might have been cheap esteem sapping transportation it gave me absolutely no real “vehicle” problems.

Matter-a-fact the biggest complaints I ever had with them were sales, service and warranty related. But again I’ve been disappointed with many dealerships’ over the years regardless of the manufacture.

You can have the best product in the world, but don’t expect return customers if you don’t take care of them “after” the sale. Take my word for it – my entire professional career that has revolved around strong service and customer satisfaction. Poor and/or lackluster service is probably more responsible for losing customers than any design or product deficiencies.

[ 01-14-2004: Message edited by: Bret ]</p>

 

[Baxter]

Sammy, the current crop of Chrysler automatic transmissions are notoriously weak... if they last 100k, it's considered a bit of an anomoly. The problem seems to be well-known, well-document, and well-recognized, except by DaimlerChrysler.

Besided the ridiculous number of rattles, squeaks and other signs that it just wasnt' put together that well, I had the misfortune (at 60,000 miles) to discover the the 2.0 twin cam uses oil, is EXTREMELY sensitive to low-oil levels and has a warning light that doesn't come on until it's too late to save the too-fragile bottom end. Apparently, even a quart low (the lowest it had ever been) is too low. It's a shame, too, because the car is very quick, very roomy, has excellent handling, fine seats and much else to recommend it. It would be a wonderful car if it was made by someone who cared.

Hmmm... Seems I've descended into rant territory. Sorry 'bout that. Anyway, the Neon is a sharp contrast to my Subaru, which at 114K DOESN'T rattle, squeak, or break. It feels like it'll do 200K more without ANYTHING going wrong.

 

[TypeRboy]

Mustang

Speaking as one of mustangs biggest fans over the years..

Corvette Less of a

Speaking as not a Corvette fan in the least...

New Ford GT40..

Now you're cooking with gas!!!