There’s not many car reveals these days that the world actually stops for. A new Corvette. The next Miata. Defender? Well we waited long enough, god knows how long it’ll be before there’s another. Porsche shows a different 911 version each week. But of course there is one more that’s worth waiting up for. A new Mustang.
When the Camaro and the Challenger took a break, the Mustang remained available as an all things to all people slice of American performance and style. It’s seen some ups and downs, but remaining in production since 1964 is a pretty decent achievement. Clearly there’s a lot of merit in Iacocca’s idea of a stylish, accessible, decent performing car for the everyman. And now there’s a new one.
We’d heard rumors of hybrid systems and 4WD to make this latest horse a bit more 2024, but the reality is Ford have played it extremely safe. And when I say safe, I also mean cheap. Despite what the PR wonks say, this S650 Mustang is a reheat of some S550 leftovers.
Much of the problem with the S550 Mustang was that it had turned into a bit of a pastiche. It was always a slightly awkward, gawky looking thing, endowed with too much hood and deck and not really enough passenger cabin. The overhangs were a bit too long, the roofline a bit too tight. Listen to some uniformed commentators and they’ll tell you that’s what makes muscle car proportions, too much is great and even more is better. Well that’s why they’re uninformed and I do this for a living. It’s all about nuance and balance in the volumes and proportions. The thing with this new Mustang is it uses the existing car’s body in white, so these proportions haven’t changed.
If you look at the side view, you can see the cant rail and the pillars haven’t altered at all. The shut lines for the doors are in exactly the same place. The daylight opening has changed slightly for the rear glass, but fundamentally you can see it’s the same car.
Looking at the front, the top horizontal line of the headlights now becomes the shut line of the hood and the top of the grill. This gives the whole down the road graphic a monobrow visage, and draws your attention to the shape of the hood and the fact there is a lot of sheet metal bending down to meet the lights. Like a Mk8 Golf, it looks like the front of the car is melting off. Not only that, but in replicating the three segment taillights in the main beams, it’s all starting to look bitty and unconsidered.
And those tail lights are doing some serious retro heavy lifting.
The three vertical bar tail light was present on the original ’64 and has remained in various forms ever since. The previous S550, despite having a slightly fat bum had a nice simple black infill panel with plenty of blank space in the center for various badging options. It worked well as a graphical call back to earlier cars and helped reduce the visual mass of all that bodywork. This new Mustang eschews that cleanliness for a more aggressive treatment that lowers the trunk opening but looks blander due to there being more body colored sheet metal. You have to be really careful doing this because if you get it wrong it can look cheap.
Speaking of looking cheap the interior is a major let down. I’m sure the new digital displays are crisp and have some nice animations, but the integration here is awful. There’s starting to be a lot of pushback around moving secondary controls to touchscreens in cars, so it’s surprising to see a car that supposedly plays on emotional appeal and driver engagement just plonk a couple of screens on top of the IP and call it a day.
So we’ve got a car that is basically the old car in a new cocktail dress. The underlying ungainliness of the old model hasn’t really changed, and has arguably been exacerbated. There’s no reinvention here, no four wheel drive for inclement states and no hybrid for the inner city. It’s all a bit half assed, which to a degree I understand. Like all OEMs Ford is betting big on EVs throwing all their spare dollar bills in that direction, so there’s not a lot left over for the ICE stuff. You can only work with what you’re given. But this is the last the last ICE Mustang we’re going to get and it’s basically the same as the last one but uglier?
You have a car with nearly sixty years of design heritage, that adapted to reflect the circumstances of it’s time, but Ford is determined to keep us in 1964. After the first Mustang, we had the baroque malaise Mustang II. Ok, not great, but it sold (a lot!), was the right car for the right time and kept the name alive.
As we moved into the microprocessor eighties a new Mustang appeared with weirdo metric tires, aero styling and a hatchback. Pretty advanced stuff. But as we headed towards the millennium, the Mustang took a step back into the warm bath of nostalgia. Since then it’s been, like it’s contemporaries the Camaro and Challenger trading on a heritage appeal that does a disservice to those earlier generations.
If the Mustang’s appeal is it’s authenticity, why are we getting a fuzzy copy of a copy, like a bootleg cassette that’s been passed around high school and re-recorded repeatedly? Surely a really up to date Mustang would look around at today’s environmental challenges, the geopolitical landscape and what’s influencing popular culture and wonder how it would evolve.
An aero Mustang with a 4 cylinder turbo and a hatchback perhaps….
Why not at least put a damn shroud over the gauges so they don’t look like a tacked on DIY mistake? Might even make them more readable in bright sunlight. Or maybe stop with them altogether. And if they’re going to do a Fox-body gauge option, why not all the generations, especially when this is clearly “inspired” by older bodystyles than the Foxes and seems incongruous as the only other option. I kept reconsidering the last one, but they’re just so large outside/small inside and this one is uglier with a dashboard so hideous, cheap, and user-unfriendly that it would put me off even if I loved the outside design and it cost half as much. No manual on the 4 is a secondary deal breaker as I prefer the lighter weight and don’t get the hard-on everyone else has for the sound of pedestrian V8s and I find automatics to be a frustrating driving experience.
“Surely a really up to date Mustang would look around at today’s environmental challenges, the geopolitical landscape and what’s influencing popular culture and wonder how it would evolve.”
Well if they did that the Mustang would be a 4-door electric SUV
Oh wait…
❤️Hі. Мy nаme іs Pаula, Іm 24 yеars оld) Bеginning SЕХ mоdel 18+) І lоve bеing phоtographed іn thе nudе) Plеase ratе my phоtos аt ➤ https://ja.cat/id378076
The modern KITT style interior screens seem to be mismatch for the slight retro-nod that the modestly updated exterior consists of. It’s a strange mix. The block headlights don’t mesh with the look of the car either, IMO. I’m glad there’s a manual and V8s and what-not, but not even a nod to any form of hybrid? That’s disappointing. I would have been all over a V6 convertible manual with hybrid assist. Am I that small of a market?
❤️Hі) Мy nаme іs Pаula, Іm 24 yеars оld) Bеginning SЕХ mоdel 18+) І lоve bеing phоtographed іn thе nudе) Plеase ratе my phоtos аt ➤ https://ja.cat/id378076
I give you a 3.5 Paula. You could use some dental work.
Looks mustangy from the outside. That’s all you need, I guess. And oh man, the interior is HORRIBLE. It’s bad enough to dissuade some buyers, I think. It’s not just the screens. It’s a disjointed mess. Bad job.
“An aero Mustang with a 4 cylinder turbo and a hatchback perhaps…” I know you mean the SVO but it’s hard to argue that the Ecoboost version of this new Mustang doesn’t also fit that description.
No, because it isn’t a hatchback.
What’s even more disappointing is that the primary reason for that is that Ford would rather that customer be upsold to a Mach E or even an Edge ST.
Modern car companies would rather people buy “sporty” crossovers than “compromise” sports cars by making them more practical for daily use, and the “purism” of the enthusiast community only encourages them.
I watched the unveiling event and was rolling my eyes when one of the lead designer was going over the design choices for the new interior. It literally looks like they went down to BestBuy and picked up a bunch of ultra wide displays and just plopped them in there. Literally zero effort was made to integrate the new changes and make the car look elegant to the point where the new modern redesigns complement the old heritage of the vehicle.
I have to disagree about the S550 not looking good (I drive a 2015 Ecoboost ‘stang and I stare lovingly at it out my kitchen window at every opportunity lol), but otherwise I agree completely with this assessment on the S650. You nailed the three things that bug me the most–the front looks like it’s melting off, the back looks cheap (I absolutely cannot stand how they’ve done the taillights), and the tablet monstrosity bolted onto the dash is a crime against taste. There are things I like, but overall I’m kind of disappointed.
Would love to have seen a throwback to the foxbody tbh
I rented an S500 Ecoboost convertible for a month in California a couple of years ago and thought it was horrible, Reasonably shagged out at 20k miles and a terrible engine note.
oh no, what is that rear wing spoiler!?!?
the front, middle and back look more like they were supposed to be 3 different cars.
Big miss in my opinion, same with the corvette… they should have made it much smaller… smaller overhangs, smaller green house, smaller total car, with the same strong V8… pushing it into sub-super car type segment. Or have two version on same platform, one for general public (larger) and one for the bragging rights (everything but power shrunk down).
This being warmed-over S550 is not super surprising given Ford’s CLEAR disregard for their currently profitable ICE line. They really need to be careful to not let their ICE models go to complete shart during this transition which will take longer than the industry/government is signalling with their grand plans and aggressive end-dates for combustion-powered vehicles.
“An aero Mustang with a 4 cylinder turbo and a hatchback perhaps…” So, a Fox body?
Yes, it’s almost like I was setting up another article…….
Am I the only one disappointed that the new Mustang is not Fox body-inspired? Obviously Ford likes to lean on nostalgia with the Mustang line, and I just really thought this would have been the perfect time to hit us with a dose of angular 1980’s goodness.
That said, Ford isn’t really about taking risks these days, and I should have known they wouldn’t be willing to do something that exciting with the Mustang. But even my most conservative predictions wouldn’t have guessed they’d keep it so incredibly similar that anyone who isn’t a trained car designer has to look back and forth multiple times between the current and new models just to spot any differences at all.
I’m right there with you – the prime marketing demographic right now were little kids when the Foxes roamed freely. Seems odd for Ford to NOT cater to that, esp. when the S197 went retro to hit the babyboomers in their wallets one last time.
What I’m hoping now is that the first electric Mustang will lean heavy into Fox-ness. Which would fit…a revolutionary break from the past, just like Jack Telnac’s take on a brand-new Mustang for the ’80s.
They’re never going to make another Fairmont Mustang. Seriously. Fox body is bad styling. Always was, but they were the only new Mustangs they were selling at the time.
To critique this new Mustang, I’d say it still looks a little too much like a Fox body in front. The nose should be a little more leaned forward, a little more protruding, and the headlights pulled back a little.
I don’t want a Mustang with a rear sloping, box nose like a Ford Tempo. I don’t want bubble sided doors like an ordinary sedan (also like a Tempo). I don’t want a completely squared-off rear and trunk like a Fairmont. None of those were good choices.
7th Gen Mustang Design Meeting
Head of Design: People really disliked the angry front facias of the twenty-teens. How can we improve on this look?
Car designer: We could make the cars look completely indifferent. It’s not good OR bad, people will have nothing to complain about!
Head of Design: God damn brilliant! I’ve heard enough, lets get to work.
Edging closer to peak Tiburon clone with every update.
So it’s a reheated S550, and where they made changes, they made it worse… Disappointing, as my family has a 2017 Mustang and I think it’s a very attractive car overall. Not perfect, but better than what as come afterward.
I do think the dashboard is a huge disappointment, it should have a cockpit feel. The overall styling, is what is expected as they keep morphing it with each update. What’s wrong with hatchbacks, I think the fastbacks lend themselves to it and make the car so much more versatile, especially if its your primary transportation. I like more the retro look and bought a 2009 S197 which I still have, the only styling cue they missed on that was the bump in the quarter panel which they added in the 2010 and up.
That is literally the worst-looking interior I have ever seen. Screen-mania has brought down the pony. Other than that, it’s the same car.
The rear view looks like a folded piece of paper.
Also, Ford tried the aero 4cyl turbo hatchback Mustang before but they called it a Probe.
We had the (second?) gen Probe in the UK. Problem was it wasn’t a Capri.
I don’t know why they went with a Camaro-esque unibrow look.
This would be much better if they incorporated some classic Mustang design language and went back to round headlights. Check it out.
https://imgur.com/a/az5GZbO
My only gripe is that the front looks like a last gen Ford Fusion. I am sure the special editions will add the gargantuan grills and so on, but I prefer the smaller grill design usually and this one is fine, just not much new about it to me.
“Listen to some uniformed commentators and they’ll tell you that’s what makes muscle car proportions, too much is great and even more is better. Well that’s why they’re uninformed and I do this for a living”
I have no strong opinions about the new/old Mustang but this comment is pretty hilarious. Apparently you can be wrong about your style opinions. This guy must be a load of laughs in a clothing store.
He’s not the only designer to have these opinions. It’s crazy. Don’t get me wrong, I think some aspects of design are objective, but overall, design is subjective. Just because the collective may agree on subjective things, doesn’t suddenly make them objective.
I don’t want to rag on the guy too much, but look at how he presents himself. Surely a guy that has a quasi mohawk ponytail, an eccentric clothing choice, and facial piercings can understand that taste is subjective. Him coming down with a holier-than-thou attitude when it comes to design and why commenters is uniformed is just asinine.
Also, ideas of what is “proper” change over time. Drop the new Mustang onto the desk of the guys designing the Cord 812 and they would probably say it looks like a suppository.
Conversely, a modern car with the axle to dash length of a Duesenberg looks ridiculous.
Separation of personal taste and professional taste. I can put my own likes and biases aside. Of course taste is subjective, but good design is not.
Yeah… good job explaining how good design is subjective.
Don’t get me wrong, certain aspects are; but I think those primarily deal with things like ergonomics, ease of finding things, layout… and even then, it can be a bit subjective.
But things like “this is what objectively makes a muscle car look like a muscle car” is just hooey.
Exterior design looks terrific and clean, the more spare the curves the better. The dashboard is of course terrible.
When is the Autopian going to have a professional website designer review the website? Literally nothing has been fixed since opening.
That last 1/4 front view in blue looks like a Subaru BRZ at quick glance. Especially the back half.