#FordMustang

So, Ford’s press conference earlier today took a cluster bomb approach to the act of doling out news. Are you ready for a hybrid F-150? Will Chevrolet film a commercial showing how easy it is to pierce the battery pack with a toolbox?

Never mind that for now — it’s the looming hybrid Mustang that’s the real shocker, though perhaps it shouldn’t be. We’re all pretty certain that the V6 ‘Stang is a dead pony walking (trotting?), and that 2017 will be the 3.7-liter’s last go-around. That leaves a big gap between the 2.3-liter EcoBoost and the 5.0-liter Coyote, which Ford will soon swap for a 4.8-liter unit with gobs of refinement.

Mark Fields wasn’t dishing too many details this morning, but he did make it pretty clear that the mid-range power choice in future Mustangs will be a hybrid setup with “V8 levels of power,” starting in 2020. Undoubtedly, you’ll find a four-cylinder engine married to that battery pack and electric motor.

Prepare to kiss a famous displacement goodbye.

Ford’s 5.0-liter “Coyote” V8 has dutifully powered variants of the automaker’s Mustang and F-150 since 2011, instilling the brand’s pony car with the kind of heritage that can only be squeezed from 302 cubic inches.

Well, time (and technology) marches on, and Ford’s lower-shelf V8 is due for a replacement. According to a recent report, the Blue Oval folks aren’t choosing sides when it comes to the best way to squirt gas into the new mill.

Well, that was short-lived. After somewhat positive, very incentive-fueled results for the Chevrolet Camaro in September and October, November’s numbers told a very different story.

General Motors’ underwhelming launch of the sixth-generation Chevrolet Camaro produced significantly fewer sales in 2016 than the old Camaro managed in its final year. Camaro sales through the first eight months of 2016 were down 15 percent, year-over-year. But GM then threw down the incentive gauntlet in September with massive discounts, intending to clear an inventory glut.

It worked. Sort of. The Chevrolet Camaro outsold the Ford Mustang in September — and again in October — but inventory levels scarcely decreased. Autumn simply isn’t the time to sell large numbers of pony cars, even if the Camaro attracted more buyers thanks to average discounts of $4,700 per car.

Regardless, that two-month Camaro win streak turned out to be a two-month blip. General Motors scaled back Camaro incentives in November 2016. Consequently, Camaro volume declined, the Camaro was once again handily outsold by the Ford Mustang, and there are now 177 days of Camaro supply across America.

Hey, let’s give this a try again.

Do you hear that sound? It’s the collective silence of every cheerleader in America not giving a single care to the possible death of a V6-powered Mustang. Even though the automatic, drop-top, V6 Mustang is colloquially called the Cheerleader Edition, do you think Sally McJumpyskirt really cares if four or six or eight pistons are doing battle with physics under the hood? Nope.

But we’re different. We care that the V6 offers a more aurally pleasing soundtrack than the cookie-cutter 2.3-liter EcoBoost four-cylinder model. We care that, in the real world, the V6 will likely return fuel economy that’s nearly as good as its smaller, boosted cousin. We care that the tried-and-true 3.7-liter V6 is just that — tried and true.

Yet, I can’t help but not care about its death.

The Ford Mustang entered the world with a 170 cubic inch inline six, but heritage alone likely won’t be enough to keep the six-cylinder ‘Stang alive.

Product information from Ford’s ordering system has appeared online, and a 3.7-liter V6-powered version of the 2018 Mustang is nowhere to be seen.

Being topographically challenged (for the most part), Oklahoma’s highways serve as a great staging ground to find out exactly what your tricked-out Mustang can do. A young man and his police escorts recently discovered this, and even the cops walked away impressed.

Angry, but impressed.

That, and it’s the horniest time of the year for our many venison-laden friends of the forest, which means impressive roadway acrobatics and unplanned feasts…after the break.

Updated with additional October incentive numbers.

In theory, 2016 should have been the Chevrolet Camaro’s year. Although it’s not over, we already know it won’t be the Camaro’s year.

But the Chevrolet Camaro is making headway as 2016 comes to a close. October was the second consecutive month in which the Camaro outsold the Mustang.

It was a hot summer, but not quite as sizzling as the top-end Mustangs seen enveloped in flames at various U.S. track days.

Ford Motor Company is attempting to put a lid on that burning pot of controversy — and danger — by recalling 8,000 Shelby GT350/R Mustangs for a defect that could be blamed in a number of spectacular fires.

Updated with comment from GM.

General Motors is adding a new 1LS base trim to the already on-sale 2017 Chevrolet Camaro to ensure more direct comparisons with the less expensive and more popular Ford Mustang.

The Chevrolet Camaro, powered by a huge incentive increase, narrowly outsold the Mustang in the United States this September. Prior to last month, the Mustang had been in the top spot since 2015, when Ford put an end to five consecutive years of Camaro sales leadership. Ford’s pony car has outsold the Camaro by a vast 32,723-unit margin through the first nine months of 2016.

Update: Added official statement from Ford.

Ford Motor Company is briefly shutting down production of the Ford Mustang at the car’s Flat Rock, Michigan, factory in a quest to avoid ballooning inventory ahead of the winter months, Bloomberg reports.

Year-over-year, U.S. sales of the Ford Mustang tumbled 32 percent in September 2016 in response to rapidly elevating incentives on the Chevrolet Camaro. As the Camaro outsold the Mustang for the first time since October 2014, Mustang sales fell to a 23-month low, causing inventory at the end of September 2016 to rise to an 89-day supply, up from 71 days of supply one month earlier.

The temporary idling at Ford’s Flat Rock facility will allow Ford to bring U.S. Mustang inventory down to more appropriate levels. 60 days of inventory is considered normal.

Mustang GT and EcoBoost owners can now revel in the pleasures of warranty-compliant performance upgrades from Ford Performance Parts.

The 2.3-liter Ecoboost four-cylinder can now be paired with a cold air intake and engine recalibration that Ford says raises peak horsepower by 25 and bumps torque up by a notably large 70 lb-ft.

In September 2016, for the first time since October 2014, the Chevrolet Camaro outsold the Ford Mustang in the United States.

Year-over-year, Chevrolet Camaro sales jumped 25 percent to a five-year September high of 6,577.

With the worst Ford Mustang decline since (not coincidentally) October 2014, the Blue Oval’s pony car saw its share of the three-car Detroit pony/muscle car sector fall by 15 points to 34 percent.

Thus, the Camaro wins. Over the span of one month. By a small margin.

Throughout its life, the Mustang GT has been called many things, from sexy, to speedy, to downright stupid — but never has it been called a fuel sipper. Ford UK doesn’t seem to care.

For the UK’s annual fuel economy challenge, one of Ford’s entries will be the 410-horse Mustang GT convertible, which is rated for an optimistic 20 miles per gallon in Great Britain.

Even Mazda, we told you last week, is now selling more crossovers than cars.

One-third of Chevrolet’s U.S. volume is produced by pickup trucks. An SUV now generates more than half of the Bentley brand’s U.S. sales. Half of all Chrysler buyers choose a minivan.

Where are the sports cars?

In response to disappointing sales of the new-for-2016 Chevrolet Camaro, General Motors revealed last week that it will cut prices of the 2017 model.

Although there are plenty of 2017 Camaros already available — all of which will benefit from the newly lowered price — the issue facing GM’s U.S. dealers now pertains to the number of 2016 Camaros on dealer lots. Of the roughly 27,000 Chevrolet Camaros in stock at dealers across America, according to Cars.com, 40 percent are MY2016s, the appeal for which decreases rapidly as more MY2017s become available.

This ballooning Camaro inventory, a 139-day supply heading into September 2016, was caused by a sharp decrease in Camaro demand with the launch of the all-new sixth-generation model, a subject we’ve explored frequently in the past. Through the first eight months of 2016, U.S. sales of the Chevrolet Camaro are down 15 percent.

But sales of the Camaro’s chief rival, the wildly more popular Ford Mustang, are falling, as well. Dodge Challenger sales are sliding, too.