#FordMustang

It’s the second time the Mach 1 moniker has returned from the grave. On Friday, Ford confirmed rumors of a retro resurrection, revealing that the newest Mustang Mach 1 will bow for 2021 as a limited-edition model geared for the track.

We’re not talking a Dodge Demon or Hellcat here. Instead, the Mach 1 leaves the Shelby GT500 alone as the brand’s performance pinnacle, preferring instead to secure its place as the best 5.0-liter Mustang one can buy.

Give Ford credit – the Blue Oval could, at any time, create a special Mustang Bullitt that’s little more than an appearance package.

Yet, the current Mustang Bullitt, like the one offered a decade ago, isn’t just a GT with cosmetic changes. It’s a certified bruiser that goes as well as it shows.

Ford Motor Co. may have accidentally given away the launch date of the next-generation Mustang. Last month, the company issued a job posting in Flat Rock, Michigan for a “Wind/Road Noise and Air Leakage Plant Vehicle Team Engineer” who would see off the current model before becoming “the final sign off on the Ford 2023 Mustang S650 vehicle program.”

The current ‘Stang uses the internal code S550 for factory identification, so the S650 designation make a lot of sense for its successor. No one had to break out the Enigma machines and put in weeks of hard work to crack that code. The listing makes it clear as day that the position will involve shoring up the next Mustang until it’s airtight and ready for customers in a couple of years.

What sports car has Aston Martin and TVR-adjacent looks, but is neither of those things? Why, it’s a Ronart! Let’s find out more about the coupe they called Lightning.

In order to promote the Mustang Mach-E that would be unveiled later that night, Ford gave journalists who’d flown to California for the reveal the chance to drive the rest of the Mustang lineup.

From Shelby GT500s and GT350s to GTs and EcoBoosts, they were all on hand for a run up the Angeles Crest Highway.

Perhaps unintentionally, the drive was a reminder that the Mach-E probably isn’t going to fit right in. It may actually be fun to drive – certainly, as an EV, it will have plenty of torque – but we won’t know that for a while. Still, it’s hard to picture it running the mountain the same way the two-door coupe Mustangs do.

Which is to say, pretty damn well.

The $6 billion in funding promised in Ford Motor Company’s new four-year labor contract is starting to be seen and heard. Having secured a walletful of incentives from the state of Michigan, Ford is now promising about $1.45 billion and 3,000 new jobs for the Southeast Michigan area.

Ford’s cash dump, announced Tuesday, will flow into three facilities in the area, one of which doesn’t yet exist.

I’ve been writing at TTAC for nearly eight years now, longer than just about anybody here, save for Sajeev and Murilee. I’ve seen a lot of trends come and go in that time, but one thing is consistent: y’all love Mustangs. My very first post was about my own Mustang, and since then, I’ve come to realize that if I want a guaranteed click winner, I can just put the word “Mustang” in the title. (Another sure winner? Anything about Accords, and not the type that were signed in Sokovia.)

As such, today’s Ask Bark feels a little like throwing a wounded hemophiliac into the Shark Encounter tank at Sea World. Nevertheless, here we go.

Our dear friend Luke writes:

Hi Bark,

I want a Mustang. I’ve had Camaros, I’ve had a Challenger, I’ve had other muscle cars and sports cars. But I’ve never had a Mustang and I want one.It has to have a V8. I’d like for my wife to drive and enjoy it too, so it probably has to have an automatic transmission. That’s okay.It will be used for some amount of commuting during the non-snow months, weekend back road drives, and maybe one to three track events per year. Not competition, just open lapping or driving schools.It will be stored during the winter. This will be a third car.I have a nice garage, tools, and some level of wrenching skill so I’m comfortable doing maintenance “bolt-on” type mechanical upgrades if necessary. This seems important in the Mustang world.The budget is $25K for the car itself. A little less would be better but $25k is the top.I’m reaching out because when I go on the web there are just so, so many used options. So many variations in trim and equipment. The car has changed a lot very quickly and I haven’t really kept up. So I put it to you…for my $25K which Mustang is best Mustang?I have thoughts.

Gee, what are we going to talk about today? What issue could possibly stimulate a little dialogue on this frosty November morning?

How about… the newest member of the Mustang family. Yes, the Mustang Mach-E, which is neither a coupe, a car, nor the recipient of an internal combustion engine, is now a member of a family that once hosted but a single occupant (with varying lengths of hair), stretching back to the time when Lee Iacocca was just a brash young Ford exec with an idea.

Totally awesome idea, or pull-your-hair-out, froth-at-the-mouth blasphemy?

Maybe Corey was right. Despite sharing no architectural or mechanical DNA with the world’s first pony car, it seems Ford’s upcoming electric crossover — a vehicle Ford delights in calling “ Mustang-inspired” — will actually bear the Mustang name.

This isn’t some wild rumor, either. It comes straight from the Glass House. A four-door electric crossover will soon be the “newest member of the Mustang family.”

Ford’s whetting electric appetites at SEMA this week with its new Mustang Lithium prototype. Officially a one-off model for the show, the automaker said it was present to prove how utterly dope future electric performance vehicles will be. Good timing, too, as the debut of Ford’s all-electric, Mustang-inspired crossover is almost upon us.

Ignoring the timing in relation to the Mach E, it’s mildly curious that the brand would first preview the prototype at an aftermarket trade show. But it’s worth noting that the electric Mustang actually cobbles together quite a few parts from various catalogs. The manufacturer informs us that Lithium is equipped with Ford Performance’s Track Handling Pack and Brembo brakes sourced from the Shelby GT350R ⁠— though they’re the tamest inclusions by far.

Cinched into a five-point racing harness, with a head-and-neck support device attached to my helmet, I felt a bit of nerves as I awaited my turn to pilot the 2020 Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 at full-tilt-boogie around a road course at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Without the benefit (or restriction, depending on your point of view) of a pro driver riding right-seat.

Just a tiny bit, anyway. I’m no Bark, but I have track experience. I’d just handled a similarly powerful Hellcat Dodge Charger at an arguably more difficult track with no drama just a few weeks prior. And unlike some of the folks who fill up the press-junket buffet line, I know my limits. If I’m slower than some buff-booker with an extensive resume of laps, so be it. I’m not going to drive off into the desert in service of my ego.

That last bit helped keep me calm while waiting for my turn, but there was also this bit of knowledge on hand to keep my heart rate down: If the Mustang’s on-road behavior was any indicator, this 760-horsepower muscle/pony car wouldn’t be half as intimidating to drive at speed as it looked. This snake would be a sweetheart.

It’s hardly unusual for an automaker to boost incentives in the fall, stimulating buyer interest in a bid to clear out current-model-year inventory, but market forces appear to have made Ford extra generous this October.

Starting late last week, the automaker is adding an extra $1,000 off most 2019 Mustangs, with extra financial grease heaped on EcoBoost models. It’s more cash than buyers got last year at this time, but then again, the Mustang isn’t exactly where it would like to be.

Yesterday, TTAC reported on a leaked video (quickly confirmed by Ford) that showed an all-new “Mustang-inspired” model due for debut in November. A sleek, four-door CUV appears on the screen. Highlighted in silhouette, its design represents so many familiar Mustang cues. It’s the Mustang of the future, and it’s a future that will be electric and have four doors.

During Ford’s product presentation, held just north of the famed Golden Gate bridge on a chilly Bay Area morning in September, one of the men who worked on the 2020 Ford Mustang EcoBoost High Performance Package trotted out a not unexpected comparison.

He brought up the old LX trim available on Fox-body Mustangs of yore, and compared today’s four-cylinder Mustang to that model.

It’s not the world’s worst comparison, although the LX back then was available with the same renowned 5.0-liter (yes, I know that it’s really a 4.9) V8 that was under the hood of the GT. The LX’s claim to fame was that it was lighter, cheaper, and perhaps less expensive to insure, while still offering V8 power and a five-speed stick. That’s why your author bought a used ’89 example in the late 1990s.

As someone who owned that LX Fox body for five years, I sniggered a bit, since the Mustang parked in front of us had just half the cylinder count, but of course today’s turbocharged four-banger could smoke the V8 of yore. I understood where Ford was going with this, though – the EcoBoost Mustang High Performance Package is meant to be the value performance buy, and not just a rental-fleet darling or the car for Mustang shoppers who care more about show than go.

Of course, when I relayed this spiel to the ne’er do wells in the TTAC Slack channel, contributor Chris Tonn shot back “SVO”, typed out repeatedly, a la Nicholson’s manuscript in The Shining.

Automotive collectibles emerge from pop culture all the time, but this particular auction item can be assured of stratospheric bids. It’s an icon, one that’s thrilled generations of audiences for 51 years, ever since San Francisco’s nattily-dressed Lieutenant Frank Bullitt spotted a suspicious black Dodge Charger in the rear-view of his Highland Green 1968 Ford Mustang 390 fastback.

Two identical Mustangs went into the Holy Grail of all movie car chases, but only one remains in drivable condition (the subject of this story didn’t have to endure the suspension-twisting jumps). Ford pressed both it and Steve McQueen’s granddaughter into service during the 2018 Detroit auto show, using the historical eye candy as a backdrop to its launch of the new Bullitt edition ‘Stang.

Come 2020, the actual Bullitt Mustang will change hands. Who the lucky bastard is who gets behind the wheel remains to be seen.