#Mustang

As Steph wrote recently, the rumor mill is churning with talk about a possible four-door Mustang.

It all started with a rumor on a forum, and the good folks over at Car and Driver fleshed the story out a little more with some reasonable speculation.

I’m a very bad person. At least, I’m a bad neighbor. Shortly after we moved into this mature subdivision, I raised the ire of several mature neighbors by foolishly attempting to part out old cars in my garage — and occasionally my driveway, after the projects overflowed. Code enforcement was involved twice.

My car hobbies have evolved, and those neighbors have moved on in one way or another. But I’m still a child around fun cars.

I think the new, younger residents of the house next door have forgiven me for the 2018 Ford Mustang GT PP2 that graced my driveway for a week. I never switched the active exhaust to “Quiet” mode. Rather, I always switched to “Race” mode for a Parnelli Jones-inspired soundtrack with my morning coffee.

Don’t worry, Mustang owners. Ford Motor Company is definitely leaning away from naming its upcoming sporty, “Mustang inspired” electric crossover the Mach 1.

Fans of what will soon be the last remaining Ford car gave the automaker an earful after it teased the model at this year’s Detroit auto show. Hold on there, sailor, the voices cried — you’re telling me the V8-powered fastback of my dreams, the one with an optional Cobra Jet motor, is about to be sullied by a case of name theft? Why not just debut a bicycle called the Thunderbird while you’re at it? The back-peddling began almost immediately.

Now, it seems Ford realizes not everyone is as eager for an all-electric, self-driving (but maybe not completely self-driving, wink, wink) future as CEO Jim Hackett is. The Mach 1 revival seems doomed.

Thanks to the internet, it’s hard to keep industry secrets. This is especially true when a product has lots of eyes on it, as at least a few of them will be of the prying variety. Fresh leaks concerning the 2020 Shelby GT500 claim Ford has added serious horsepower and a hefty curb weight to the most muscular of Mustangs.

According to documents shared via the Mustang6G forums, the new Shelby receives a 5.2-liter, port-injected V8 that produces 720 horsepower (at 7,500 rpm) and 650 ft-lb of torque (at 4,500 rpm) with help from a supercharger. However, the claimed weight distribution ought to make it more of a straight-line bruiser than the first car you’d want to take into a tight corner with a decreasing radius.

A trio of “driving enthusiasts” briefly shut down San Francisco’s Bay Bridge on Sunday morning after they decided it was the perfect place to do donuts. The vehicle’s involved appear to be a MkIII Toyota Supra and a pair of SN-95 Mustangs. According to the California Highway Patrol, the older of the two Mustangs was nabbed while its New Edge kindred escaped with the Supra — probably to get brunch somewhere across town.

Other drivers were also stopped and issued citations for illegal modifications, presumably because the cops couldn’t prove they helped stop traffic so the lead cars could put on a smoke show.

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the movie Bullitt, starring Steve McQueen, Ford is reviving the special edition Bullitt Mustang. This is the third time Ford has modified a Mustang to honor McQueen’s ride in the movie.

For this Mustang, there are two important factors that determine if it will be successful. First, obviously, it has to be a good car. Second, it has to be a car that makes you feel like Steve McQueen, or at least Frank Bullitt, when you’re driving it.

We hit up the streets of San Francisco, which was where the movie and the iconic car-chase scene were filmed, to see if it really will make you feel like Bullitt McQueen.

This edition of Buy/Drive/Burn was inspired by the comments some of you left on the recent QOTD Crapwagon Garage post on coupes. Though roadsters and convertibles were off limits there, the conversation turned to them wistfully. Don’t worry, convertible week is coming.

In the meantime, we’ve got a ragtop from 2005 to burn. Which one will it be?

You like Fusions, Foci, and Fiestas? Well, you better get to shopping. Pretty soon, Ford’s car lineup will be down to just two – the Mustang and the upcoming Focus Active.

Yes, you read that correctly.

The Blue Oval automaker is going all in on trucks and crossovers, as well as electrified vehicles, as it plans to remake three-fourths of its lineup by 2020. This all comes from a Q1 earnings report.

The Ford Mustang might have been born in America, but it’s now doing burnouts around the world. Helped along with fresh sales in places like Germany and the U.K., global registrations topped 125,000 cars last year. Your humble author saw his first right-hand-drive Mustang last January.

One country where it’s doing particularly well? China.

In the halcyon days of NASCAR, men drove coupified versions of machines one could actually buy on the showroom floor: rear-drive Thunderbirds, Grand Prix coupes, and Monte Carlos simultaneously plied both racetracks and dealer lots as recently as the 1980s. Race fans know what happened by 1989, of course, when GM slapped the names of mid-size front-drivers on their V8 NASCAR racers, with Ford following suit within the next 10 years.

Last year, GM made an infinitely logical move, bringing its Camaro nameplate to to the top-tier Winston Nextel Sprint Monster Energy Cup Series. Ford’s now mercifully following suit, binning the Fusion and putting a Mustang in the hands of those who choose to run the Blue Oval.

Ford has dropped a teaser image for its 2018 Mustang Cobra Jet, which is set to challenge the Dodge Demon for drag-strip supremacy.

Certainly, it won’t be for sales supremacy, as the Demon’s production run has come to an end and Ford won’t make nearly as many Cobra Jets. Oh, and the Cobra Jet won’t be street legal. So there’s that. But die-hard dragsters won’t care – getting a factory-prepped car that can tear up the quarter-mile will make those few who can snag one happy.

And if the initial reports prove true, this new pony will run.

Kudos to Ford for doing the shadowy teaser image correctly this week. While the auto industry has decided darkened teasers are compulsory for all upcoming models, some automakers provide photographs resembling Spın̈al Tap’s Smell the Glove album — so comedicaly dark, they become unintentional parodies of the now popular trend.

But Ford’s photo makes us feel like we’ve seen more of the 2020 Shelby GT500 than we actually have without giving up the goods, allowing us to feel simultaneously satiated and hungry.

It’s the clearest look yet of the forthcoming Mustang model, and our first impression is that it seems really angry about something. The grille is expansive, seemingly occupying frontal real estate from the vehicle’s nose all the way down to the aggressive frontal lip.

The Ford Mustang, recently made pointier and stripped of its middle-child V6 engine, earns a California Special package for 2019.

On the rare chance that anyone reading this is unfamiliar with the California Special’s history, it emphatically does not include surfing lessons and a being stuck on the 405. Among other items, though, it absolutely features the de rigeur GT/CS stripe because in California, there’s no point in doing something if you don’t shout about it, right?

Two weeks ago, an image of a supercharger embossed with the iconic Shelby snake made its way onto the internet, followed by another claiming to depict the biggest set of rotors ever affixed to a factory Mustang.

The GT500 rumor mill went ballistic.

Now, we have official — albeit inadvertent — acknowledgment from Ford that a new Shelby GT500 is incoming, courtesy of the company’s OEM service portal, which revealed wiring diagrams and a slew of service procedures which incidentally confirm several details about the upcoming Über Mustang.

Early this year, the Rare Rides series began with this Ghia concept from 1979. A lovely red coupe, it was based on humble Mustang underpinnings. Today we return to the concept car bin with this AMC. Much like the Ghia, AMC’s AM Van is a very 1970s concept based on an existing car platform that never moved past the concept stage.

Let’s check out this pearlescent red box.