Opinion: New Mustang is next verse, worse than the first
After much ado, the seventh-generation, 2024 Ford Mustang cometh. In the end, the rumors of hybridization, all-wheel drive, and the Explorer’s RWD/AWD platform were premature. The new Mustang, codename S650, remains pretty much business as usual. What it amounts to is more or less a mild, unremarkable evolution of the existing rear-drive architecture. But what does that mean for America’s pony car, and what might end up being this storied nameplate’s internal-combustion swan-song?
Ford is going all in on electrification as it reaps success from sticking batteries into the F-150 and leveraging the Mustang name to sell an electric crossover. For the moment, it appears to be happy to let the traditional Mustang wither on the vine … at least in the big-picture sense. Lest we forget, the Mustang is now the only non-pickup, non-crossover Ford you can buy in the United States. Maybe Ford realized its competition, the Chevrolet Camaro and Dodge Challenger, are not much longer for this world and it wouldn’t take much to keep the Mustang on top in the muscle car game.
The bare minimum appears to have been just enough. There were rumors that Ford would bolt its new Mustang onto the Explorer platform (CD6), which would have allowed for more up-to-date powertrains, including a hybrid setup. Historically, it should be mentioned, both the Mustang and the Camaro have kept up with prevailing technological and aesthetic trends. Both nameplates, for example, added a turbocharged four-cylinder model as a base engine in their most recent generations, but the Challenger and the Mustang in particular have been stressing a more retro vibe since the mid-2000s. Now it appears to be running over the same old ground, albeit in a new wrapper.
Part of the long-term success of the Mustang, even through its lean years, was how it has adapted to the market of its moment. It started in the Sixties when the Mustang was born as a way to give the common man flash for not much cash. Soon, Ford proved its mettle with growly Shelbys and considerable motorsports success. The hangover from the Sixties was the crisis-ridden Seventies, but the Mustang endured the Malaise Era and stayed alive through some questionable baroque styling and not much performance. Still, it was a reinvention that was correct for where the market was at the time.
When the Eighties arrived, the Mustang found itself with a hatchback and more considered Euro-style appearance, but again the pony car held true to making the best of its humdrum undercarriage with up-to-the-minute looks and features. (The Camaro marched in lockstep and did the same.)
Now for the full disclosure: Remember my old ’71 Duster, which I’ve mentioned in previous articles? When I realized that keeping such a highly strung beast on the road was out of my depth, I traded it for a Fox-body. Its motor was a boat-anchor 3.3 and it had a weird manual shift layout with an overdrive. I wired in my Sony CD changer wrongly, which left me to choose between headlights or music—not both at the same time. (This led to a rather interesting night out at the cinema with a girl I’d promised to take out in my Mustang.) But it was a Mustang nonetheless, and I’ve always lusted after one of the last ’93 Cobras after reading about them in a road test with its competitors.
Ford dipped it toes into the retro pool with the SN95 generation in 1994, before awkwardly forcing straight lines onto the 1999 redesign. But when S197 appeared in 2005, chief designer J Mays—who made his name with retrofuturism—set the controls straight for 1964. His work on this design was not influenced (as many believed) by the Mustang Giugiaro concept which would not appear until 2006. I’ve mentioned before how I think the 2005 Mustang is a bit blocky and ungainly, needing a bit more finesse to really sail as a successful throwback in the same way as the Challenger does.
So that’s where we’ve been ever since, Ford like Dodge and Chevrolet deciding that the first versions of these pony cars are the definitive ones. Translation: this is what these cars are and this is how you will remember them. No new Fox-body or pop-up headlight Camaros, no reinvention to keep up with the times; we’re selling you nostalgia rather than a contemporary update of the muscle car formula. Can you imagine a manufacturer green-lighting something as bold as the F-body glass tailgate today? The accountants would be in fits. The Charger has shamelessly kept up its rubber-burning reputation, but as we’ve seen with the new Daytona SRT concept, at least Dodge are trying something new.
S650 is, deep down, a remix of a remix of the 1964 original. It leans heavily on the outgoing S550 Mustang, using essentially the same underpinnings. It’s got a slightly more chiseled appearance, but the reality is one of a very big facelift.
Tooling up for a car is expensive, and among the biggest investments—apart from the lights—is the body in white. It’s the fundamental structure, the actual skeleton on which the car is built. Looking at this new Mustang, you can see the bones are carry-over. Doing it this way allows Ford to update the sheet metal, but I’d argue they’ve merely made it worse. It’s all a bit more of an exaggeration on the existing theme, with bigger hips and a more aggressive down-the-road graphic up front.
The front light to fender is a critical visual relationship, and this is one of those areas where we’re talking about fractions of an inch. Ford lowered the headlights for 2023 and made them a bit messy by trying to replicate the three vertical tail lamps, and by continuing a straight line across the grille managed to give the car a frowning look. The previous Mustang avoided this because its grille shape was more pronounced, so you didn’t notice as much. The S650 feels like a rearranging of existing graphical elements to no great effect.
The Mustang has dropped the black infill panel between the tail lights, reducing some of the visual break-up at the back. Having something to lessen the visual impact of painted sheet metal is important, because too much can bodywork can look bland. Of course, fewer parts means less cost.
It seems strange that car that trades primarily on its driving experience and tactile fulfillment settles for large touchscreens in its interior, especially after the previous model made such a big deal of having a “cockpit” inspired by aircraft design. We’ve seen good and bad TFT implementations over the last few years, but this feels terribly misguided. Ergonomics aside, the whole thing appears incongruous and not really in keeping with the muscle car aesthetic. Mostly the same, but worse, is not what I’d call a recipe for long-term success. Like the Camaro, the Mustang is no longer evolving to keep up with the times but remixing an existing concept to ever decreasing returns.
Now, I can hear you all saying that I’m contradicting myself, and after all, didn’t I praise the Challenger for doing exactly that? Here’s the difference. The Challenger had one look, stuck to it, and was always a unique ownership proposition. It never chased trends. The Mustang, for better or worse, did. It remained current and was even adaptable enough to be a huge hit in Europe, so its failure to do so this time around disappoints me.
I’m glad I didn’t stay up to watch the reveal like I may have done in the past. Because other than that ’93 Cobra, what I really want is a ’71 Mach 1 on dog-dish steelies.
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Adrian Clarke is a professional car designer, earning a degree in automotive design from Coventry University and a Masters in Vehicle Design from the Royal College of Art in London. He worked for several years at a major European OEM, and in the ’90s his daily driver in London was a 1979 Ford Thunderbird.
I disagree with author. The reception by the enthusiast crowd has been largely positive. It’s not the 1964.5 car’s then wildly popular styling (Ford hoped to sell around 100,000 a year and wound up selling ten times that in its first year). I doubt the author has any idea what goes into producing a car in 2022 with the overwhelming regulations looking over their collective shoulders. In the crossover and EV era today, Ford could have botched this car badly and wound up doing not too bad a job. This car could have looked like Versace’s plastic surgery (ugh) and actually did better than most of us feared. Be thankful we are getting a new car and not the V8 arriva derci the FCA triplets (Challenger/Charger/300) are getting. To make matters worse, the Camaro might be getting the axe too.
Stop letting the anti-car people ghostwrite your car articles. Not everyone “gets” the idea behind this car, apparently including the author. The car isn’t even available yet to anyone outside of Ford and this author has already written this pony off to the glue factory.
Put a Nissan logo on it and it’s a ringer for the new Z!
Well, spoken like a true die hard Mo Par guy. Dodge forever as you would put it. You should stick to the cars you obviously love and cover them. By the way, they are going electric. You did have some truth in there though. Thanks!
More word salad blather from a Peugeot Fiat lover.
Indeed!
This is one of the worst opinion I’ve seen in years by an Hagerty columnist. I’ve read it completely and I cannot disagree more than that.
Only in your title “New Mustang is next verse, worse than the first”, is trully an insult to all Mustang owners, including gen1 owners. And I’m not even talking about this article content, which you are mixing generations what have been wrong and your opinion goes all over the place .
From the very first gen1, came Mustang II that saved the Mustangs in the 70s, Foxbody Mustangs came out and were great pony cars, specially the 5.0, sn95 arrived into the 90’s with great success, s197 debut was a HUGE hit in 2005 with the retro Classic Gen1 styling, the s550 platform came out using the famous Coyote Engine and was a killer on racetrack, and now the s650, that will be another homerun by Ford (Especially the Darkhorse).
Ford Mustang history is a HUGE success, from gen1 to s650. Stating that this s650 was a “next verse worse than the first” confirm your total ignorance of the Mustang history and it’s culture over the years. Everyone has it’s favorite gen of Mustang, and this is the power of the Mustang Community. No worry s650 will find it’s path and will be the new favorite Mustang generation of future young Mustang owners.
Thanks for letting me post this comment.
Reply to Gilles Tremblay: You said it much better than I could have about the authors total condemnation of Mustangs, past and current. Seems like he has some kind of innate bias.
I think they ruined the 650 with the boring and screen filled interior…I could live with the exterior…but not that interior. The 550 is better, but the 2013-2014 are the best of the modern era in my opinion.
I always thought the Mustang & Challenger stayed with their original designs with much better results than Camaro. The new Camaro design looked like the hero car in the CARS movie &, while I don’t have any sales figures, I think you see more new design Mustangs & Challengers than Camaros. And I think if Ford had built the new T-bird more like the old design, they would have sold a lot more of them. Instead, they rounded all the corners & stuffed it full of questionable advanced tech features which frequently broke down.
Just enjoy the dang car, stop criticizing, be positive, we have the pony to enjoy!!!!!!!!
Lets just enjoy the fact that IT`S still with us . The car still looks good and drives great. Stop being so dang critical.
Just enjoy the fact that we still have the car . It looks good and drives great .Stop being so critical just to be critical.
I cannot disagree more than that.
Ford Mustang history always been a HUGE success, all generation had it’s own, from gen1 to s650, for all sort of reasons, no exception. Stating that this s650 was a “next verse worse than the first” confirm the total misunderstanding of the Mustang history and it’s culture over the years. No worry the s650 patform will find it’s path and will be a huge success of existing Mustang owners and and future ones.
Yeah, I have to agree. They re-bent the sheet metal and added IP screens to the same (admittedly very good) bones. To my eyes the new sheet metal and the flat screens are NOT improvements. This is not a new car – just a so-so refresh. Kinda’ like when aunt Minnie showed up for the big gathering with a face lift and her sister-in-law reminded her of her real age in front of the whole family.
I’m glad the latest version of the real Mustang is “running over the same old ground” instead of giving in to hybridization or all-electric. I mean, not all of us want to jump through hoops to make only a minor dent in global C02 emissions. And even a minor dent is not assured when China, Russia, India, South America, Africa, and the Middle East continue their unabated emissions.
This next comment by the author could not be more inaccurate: “S650 is, deep down, a remix of a remix of the 1964 original.” It’s maybe a remix in concept, but light years ahead of the original in every category, except maybe its appeal to women.
And what’s left unsaid is the current generation Mustang GT is a true Grand Touring car whose drivers can explore vast expanses (the American West, for example) without range anxiety.
I think the criticism is fair. Why make it a new platform (obsolete parts) if it really amounts to a pinched rear, straightened front end, lose the side coves and throw a bunch of tech on the dashboard? What we are getting here is a mid-cycle refresh being sold as a new thing.
I have no problem with “old” platforms being milked for years. Actually benefits the consumer in many ways.
Straight front ends is true for 2005 era and several before that –this (2023) is not best of them to me. Maybe if it was 4-eyed Fox instead of 6-eyed strange I could buy in to it better.
The pinched rear end is something Honda designers tried a few years back when they threw all sorts of illogical angles onto the Civic. Not a fan.
The Mustangs I own or have owned (69 & 05) didn’t have the side coves so that isn’t a problem to me.
Barring an amazing deal, I think the only Mustang of the last 30 years I would be seriously looking at is the 2012-13 era in a high performance spec. Tablet dashboards ruin it for me in a commuter minivan, let alone a sporty car.
The back end of the Civic had more going on than Darth Vader’s helmet. Honda failed on that one.
The new Mustang? Not as bad, not great. I’m not in the market for a Mustang or a new car of any sort, but I’m glad it has survived.
I have to admit that I like the ’67/’68 callback v-ed in taillights. But even as a hardcore GTO/GM guy, I always had respect for the opposition. GM gave up on the Camaro, it’s a laughable parody of what could have been; reducing the greenhouse to gunslit windows that are borderline unsafe just wasn’t “cool”, but they sell a lot of these things. Back one up? No thanks. And they weigh as much as my ’04 GTO with less driver involvement.
Dodge went full retro with modern engines and electronics; you time machined back to 1971 with a modern Challenger, everyone would know what it was, Charger not so much, shoulda been a Polara or Royal Monaco Police package. And save for the Shelby variants, the ‘Stang hasn’t kept up in the horsepower races- you can write a check for a Camaro, Corvette, or even a Cadillac that will try to kill you, the same check will buy a Mopar that WILL kill you (Google Hellcat disasters), Mustang hasn’t this power nor the cachet of vastly overpowered danger. Not since the 429SCJ or 427 SOHC days.
I don’t dislike the modern Mustang, but I also wouldn’t own one.
This new “update” sucks….from a Ford Mustang owner….would not instill me to buy 1. I didn’t like the 2017 onward looks and this is even worse….but they will likely sell a lot of them..sadly…and those old cronies will think they have the latest thing LOL…LAME O is his name O