Well, the cat’s out of the bag. No, wait. The horse is out of the bag. The press embargo has been blown to smithereens and the 2015 Mustang is revealed.
Thanks to camera phones, the interwebz, moral decline in the West, etc., the traditional press embargo on new vehicle introductions is steadily slipping away. How things were supposed to work, at least in the case of the sixth-gen 2015 Mustang: The new car would go public media-wide with a multi-city, simultaneous press reveal on Thursday, Dec. 5.
But on Tuesday, evidently, some lucky civilian got hold of a copy of Autoweek Magazine containing the cover story, and photos of the pages were posted to a message board for Ford enthusiasts. Jalopnik and other automotive websites picked up and ran the photos, and it was off to the races. Today (Wednesday) Time.com ran a few more photos showing the exterior and interior, and those images have made the rounds of the internet as well.
Tomorrow the full story will be out with more complete specs and photos, but here’s what we seem to know so far. The big buzz is that the Mustang’s rear beam axle has finally been dumped in favor of independent rear suspension. And there are murmurs of 15-inch brakes and a 200-lb. reduction in curb weight. Talk around the campfire also includes three engines: a 5.0L V8 with 420 hp or thereabouts, a 3.6L EcoBoost turbo with 300 hp, and a four-cylinder turbo of 300 hp. We’ll have more official info as it becomes er, official. In the meantime, below are a few more illicit photos.
Wait, what year is it? What happened to 2014? They go by fast enough. Sorry, I’m way too old school, but it looks like every other “modern” car to come down the pike. 1967, that for me was the coolest Mustang .( Fox platform was cool too, had a ’88 5.0, scared the heck out of me!)
Overall, I like it but there are some overused cliches in the design. The scowling headlights as anime element, the tired upper/lower grille and “brake scoops” theme. But it works halfway decently on this car. Lots of family resemblance in the grille, something that most marques have lost.
In side profile, the front end is a bit blunt and the rear looks hacked up rather than a flowing unified design. That mashup is more apparent in the full rear view where it appears as though someone pasted the back of a 1970 Barracuda on top of a “ricer” Civic. I’m fine with the rear fascia and bumper but what’s all that crap going on below it?
So yeah, the designers did a good job overall. Looks like a Mustang but updated If anything, they erred on the side of not changing it enough rather than too much. But that rear view needs a complete redo, A smooth arc from the wheelwell to the bottom of the rear bumper. A splash pan instead of a mock diffuser (so ’90s)
PS: Is it a two seater now? It should be. There’s no way anyone but Billy Barty has enough headroom in the back set. I guess Mustang owners have no friends.