Ford may be ditching the retro-bodied Mustang with next redesign

There are rumors floating around that Ford maybe ditching its retro-designed Mustang in favor of a modern look. Wall Street Journal’s Matt Ramsey is a proponent of this theory.

In his article, he suggests that Ford is doing so due to decline in retro-looking car sales. He also suggests Volkswagen suffered the same fate with its New Beetle, which also saw a decline in sales. However, Autoblog brings up two valid counterarguments. One is the Mustang did not have competition for years, and now competes against Dodge. Secondly, both manufacturers where hit by the recession, thus sales suffered.

Both arguments hold true. Ford has announced that it's going to take the Mustang global. Though the retro-looking Mustangs are popular here in the States, they may not be everyone’s cup of tea in Europe. They’re not big on large, bulky vehicles roaming the streets. We don’t blame them either, since most of their city streets aren’t wide enough for pedestrians to walk on.

The speculated predecessor for the retro-Mustang would be the Evos. The Evos is geared with Generation Y in mind. It also fits well with Ford’s overlapping theme set by the Fusion or the Aston Martin look, as we like to call it. Though we’re not opposed the redesign, we’d be sad to see the retro-bodied Mustang go to pasture.

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Ford’s creates a fake supermodel in Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Mustang ad

We’re always fan of interesting marketing technics, but this one takes that cake. Ford has unleashed a series of marking campaigns in this years Sports Illustrated Swimsuit magazine that feature the sexy Mustang in different colors alongside one beautiful model in a matching swimsuit. The model, Dalena Henriques, never shows her face, but it credited in each ad.

A quick Google search for Dalena Henriques brings up DalenaHenriques.com, no surprise there. The thing is, when you visit the site, every photo in her portfolio features her with the Mustang, with no face revealed. It then becomes obvious--Ford created a fake supermodel (and yes, they credited her as a "supermodel") of their own as an additional means to generate buzz.

Read More | Adweek

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NAIAS 2008: Ford Bullitt

In honor of Steve McQueen and the 40th anniversary of the movie “Bullitt,” Ford recreated its 1968 Mustang GT in a Limited Edition. Its creators took the 4.6L V8 to 315 horsepower and included a live rear axle from the Shelby GT500. Another tweak or two with its shocks and struts and you get the 2008 Bullitt. There will only be 7,700 of the vehicles available in dark highland green or gloss black and, unfortunately no mustang in the front grill.

Read More | NAIAS 2008

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