Description
By: Matt DeLorenzo .
The Ford Mustang was the first of the pony cars and has maintained its image as an American icon for over forty years.
The new 2005 Mustang is both a departure from and return to tradition, as Ford steps away from the aging Fox chassis for its flagship car while reviving styling cues from the most popular Mustangs of the past. Mustang 2005: A New Breed of Pony Car takes readers behind the scenes of development and testing to understand how Ford Group Vice President of Design J Mays and the Ford team created the all new Mustang.
Author Matt DeLorenzo traces the new Mustang's evolution from the drawing board, to the production line, to the street. A photographic celebration of the new car, this book delivers the inside story behind the rejuvenation of one of the most storied cars in automotive history.
Synopsis:
How do you reinvent an icon. While the Mustang underwent numerous transformations over the past four decades, e basic architecture underpinning the 2004 model dated back to 1979's Fox platform.
Ford knew it was time for a change, but in which direction? Should the Mustang continue to evolve, making a great leap forward in design? Should the car be a faithful reissue of the original, much like the Ford GT echoes the original GT40? The Mustang has seared itself into the country's collective consciousness. While many iterations of the Mustang have existed over the years, with all sorts of engines under the hood—inline fours and sixes, V-6s, turbo fours, V-8s and supercharged V-8s—the public has a pretty good idea of what a Mustang is and isn't.
So then, it was perfectly understandable that Ford, in looking to sustain America's love affair with the Mustang, went' back to its stylistic roots—a long ood, short rear deck. Not only is the profile familiar all who sketched Mustangs on their high school otebooks, but so is the detailing, from the grille, ounted fog lamps to the three-bar taillights.
"By melding the true character of Mustang into these fully modern offerings, we've ensured that even the uninitiated will instantly recognize these cars as Mustangs," says J Mays, Ford group vice president of design. "We went beyond their exterior designs to truly understand the extent to which Mustang has embedded itself in American culture."
