I prefer the more angular lines of the earlier Mustangs. The '74-'78 had the same angular styling, the '79-'98 were not as angular, and the '99+ brought it back. I still can't say I liked the looks of the '94-'98, it was much improved in '99 and should of looked like that in '94.
True enough.
Makes sense for them to switch the CTS-V to LS2 power.
Next time ask them how a car that weighs a half ton more is going to run just as fast.
Agreed. And so is the Hemi.
Patrick '93 Cobra '83 LTD
Owner of a '97 Cobra, I typically agree, but I think the front fascia and hood of the Cobra models set it off and made it a bit more aggressive, more like a Mustang.
But, yes, the '94-98 models were my least favorite since the '71-78 era of either bloated cars or Pintoesque cars. I know some here love both, but they're just not for me.
JS
You're hearkening back to a time when automotive design didn't give a damn about aerodynamics (or fuel efficiency, for that matter - goes hand in hand). You're also talking about a Mustang that was born in whole from a different car and given new sheet metal that spawned in turn a wholly new breed. (Long hood, short deck.)
By the time OPEC had turned off the spigot in '73, Ford had to do the very same thing with the Pinto, turning it into the Mustang II. The II was much rounder than its predecessors (I owned a '74 coupe and a '78 hatchback), even though Ford made every attempt to continue the classic Mustang lines. All of a sudden, aerodynamic shape was important, and every gallon of gas spent fighting the wind was a gallon of gas lost. Purely from a fleet point of view, it's almost impossible to recapture the designs of previous decades.
In '79, again, the Mustang took off from another car that was definitely not a Mustang. It "evoked" the classic Mustang lines, but it was a leap away. Some elements of the classics were involved, but it almost seemed that Ford gave up on keeping to the "look" of the Mustang.
Now - I liked the II from the start. The Fox had to grow on me (hell, it was a stinkin' Fairmont, for god's sake), but I ended up owning four of them. I bought TFrog, precisely because the redesign in '94 disappointed me.
Like you, I wasn't smitten with the '94-'98 models, although they can't be anything but Mustangs. The tweak in '99, that brought back the sharp edges, was, I thought, a winner.
Now this new 2005 model... ohmigod. Again, it can't be anything but a Mustang, and many of the classic elements are there. Kudos to Ford.
While much of the automotive industry has gone for a one-size-fits-all approach, making it hard to tell one brand from another, the Mustang keeps coming out in a design that couldn't be anything else. You see one, you know immediately what it is.
Liked the II, didn't care for the Fox, didn't like the SN95 at all, came back around in '99, flat-out love the '05. Is it the angular lines? A distorted memory?
When someone says "Corvette", do you think early models or 2005? There's a car that has gone through similar permutations over the years, but you could pick any model year and it could only be a Corvette. You could never confuse it with any other car. Some folks are 60's purists, some are partial to the sharks, some like the 80's, some say the latest models are the absolute best.
When a car has a lineage, you find that different people stop at different points in the evolution. This is becoming increasingly obvious at Mustang shows, where Mustangs are segregated by design. At shows like Nashville, the classics were on one side, everything else on the other, except for the IIs, who didn't know where to park.
(One wonders - given another 10 or 20 years, will the IIs work their way into the classic parking lot?)
Sorry for rambling...
dwight
A Mustang has "the aerodynamics of a brick", and I like it! I like horsepower, aerodynamics be damned.
WC,
Note 1. Aerodynamics is free horsepower.
Note 2. Good aerodynamics doesn't have to mean a shape resembling a used bar of soap. Cleaning up the undercarriage is nearly as important as a smooth shiny side. In other words, small detail changes can reap big improvements i.e Ford's new GT(-40).
Patrick '93 Cobra '83 LTD
If aerodynamics means it has to look like some of the new cars these days, "used bar of soap" is a good visual, I'd rather have a classic. The GT is in another league, and so it it's price, but it's still my "Lottery Car"! It looks like a modern GT should, and I wouldn't want the Mustang to look like that. I know what you mean about the "free horsepower" statement. On another board I read someone posted a link to a write-up a dyno operator put together. The dyno operator averaged all the files of stock '03 Cobra's and stock '03 Z06's and posted the averaged graph. Surprisingly the 390 bhp Cobra's dyno'd
15 hp higher at the rear wheels than the 405 bhp Z06. With estimated drivetrain loss added in the Z06 was right at factory ratings, which verifies that the Cobra is under rated. We also know that the Z06 is at least .5 sec faster in the quarter than the best driven Cobra. Although the Cobra has an extra 500 pounds to deal with, at .1 sec per 100 lbs they should be .5 sec apart at the same horsepower but the Z06 has better aerodynamics. Would I own the faster and lighter Corvette? Nope, can't get past the looks. Will I be buying the next SVT Mustang? Yep, as long as it's supercharged.MotorsForum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.