New details on 2010 Mustang

Ford: 2010 Mustang To Have A Smaller Look

While real meat and bone information about the upcoming 2010 refresh of the Mustang is scant these days, we have some more insight from the team that is hard at work on it. The redesigned Mustang is due to hit showrooms early next year and will be facing off against both the new Dodge Challenger and the Chevrolet Camaro.

It seems however that Ford has read the tea leaves a bit with the current trends in the market that have been driven by high gas prices and more stringent fuel economy standards. At a recent event, Ford design chief Peter Horbury has said that the 2010 Mustang will have a smaller look than the current car. While it will be identical in size, clever design tricks are said to make the car appear less bulky and heavy.

"We have a car which I think is more suitable for the times than the Challenger and the Camaro," Horbury, Ford Motor's North American design director, told the Automotive News. "Especially the Challenger--it is a huge car when you see it on the road."

The Dodge Challenger of course is a huge heavy car by comparison to the Mustang, being 10 inches longer and over 500lbs more on average. The Camaro specs are not known at this time but it is likely it will be much heavier than the Mustang.

While the dimensions of the 2010 Mustang are said to be the same as the current car, the smaller look was targeted to appeal to buyers in a more gas mileage conscious market. "By cleverness in design, we've been able to make it look like the wheels are further out, further forward and further rearward," Horbury said. "The center line is the longest part" of the next Mustang, he said, "and the widest part of the car is the middle. From there on, you can tuck it in and bring the apparent size down."

Essentially what this means is what we have believed for a while, that is a Mustang with more muscular and tapered proportions. So while it may look smaller, from what Horbury says, it may also look more athletic. It also adds to the case that has been made that the 2010 Mustang will have many of the cues shown in the Guigiaro Concept Mustang below.

Holy freakin ****! that looks tight as hell! i want one right now!

Hopefully mustang still keeps its low retail value compaired to the others.

Here's an interesting article out of Germany:
www.mobilemag.com/redirect.php?content=10485

Danstang wrote:Here's an interesting article out of Germany:
www.mobilemag.com/redirect.php?content=10485

Nope it'll never happen.. Ford has stated if they brought the stationwagon back it would be on the Fairmont bodystyle..

i wish they would get off the retro look and bring about a new design...would be nice to see something a lot more aggressive and defined.

i think the 05+ looks too girly and rounded off IMO. bring back the 03/04 Terminator or the 87-93 foxes!!! FTGDMFW!!!!

Here's another pic:
...and another:

This one is a bit more "revealing" to the hood design:
http://www.edmunds.com/ford/mustang/2010/pictures.html#

Here's a great view of a headlight set-up:
http://www.leftlanenews.com/wp-content/plugins/iimage-gallery.php?idpost=7250&idg=1&idi=1
http://imgs.zinio.com/iphone/issues/cardri0806/images_pages//cardri0806_49.jpg

this was on the June 2008 Cover of Car and Driver.

this is your 2010 Mustang.

nice lil stance! curious to see what the real model will look like

Looks pretty solid on that magazine cover.

Ford has now held its final testing trial with consumers before the company moves from prototypes and begins producing the real deal: the 2010 Ford Mustang.

Every year, the blue oval sets up customer clinics to gauge consumer interest, and this year’s was in Tampa, Florida—a hotbed for Ford Mustang owners.

The company’s external clinics have traditionally been conducted annually by Ford’s 6-Sigma Center, a team of 40 Ford MoCo employees ranging from product development to personalization to marketing, all led by Mustang chief engineer Paul Randle.

But with the battle of the pony cars next year (Challenger and Camaro release), the company has to be ready for the other guy. So, this year, 6-Sigma Center was joined by owners of competitive makes as well, including owners of the Dodge Charger, Pontiac GTO and Mitsubishi Eclipse.

"We wanted to find out why people purchased the Mustang and what else they'd shopped for," says Ronnie Ahmad, project specialist, 6-Sigma Center. "We added competitive-make owners to the mix not only to find out why they hadn't chosen a Mustang, but also to see if Mustang owners would stand tall when talking about their vehicles versus the others during the panel discussions."

Although 6-Sigma Center is composed entirely of Ford employees, the panel posed as a neutral market research group to make certain they would receive the most honest opinions from owners.

Consumers received $120 for attending the 90-minute clinic. Before sitting down for a recorded panel discussion, the participants filled out a brief survey. Satisfaction levels were high from the majority of Mustang owners, as expected. Owners of competitive makes had many more complaints, which the 6-Sigma team noted.

Such complaints have helped to make product alterations in the past. For example, comments from Ford Edge owners in the past have resulted in solving a problem with a glare from the instrument panel.

Nothing has been released regarding official tweaks being made to the 2010 Ford Mustang, but, judging from the 6-Sigma Center’s satisfaction with the clinic, much was gained and the team is ready to report back to Dearborn to prepare for official development of next year’s hottest pony car.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ve7tZOlXBM&feature=bz303

woot another referance to the 300hp TT v6 , and the rolling out of the 5.0

Murph wrote:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ve7tZOlXBM&feature=bz303

woot another referance to the 300hp TT v6 , and the rolling out of the 5.0

That would be fun to drive. :*burnout*:

i'm just hopeing it don't have the fucket up cow skin look interior that the Guigiaro design had.... And yes dan the Guigiaro design did have my "mustang doors" like the lambo's have

LOL! :_lol_:

More sneek peeks at the 2010 stang this weekend..

Sneek Peek

Liking the black wheels!

Due to GM's announcemet of the 2010 Camaro unveiling, Ford has decided to move up it's unveiling of the newly re-designed 2010 Mustang.

The 2010 Mustang will be officially unveiled at the LA Auto Show on November 19. The 2010 Mustang was originally planned to be revealed at the Detroit Auto Show but was pushed up to the LA Auto Show due in most part to the 2010 Camaro getting the attention it has gotten lately. The 2010 Mustang is expected to get an all-new front and rear fascias, including a new grille, headlamps and taillights, along with a tweaked hood. We are looking forward to seeing what Ford has been working on these last few years and it will be nice to see one that isn’t all covered up

Yeah, they better hurry up. I just saw this guys new Challenger and that thing is sweet! Dodge did a great job with this car, hopefully the new fascia treatments are enough to keep the 'stang interesting!

Danstang wrote:Yeah, they better hurry up. I just saw this guys new Challenger and that thing is sweet! Dodge did a great job with this car, hopefully the new fascia treatments are enough to keep the 'stang interesting!

except it weighs 4200 lbs.

mixedbreed02gt wrote:

Danstang wrote:Yeah, they better hurry up. I just saw this guys new Challenger and that thing is sweet! Dodge did a great job with this car, hopefully the new fascia treatments are enough to keep the 'stang interesting!

except it weighs 4200 lbs.

Ya but it still runs good. Weighs about 200lbs more than the gt500 and only runs 0.4 secs slower, not to mention it has bigger wheels, auto gearbox, and 75hp less.

To make a truly "hot" car, it's design must make you do a double take so hard it strains your neck muscles when you turn your head as it goes by (or when passing one). The S197's did just that when they came out, now that Dodge is having the same effect. If Ford wants to keep up the interest, it may take a bit more of a face lift.

Curious about what the 2010 Ford Mustang looks like? Its new pony badge offers a clue. Like the upcoming restyled Mustang, the new pony is more defined, more muscular and sure to catch the eye of Mustang enthusiasts.

“It’s just a faster-looking steed,” said George Saridakis, Design manager for the 2010 Mustang. A stronger, more dynamic pony badge with defined edges and crisper forms in a subtly toned tinted-chrome finish will charge across the grilles of the V-6 and GT versions of the 2010 Mustang. For the first time, a black-chrome version of the Mustang pony badge will accent the new GT grille.

“We wanted to give the Mustang pony a more realistic feel,” said Douglas Gaffka, chief designer for the 2010 Mustang. “We lifted the head to make the pony more proud, tipped the neck into the wind to give it a feeling of greater speed and better balance.

“It’s more chiseled and more defined and looks more like a wild horse,” Gaffka added. “It’s more realistic in terms of proportion to an actual Mustang.”

Senior Designer Rick Howard spent hours researching images of horses and understanding their appearance in natural, wild settings. That effort, along with his personal riding experience, helped bring forward the design of the Mustang pony badge.

Like the Mustang itself, which was revealed at the 1964 New York World’s Fair, the Mustang emblem has a proud heritage. The original Mustang logo was drawn by Phil Clark for the Mustang I. The Mustang logo then was refined for the Mustang II in 1974 by Charles Keresztes, a former member of Hungary’s Olympic equestrian team. The pony continued on the front grille through 1978 when it was replaced by “FORD” in block letters through 1982. The iconic Ford Blue Oval graced the front of Mustangs through 1993. The pony emblem returned in 1994 with some refinements. The logo was updated again in 2005.

For Howard and the team, creating the new badge was a labor of love. “We’re very much concerned with detail and precision in our cars at Ford, and that includes the art we do,” Howard said. “We want our Mustang pony badge to be as good as the rest of the car.”[img][/img]

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Better get used to it. Until the official car is unveiled in November there is no doubt going to be more and more sightings and more information leaked out. That’s when an employee got his hand on a picture of what appears to be a cowl hood for the 2010 Mustang. I think it looks pretty sweet and can’t wait to see it on the actual car. I’m very excited about the 2010 redesign as I believe Ford has put a ton of work into fixing complains from the 2005 redesign. Only time will tell though.