Ford’s sixth-gen Mustang is wider, faster and meaner-looking; it’s also designed to woo drivers around the globe.
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Mustang 6.0 has already suffered setbacks. Last year, midway through the car's development, Fields and Raj Nair, executive vice president of product development, realized the proposed design was straining to meet global demands. They were forced to hit the brakes and start over, costing the company millions of dollars. Even then there were doubts about what the Mustang brand could really do for Ford overseas. "If you look in the history of sports cars," says Jim Farley, Ford's head of global marketing, "most of them have never had any impact on the volume brand." Automakers have a rich history of producing top-end marvels that do little to goose sales of more pedestrian fare. "Marketing-wise," Farley recalls, "everyone started asking me, 'Is the Mustang part of the new Ford or not?'"
The new Ford. That's the company that emerged from the near fatal implosion of the U.S. auto industry in 2007--08. As the financial crisis set in, CEO Alan Mulally put the company on a course internally dubbed "One Ford." Instead of selling 97 nameplates in different versions in different markets worldwide, Mulally decided that Ford would sell a smaller assortment of "best of class" cars and trucks. To that end, he slaughtered or sold dozens of badges, including Mercury, Land Rover, Volvo, Jaguar and Aston Martin. Eight of those global platforms and about 20 nameplates account for more than 86% of global sales. Until now there was a lone exception to this rule: the ninth platform, the all-American Mustang.
WILD HORSES
The original Mustang was the brainchild of a rising young executive named Lee Iacocca, who would eventually run, and be run out of, Ford. The model was tailor-made for the social and political youthquake that rippled across the U.S. The $2,368 sticker price--cigarette lighter and armrests included, air and power steering extra--was affordable, the equivalent of about $18,000 today. The rear seats and relatively roomy trunk made the car practical enough for young boomer families. Yet the optional, wildly powerful four-speed, 289-cu.-in. V-8 engine turned the Mustang into the hot rod of choice for millions of horsepower worshippers, particularly after customizers like Carroll Shelby turned them into street racers.
The Mustang quickly became the unofficial pace car of the sexual revolution. The car's look, its wind-in-your-hair ride, bucked conformity--even though it was made by a giant corporation. "If you were to pick an auto that embodied the spirit and nature of America, how we became who we are today, the Mustang is that very thing," says Craig Jackson, CEO of Barrett-Jackson Auction Co., a classic-car dealer who has sold rare Mustangs for more than $1 million and owns a dozen himself.
The good times didn't last. Bad redesigns almost killed the brand. The Mustang II, launched in the early '70s, is considered a dog by collectors, who view it as unstylish. By the time the third generation (1979--93) was due for an overhaul, the Mustang had become unfocused and bloated with middle age. It was also becoming a glaring example of everything wrong with American cars: a profitless, rear-wheel-drive gas guzzler made in Detroit. By 1991 annual sales had dropped to roughly 80,000 from a peak of more than 500,000 in 1966.