[panther]

Jonny Lieberman (Motor Trend) recently said on Twitter that he's "Glad to see there’s a new Ford Mustang, but a little sad that the last gas-powered car Ford will ever make is a refresh—S650 is just a modified version of the S550 platform. Ford’s spin is ICE for the purists. Mine is Ford didn’t spend much $$$"

What do you think of his hot take?

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1570270770450006016

 

[DEWwy-98]

On one hand, I'm glad to hear him say it because I've been suspecting that this was a revised version of the S550, but haven't seen anyone say it explicitly (maybe I missed something earlier). But I'm surprised how harsh he is on the tactic.

Nissan did the same thing with the new Z and people mostly seem to think it was a smart move that kept a cool car alive when it wouldn't have made financial sense to engineer a new ground-up new model.

 

[panther]

On one hand, I'm glad to hear him say it because I've been suspecting that this was a revised version of the S550, but haven't seen anyone say it explicitly (maybe I missed something earlier). But I'm surprised how harsh he is on the tactic.

Nissan did the same thing with the new Z and people mostly seem to think it was a smart move that kept a cool car alive when it wouldn't have made financial sense to engineer a new ground-up new model.

I don't think Ford had a choice. The 8th generation Mustang (S750?) will get electrified and will likely sit on an entirely new platform shared with other EVs, so investing into an ICE platform that will be irrelevant in 5 years just isn't worth it.

 

[DEWwy-98]

I don't think Ford had a choice. The 8th generation Mustang (S750?) will get electrified and will likely sit on an entirely new platform shared with other EVs, so investing into an ICE platform that will be irrelevant in 5 years just isn't worth it.

Agreed! But that does make me wonder - will the next-gen Mustang be developed by that new EV-focused arm of Ford (I think it's called the Model E division)? And will it be sold only by the dealers who do the EV investments?
Total speculation on my end but that would leave the dealers who opt not to go all-in on EVs (as I'm guessing a lot Ford stores outside major urban centers will decide) in a weird spot 5 or so years from now.

 

[GiddyUp]

I wouldn't say that Ford didn't spend a lot of money on the S650. I think they chose to spend it more on the Dark Horse and all the different race car versions, the 3 different Dark Horse versions plus all the different race car variants they're competing with certainly isn't cheap.