Flagstang

Its not a sports car. If its anything its breaking into the muscle car world. Everyone talks about evolution and change, but forgets that as the HP bar raises on the V8 it changes what the word fast means and what HP numbers mean.

The mustang is simply to fat and heavy to be a true sports car... that's why ford was working the diet angle so hard for the past year and a half. The did not lose the 400 lb and in fact it got a little fatter.

The smaller motors handle better because of the weight different which shows my previous point in correct. A little Toyota powered lotus is a sports car because of the power to weight ratio. A heavy high HP car is called a muscle car.

The mustang will have very little appeal to the tuner crowd. Its in NO way a tuner car.. Just because its offered with a turbo motor doesn't make it a tuner car. Believe it or not we have lots of N/A builds in the tuner community. The focus/fiesta ST are the tuner cars.

IndustryLeech

So the Maserati Gran Turismo (4,200 lbs) is a muscle car?

Flagstang

no its a luxury car that's offered in different trims and offered in coupe and sedan form. Its also apples to oranges since it starts at $125,000.

from the makers site

IndustryLeech

I think you might be compartmentalizing a bit too much.

Flagstang

I think that a $100,000 is a big difference.

White2010

Lets focus on the steak and not the peas flagstang. The Mustang is commonly referred to as a sports car or sports coupe by millions of people to include Ford, your insurance company and members of the media. Splitting hairs over such nonsense as "but its a pony car" is all about nothing. There is no definitive bedrock rule that establishes the criteria for a sports car and there never has been. Some people say it has to be a two seat roadster to be a "sports car" and by that definition the Porsche 911 does not qualify. The Mustang is a sports car and I'm not even going to entertain your objections. Is it the same kind of sports car as a 911 or a Corvette? No its not, but then a Corolla is not the same kind of sedan as a 3 Series BMW is it? The soft sprung unibody mommy mobile that is the Ford Explorer is an SUV but guess what, so is the body on frame, solid axle Jeep Wrangler. Just because the Mustang is not the same kind of sports car as other sports cars does not mean that it's not a sports car. Case closed.

Flagstang

I am glade you speak for the EB4, V6, V8 and beyond communities.

im just going to leave this here

https://www.google.com/#q=ford%20mus...package%202014

ford.com ... 202a package

http://www.ford.com/cars/mustang/201...mium/packages/

rhumb

I'll acknowledge all the technical arguments in favor of the Egoboost's sound mods coming from the speakers, and perhaps in this digital age, the divide between what real is much more blurred, but in the end, I fall into the "fake" camp.

As for the 2.3 Egoboost's power potential, it's obviously there whatever else you might think if its NVH qualities. The fairly similar and analogous ST powerplants certainly strongly indicate that and I see no real reason why the 2.3 would differ, at least up to a point.

How about splitting the difference between the V8 symphony and the Egoboost efficiency and have Ford slap in an Egoboost 3.5 of perhaps 375+hp somewhere in between. You get a more melodious and smoother V6 snarl rather than four banger blat but with the greater (putative) efficiencies of a smaller turbo motor as compared to the big 5.0.

rhumb

I think the Mustang at its core is neither true sports car nor true muscle car but something in between, a performance sport-coupe "Pony Car," even while it might overlap those other categories a bit in various configurations.

Flagstang

I think ford and the aftermarket has tried to seep into those categories.

ford4v429

http://www.funnyville.com/funny-flash/dengdeng.html

RandyW

It's hard to know where the lines are drawn that separate the classifications. To a purist, a sports car must be a 2-seat roadster with a 4 cylinder engine and a manual transmission, preferably built in Italy or England, with bonus points assigned if it leaks oil and has a wooden steering wheel. At the other end of the spectrum are people who apply the sports car label to any car that has two doors and a top speed of more than 85 mph.

I don't call the Mustang a muscle car, because in my mind a muscle car is larger, something with rear seats big enough for adults, such as a Challenger. I don't care if someone refers to the modern Mustang as a pony car or sports car, I think both titles are fair.

Critical Mass

No, it is a sports car.

Sigh. Lol. we can argue this point all day and night. The 2015 Mustang is headed in a "different direction" as quoted by Ford in response to the "Hellcat".


The 2015 Mustang is transitional. It's like Windows 7 Vs. Windows 8. Windows 8 is a transitional O.S. It's crap. We'll see if Windows 10 is better.

The 2015 Mustang is NOT a Muscle Car anymore. It has moved away from its roots, just like it did in the 70's.

It's a necessary move to keep it alive and kicking, but it's not a Muscle Car anymore.

They can't even get the marketing right. The 2015 is the "50 year edition" Comes with a plaque that states "Since 1964". C'mon. lol. Ford is all over the place with this vehicle. The 2014's are the 50th edition mustang. Ford is just using the 50 year thing to help market the "new" 2015 mustang.

IndustryLeech

I know the Maserati isn't a muscle car, I was trying to make a point.

I think these terms mean different things to different people. If the outgoing model was a muscle car and the S550 got more HP and got even heavier wouldn't it still be a muscle car? These lines aren't very well-defined anymore. It's difficult to stick a term coined in the 60s or 70s to new cars that don't resemble them in any real sense beyond a nostalgic connection and slight aesthetic homages to them. They certainly don't feel ANYTHING like the cars we fondly remember when we summon memories of them. I drove a 71 Mustang a few years ago, and there was almost nothing I could draw on to connect it to the current cars in terms of feel. There's an emotional connection, thankfully...but nothing really tangible IMO.

Critical Mass

Muscle Cars are cars for the working man. In the truest sense of the word. That is what a Muscle Car is. It's a car that the blue collar working man can go out, buy, modify, and have a vehicle that will haul ***. We've been moving away from that for a long time. Pony cars are Mustangs. There is no other Pony Car. a Challenger is not a pony car. A Camaro is not a Pony car. They are Muscle Cars, but not Pony cars.

The 2015 Mustang is, by and large, designed for the World market, not Americans. Ford's HOPE is that Americans will adopt it as a Muscle car and continue on the tradition. That's what they are hoping.

The 4 cylinder Ecoboost is made for Countries where they charge in taxes by the cubic inch of the engine.


The tuner market came about because these cars started pricing themselves out of the working-man's budget a long time ago. The Hellcat is running in Corvette territory as far as pricing goes.

People didn't start modding Honda Civics because they loved the Civic. they started modding Civics because they were cheap to buy and pretty solid vehicles (once upon a time).

White2010

It is a common misconception in the modern age that a muscle car is a "large car". Certainly by today's standards a traditional muscle car from the late 1960's is a large car. But the reality of the muscle car era was the simple idea of taking a small car and putting the largest engine possible in it. In 1965 the Ford Mustang was considered a compact car for instance. Now if you parked a 65 Mustang next to a 2014 Fiesta you would never believe that the Mustang was once considered a small car. But in fact it was and the fact is that the muscle car idea was born from putting a large engine in a small car. At that time, those were considered small cars even though by today's standards they are large cars. So once again we see that what defines a car depends largely on a persons interpretation and often those interpretations can be based on a commonly held misconception.

RandyW

OK. I guess I just have that size classification in mind because when someone says "muscle car" the first cars that come to my mind are the Chevelle, Oldsmobile 442, Pontiac GTO, etc. Cars that are a size larger than Mustang and Camaro in interior volume. I think you and I are in agreement that personal interpretation has a lot to do with where we draw the lines between these categories.

2 Go Snake

Getting back on topic. I was under the impression Ford designed the muffler to cancel out the unwanted exhaust sounds. I was cool with that. I do not recall any mention of Ford using the radio to give artificial sounds to the drivers compartment. I would rather have a quiet muffler that I could replace with an aftermarket muffler to give the sound of performance. I would tire quickly of a fake performance sound coming from my radio. I will wait until Ford finds a way to find a way to switch off the fake sound from the radio before I renew my interest in the turbo 4.

White2010

I agree. I wouldn't have an issue with designing and using a muffler that quiets the car down or eliminates the raspy sounds of the 4 cylinder engine. But to then use the stereo to pump fake engine noise into the cabin just screams poser to me. I know that from its earliest years back in the 60's the Mustang was known for the V8 growl. But even at that time there were plenty of straight six powered Mustangs on the road that essentially just sounded like your average passenger sedan. There is nothing wrong with a relatively quiet Mustang. Some people may even prefer that. Those that want their Mustang to have a growl and are also buying a 4 cylinder Mustang, I think maybe they just don't get it. You just aren't going to get a deep throaty growl out of a 4 cylinder engine. That's not to say you can't get some good performance out of a 4 banger and clearly the ecoboost delivers pretty decent performance. But faking engine sound into the passenger cabin? That's just ridiculous. Let the car sound what the car sounds like and not what you want to pretend it sounds like.

Boss 0960

There are times on long highway drives that I get tired of the exhaust noise from the Boss side pipes. But that's a real sound coming straight out of the engine itself. I can deal with that because in the vast majority of cases, it a great sound but not for 11 hours straight.

I still don't get the concept of buying the Ecoboost as a performance car but as a modern coupe that is likely to serve as a daily driver and highway road trip car, it would be better for that purpose if it was quieter. Since the engine sounds are fake, they should be able to be shut off. Yes, they are fake noises despite some of the preposterous arguments presented here. It comes from the RADIO, not the engine...i.e. fake.

Let's face it, if you are not buying the raucous V8, you are buying commuter coupe with sporty pretensions. It should comfortable and quiet for daily and/or highway use (at least as an option if the noise is coming from the radio).