I don't think that's necessarily true, but rather, a lot of it is due to managerial and engineering complacency, not to mention the rather simplistic "bigger is better" mindset of many American buyers. Cars could get away with getting ever fatter and thirstier when gas was cheap, boated real estate prices served as personal ATMs and the ice caps were thought to be ever icy -- why not be fat, happy and lazy and just dish out the barges the gluttonous marketplace wanted and rake in the easy money.

But now, little of the above is true, or will be in the near future. So perhaps a new era of engineering rigor will have to replace the current/past era of gross excess. And it can be done, affordably and while preserving if not enhancing performance.

Exhibit one: the Chevy Corvette. It has maintained its general size, weight and relative cost (adjusted for inflation) for decades -- even improved on these a bit if anything. But it is a far faster, more capable, safer, better outfitted and just vastly superior car overall than any of its predecessors and competes as one of the premier performance cars in todays market.

So is it inevitable that the Mustang will either get bigger and fatter; or more expensive; or slow and boring? I would argue not necessarily given more disciplined leadership and engineering on Ford's part and perhaps a greater appreciation of qualitative aspects of a car rather than a simple size, numbers and features count.

If Ford doesn't meet this challenge well, well, can you say "Mustang II?"

 

As we get closer to 2020, the cars will eventually lose weight. There was an article several months ago about Ford planning to reduce weight in their vehicles.

 

IMO Rhumb, the vette is a special case, look at the F5 Camaro, it is about the same size as Mustang but looks to be 200+ pounds heavier or even the G8 which is nearly the same weight as the GT500.

 

http://www.edmunds.com/insideline/do...ticleId=124786

 

I don't think anyone is shocked. With gas prices high and the economy hurting, people will be trading in SUV's and Trucks. I personally still think that V8's in future models won't be an issue on cars like Mustangs, Vettes, etc. I know I didn't buy my car for good gas mileage.

 

Yep, sign of the times, people just judging a book by its cover. IMO if V8s die it will be because of a self fulfilling prophecy rather than the inability to compete.

 

In some applications a V8 is the more fuel efficient way to go. My best friend had a 04' Jeep Grand Cherokee with a V6 that he later traded in for an 04' V8 Grand Cherokee and his V8 it is appox. 2-3mpg better than his old V6. (the Jeep has a digital readout of MPG while driving) I agree that sports cars and trucks will always have V8s. Corvette and V8 Mustang sales are a drop in the bucket to overall auto sales. Like my Cherokee example a V6 SUV or Truck will suffer poor gas mileage on par with the V8 and many who buy trucks need the grunt of a V8 to tow.

 

In 2007 the Mustang was 23% of Ford brand car sales and 18% of Ford+Mercury+Lincoln car sales.

I would NOT call that a "drop in the bucket".

And remember there are separate car and truck/suv CAFE #s

 

As they say "Perception is reality".

If most of the vehicle buying public perceives V6s get better gas mileage than V8s, that's what they will buy whether V6s really give measurably better MPG or not.

 

Wow I did not know that. Ford is certainly in trouble if a nitch vehicle like the Mustang makes up that much of there sales totals. If i'm correct isn't 07' the worst sales year for the current gen car? Local dealerships have huge rebates for fully loaded 08' GT coupes and convertibles! Lets hope the new body style hits a chord with the buying public and allows me to finally purchase a current gen GT500 at a reasonable price!

 

I also feel that Ford really needs to improve the base model a great deal. It's hard to understand why cars like the Mustang and Focus are not being equipped with the new 3.5 being used in the Taurus. Both Mustang V6s and Fusions are solid cars in great need of a good motor, it kinda reminds me of the 96-98 GTs. If the current Fusion was equipped with the 3.5 I would have bought one instead of my new rice rocket!

 

Per my math, it's 16% of Ford car sales.

 

I'd hazard a guess that Ford needs to deplete its inventory of crapola V6 engines before the 3.5 makes it across the board.

 

Read my post again. I said the Mustang was 23% of Ford brand car sales and 18% of Ford-Mercury-Lincoln brands car sales. If you want to throw in Jag & Volvo than the # is 16%, which is still a pretty significant portion of Ford Motor Co total US sales, meaning that no matter how you cut the #s, the Mustang has a significant impact on Ford's car CAFE #. In 2007 only the Focus and Fusion had higher car sales than the Mustang.

From the Ford Media web site: http://media.ford.com/newsroom/relea...?release=27379
It lists 2007 Ford brand car sales as 586,701 and Mustang sales as 134,626 = 22.95%

 

It's more of Ford's need to re-tool its engine factories to make the D35 instead of the D30.

Ford supposedly had at least 2 different projects to improve the D30 and bump up it's HP. For most customers, expecially those who want high MPG an updated D30 with 235 HP and improve NVH coupled with a 6 speed trannie would meet their needs.

 

And over half of that number is V6 sales for the mustang.

So the V6 is more important than the V8 (but in the end every little bit helps)

 

I read your post. My bad, it was a math error. I did the math in my head and used 2006 sales.

On a side note, V8 sales of Mustangs are a small drop in the bucket of Ford overall sales. What Ford needs to do is start building up their small car and family sedan sales to where they used to be and this wouldn't be an issue assuming that the cars sold were fuel efficient.

 

Improvements to the 3.0 would be welcome.

I am not sure why Ford didn't up the HP of the 3.5/3.7L Duratec. For example, Infiniti's 3.7L engine makes 330hp. I know Ford is adding "EcoBoost" in the near future, but it would be nice to have a competitive N/A motor. A 320hp NA 3.7 Duratec would be nice in the MKS and then make a 375-400 hp premium Ecoboost version for folks that want a bit more power.

 

A big reason for the HP differences between Infiniti and Ford is the Infinity engine was designed to use premium fuel, Ford designs all engines to use regular. Now, keep in mind we can tune an engine for premium, but that is a far cry from designing it from scratch to use premium. A tune just changes air/fuel mix, as well as spark timing. Designing an engine to use premium usually means a higher compression ratio, meaning more HP.

 

There is a huge hp disparity in comparison of the Ford 3.7L vs. Nissan's 3.7VQ. The VQ is simply a more efficient engine.