Free Agent

What do you think?

Maybe a picture of a fender, or a tail light or part of the grille? Would be kinda neat for Ford to drop a little hint on the 17th, 49 years after the original and possibly 1 year before the real introduction.

Thoughts?

4x4xFord

Would be great publicity. Might hurt 2013 MY sales though. Unless they are ready to shut down the assembly plants and cut production over, I think it will be closer to launch time.

Twin Turbo

I'll admit, I'll be a little disappointed if there isn't something. I know a year is a long way out, but even Ford themselves said this is going to be a year long party

montreal ponies

Not my idea of a party.

05GTJOSH

I don't think I was invited to the party.

Blue Stang 5.0

I hope they show us something ! It would be nice to get something concrete to help us get through the next year.

Free Agent

I'm just thinking something small here. Maybe an emblem in the grille shot. Maybe a piece of the fender shot. Maybe a tail light shot. Something that really doesn't show much at all but would be just a little hint of whats to come.

I think it would be a nice move by Ford.

jacostang

There wont be.... The first rendition was dumped and so were some of the people who was on the design team. We just had a visitor from Ford at our club meeting....

xlover

Can you expand on this a bit?

Free Agent

Yes I hope he does expand on this. Enquiring minds want to know.

I would think at this stage of the game, basically a year out that the final design has been set in stone. I think they are doing a good job of keeping their cards close to the vest, but I think it would be cool if they let out a tiny glimpse of some small exterior part of the car to tease and entice without spoiling anything really.

If not, its no problem. Just seems a waste to pass up such an "historical" day for Mustang.

Eagle-1

Ummmmm no, if that were the case this car wouldn't be coming out 'till MY16 at the earliest. Ford has already converted some of the lines and afaik begin pilot production soon in order to train the employees and catch all the bugs and glitches. So no I don't buy this person's statement.

jacostang

Mr. John Clor, Ford Racing, was just at our Meeting, he said we might see a glimpse of what they have done by late this year. Just like the 05' we will see a similar "Concept Mustang" but most likely not the full production Mustang by April 14th.

He said he has seen the current rendition and its nothing like we have seen so far. Take that as you will, thats what he said to over 50 of us.. Turbo technology will be offered....

Moosetang

One of the news sites (MT? LL? I forget) was saying in response to these pictures the full prototypes will be built in June. If we're as good as we were last time we'll know pretty well what it will look like between June and December.

TTS197

It was RT and they're saying that there won't be any actual prototypes till June.

Eagle-1

What Mr. Clor said doesn't make sense whatsoever. 1) Ford has already converted some of the lines over at FRAP(part of the $550 million investment) for the new mustang. Implying that the car IS production intent. 2) The idea that management all of a sudden had a change of heart at the last minute makes no sense in that the final design is approved by management to begin with in the beginning of the car's program. Such a last minute delay would result in massive cost overruns in the program. Also Ford wouldn't be the type the put the new tools at FRAP and then change their minds and say "ok we'll sit on them for the next year and half and let them catch dust and cost us money at the same time."

So now you can see why I don't believe his statements...

11SHELBYGT500

No, I don't think so

Twin Turbo

I take it you meant April 17th................but are you talking 2013 (i.e. Wednesday) or 2014?

The very least I'd expect to see for the Mustang's 50th birthday (April 17th, 2014) would be a 90% ready concept version, but I'd really be expecting to see the final production car, even if it's not available for sale at that point.

The design pretty much has to be locked down by now, surely? I can imagine a few detail changes, but the main design should have been signed off.

Otherwise, the '14MY might just be the longest model year in Mustang history!

rhumb

My guess is if we see any real "peek," and that's a big if, it would be a Mustang "Concept" car maybe in the early fall to smooth the transition to the new, very different 2015 body style to be released in April 2014.

Tony Alonso

You sure it isn't the Fusion for which these changes have been done?

Eagle-1

The changes are for the Fusion, Mustang, and an other CD4 derivative but the latter will come online later on. Most of the changes occurred during last year's November shut down while in the past couple of months doing finishing touches. The crew there apparently already built their first pre-production '14 Fusion.

The mustang's situation there must be weird in that a few of the lines are converted for the new model while the others are for the current one.