Ford re-imagines the Mustang for the modern world
Press events are typically boring in their predictability,
but not the ’15 Mustang preview. Other than the rumors we knew little more than
the next Mustang enthusiast as we walked into Ford’s Product Development
Center, and, frankly, we were more than curious.
New Mustangs are a rarity and certainly something to
celebrate, but there’s always a chance the car has moved laterally rather than
forward. We only had to recall the ’94 Mustang was a tepid refinement of the
honest fun that had been the Fox, something that became more difficult to
ignore the harder we wrung out those cars during their press event.
New Mustangs are a
rarity and certainly something to celebrate
Still, Ford put things right in 1999, and has built nothing
but increasingly better Mustangs since. Now, after the successes in 2005, 2010,
and 2011 did Ford have the stuff to do it again? Could they identify and steer
through the cultural narrows an all-new Mustang must pass on its way to
universal appeal? With its incredible 50 years of history and its legendary
wide draw, the Mustang is also more hemmed in by its own design cues and
customer expectations than other name-plates, and did Ford have the understanding
of their own design to walk the tightrope spanning the gulf between historical
slavishness on one side and the future on the other?
Furthermore, what has Ford meant when saying the Mustang is
now a world car to be sold around the globe? Did this mean hardware designed
for European or Asian sensibilities rolling onto Woodward Avenue?
So it was something of a long, anticipatory walk down the
wide corridors inside the Development Center and into a design studio. And
there, in a temporary alley of signboards filled with 50 years of Mustang
cultural highlights, were one of each – a ‘65, ’67, and ’69 Mustang. A squad of
Ford luminaries stood out while their adjutants stood by quietly on point.
The Mustang is
also more hemmed in by its own design cues and customer expectations than other
name-plates
There was no music, no mood lighting. This was a press
briefing in the real world, and we sensed our pent curiosity and background
apprehension was mixed with equal anticipation by the Ford team. After three
years of secretive work, they were finally able to acknowledge their creation –
and at the same time, lay it open for criticism. This was an important first
impression that was a long time in the making.
Jim Farley, Ford Executive Vice President of Global Marketing,
Sales, and Service began to speak…
Now, Jim is an outlier in the catalog of Sanforized
corporate personalities. His visual youth and off-the-cuff patterns can seem
more like a recent college grad at his first job than the marketing power that
launched Scion at Toyota and was hand-picked by Ford CEO Alan Mullay to bend
Ford at its waist if necessary to bring it to its customers around the globe.
But that’s what makes his delivery so sincere. Jim is a headlong futurist and
besotted by enthusiast driving – he has a garage full of big-block Cobra
roadsters, a Shelby GT350 and Flat-head street rod he drives to work. Jim packs
the power of conviction, a belief in the good things to come, and the
inevitability of great social change in our age, and this infuses his quietly
delivered, seemingly conversational remarks with an odd, softly spoken
tent-revival urgency that’s rarely found in the structured corporate world.
“At the beginning of this project, Raj’s team and my team,
we really had to take a step back to really think: ‘What is Mustang?’ In the
end, of course it’s a car and it’s an icon in our industry – 50 years of
continuous on-sale, which in itself is an unusual thing. And what we discovered
when we talked to people everywhere... was that Mustang has turned into a
product that people visualize their unfettered self in,” Jim said. “And that
idea is not just going fast. It is not just performance. The dream is much more
universal than that. It can be commuting. It can be one turn. It can be a
lifetime trip up the coast. The car has a much more universal dream usage than
a lot of sports cars. And yes, it’s a sports car, it’s incredibly fun to drive,
but what is appealing about it is much more essential.”
Mustang has turned
into a product that people visualize their unfettered self in
Jim went on to document Mustang’s incredible reach. It’s
5-million-plus likes on Facebook, 200 marque clubs, and over 3,000 movie
appearances – and if anything, the weight of meeting all those customer’s
expectations only seemed heavier.
“The last thing I want to say,” Jim continued, “is
surprisingly Mustang is on the Top 10 list of products that are connected to
the (Ford) brand, and in places like Germany and Brazil, places where we don’t
even sell Mustangs. So, for whatever reason, customers have figured out how the
Mustang connects to the brand without any advertising or even making the
vehicle for sale. And it was with that the team pursued the idea of the 50th
version of Mustang, with humbleness and insight from all of those customers.”
“Frankly speaking, from a brand guy, this car is so much
more than just 100,000 units or 70,000 units,” he added. “It is really the
essence of Ford on a good day. Which is visualizing yourself in your most
relaxed and aspirational way. And isn’t that what cars should be?”
