Ace
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- Steve
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- 2018 Camaro 2SS (EU)
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I had the chance to talk with Jan Herzog, the head of Mustang for Ford Europe at the Mustang Event in Hasselfelde, Germany. We talked a lot about why things are different on the european Mustang and what Ford Europe wants for the Generation 7.
If you are capable of speaking german, I also made a video, but for you guys here I write the most important things down:
[ame]
EU model
Also one important notice about the future of EU Mustangs:
A detail about the EU Bullitt:
7th Gen EU model
If you are capable of speaking german, I also made a video, but for you guys here I write the most important things down:
[ame]
EU model
- Ford Europe joined 1 year late to the development of the S550, so the US team was bascially done with the basics. Most of what changed were a consequence of Ford USA having already designed the base car.
- Before EU model there were 500 import Mustang in Europe per year. Ford Europe went crazy and calculated with 8k Mustangs for Europe per year and endup up with 18k cars in 2015.
- They had to use clear rear lights so the turn signal will match the color and brightness reglementions for Europe.
- Sequential turn signals were not able homologate in Europe since the distance between the turn signal housings were too wide. It has to be under 5cm and the S550 rear lights are just over 5cm apart
- Tribars were not used as DRL in Europe on 2015 models because the angle how the DRL is shining was not matching EU regulations. For 2018 they designed the headlights to match the EU DRL laws.
- Memory seats and BLIS are not available in Europe because they only have one pair of wires in the door/mirror and they prefered to use that for electric folding mirrors
- Performance gauges would have increase the baseprice of EU mustangs for about 500€ and they decided it's not worth it.
Also one important notice about the future of EU Mustangs:
- The EU models will stop being ordered as much as customers want at 2020. EU fleet pollusion laws are bringing Ford in a bad spot with the Mustang. So starting 2020 only a reduced number of Mustangs will be sold in Europe. Seems like they want to drop the number down to 2,000 Mustangs per year for whole Europe, but still subject to change.
A detail about the EU Bullitt:
- It was homologated with 459,6 PS. But it actually will have more power if you use EU98 or better gas, since Ford USA ran the homologation with some strange gas that is not even available in Europe.
7th Gen EU model
- Likely to come out in 2022
- Europe was already done with what they want for 7th Gen, but US took a step back to change something and delayed it.
- Final decision if the 7th Gen will be based on S550 or a completely new base is not done yet since Ford USA took a step back.
- Ford Europe wants to have red rearlights, but no promises if that will be a thing.
- Ford Europe also wants sequential turn signals but they have to discuss with the US designers to make the rear lights capable for EU regulations - And the designers usally do not like people
- Overall they want the car to be closer to the US model, no manufacturer likes to build seperate parts for different markets.
- They want to go with real leather seats. Right now only the middle of the seats are actual leather, the rest is artifical leather.
- They clearly heard that people want the V8 engine. No promises of course, but it sounded like the US team is not really convinced to drop the V8 too.
- First test of hybrid engine were crazy, they had no chance to get the amount of power on the road.
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