First Impression Poll

[StangBANG]

Steven Wright reference?

Also I totally agree with what you said.

I still haven't seen one in person. Aghhh

You my friend have good taste in comedy. I applaud you.

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[KP6Five]

I think for the money its a lot of car. By the time I put a Whipple on my PP GT those figures won't matter. I think just a cold air... tune... and exhaust will make this car a lot faster in the quarter mile. Especially with the 3.73 gears. Not worried about what these no driving pencil pushers report about the car.

 

[S550_Magnetic]

Thanks!

One of the things I noticed early in the day was one of the reviews said the PP / ecoboost / AT6 / Premium car they had pulled nearly 1G on the skid pad and had a 60 - 0 stopping distance w/ in EIGHT FEET of the C7 yet most of the reviewers were all " . . . eh, ho hum. It still doesn't launch as hard as an awd WRX STi ( because somehow in this world 2 = 4 ? ) and we kinda sorta thought we felt a little uncertainty on mid-corner transition at high speeds." People need to understand a lot of the auto journalists regularly get to drive the best the industry has to offer and I'd imagine that can make you a bit jaded or at the very do odd things to your personal base of reference.

Quote from one of the reviews/previews... I would say that this quote is pretty impressive in itself.

"In Ohio's Hocking Hills, where we took our 2014 Performance Car of the Year candidates for real-world drive impressions, it was comfortable, fast, involving, predictable, and composed. The car has matured—a lot. It's not just 5.0 muscle and tire smoke; there's real agility to exploit. Mind you, I drove the GT in a group that also included the Porsche 911 GT3, the Lexus RC F, and the Italian-superhero Ferrari 458 Speciale. It confidently, casually held its own in that heady company"

 

[Brent302]

Quote from one of the reviews/previews... I would say that this quote is pretty impressive in itself.

"In Ohio's Hocking Hills, where we took our 2014 Performance Car of the Year candidates for real-world drive impressions, it was comfortable, fast, involving, predictable, and composed. The car has matured—a lot. It's not just 5.0 muscle and tire smoke; there's real agility to exploit. Mind you, I drove the GT in a group that also included the Porsche 911 GT3, the Lexus RC F, and the Italian-superhero Ferrari 458 Speciale. It confidently, casually held its own in that heady company"

Thank you

 

[S550_Magnetic]

Thank you

The nice part is the car doesn't cost ANYWHERE NEAR those cars mentioned.

 

[REX-RACER]

Quote from one of the reviews/previews... I would say that this quote is pretty impressive in itself.

"In Ohio's Hocking Hills, where we took our 2014 Performance Car of the Year candidates for real-world drive impressions, it was comfortable, fast, involving, predictable, and composed. The car has matured—a lot. It's not just 5.0 muscle and tire smoke; there's real agility to exploit. Mind you, I drove the GT in a group that also included the Porsche 911 GT3, the Lexus RC F, and the Italian-superhero Ferrari 458 Speciale. It confidently, casually held its own in that heady company"

Yep, I saw that referenced a little earlier. It's my guess that over the next few weeks opinions will coalesce around this point of view, i.e. the car is pretty darn good and holds it's own against the design targets intended.

 

[2wheels4me]

Judging by the generally favorable but observant reviews, the car might need some things that many of us would like to do for it anyway. I didn't read any slightly negative comments about faults that were not modifiable to some degree. Lighten it by getting the 30lbs-less-heavy Borla-made FRC (or your favorite) exhaust. Make it sound awesome by doing the same. Consider spending less than $300 to lower its stance and cg by installing the FRC springs. Improve quarter mile time with a tune or TracKey. Etc., etc. These are fun things that we can do to help make the car everything we want it to be, turning each one into special beings. That's the beauty of it. And again, it's fun.

 

[REX-RACER]

Well, to give the engineering team credit, they always said it would beat the boss on a track - never stated anything about straight line performance. But you really have to try to understand just how difficult it is to get management to approve a single dollar in cost increases. Styling was already getting a huge bite of their development budget, so it's not as if they could deliver a whole new GT power train on top of the ecoboost engine and fit it within the budget.

Again, I honestly think the engineering team did a phenomenal job, especially when you factor in sneaking things like linelock past legal (#yolo). The people at fault with the missed expectations are the marketing guys that let the hype fester, rather than just launching a good set of targeted ads/reviews shortly after the product was revealed.

First off, dude you're in ISIS?! :lol:

I actually agree w/ a lot of what you've been saying in the past two or three posts and have developed a similar sentiment myself. I think that FoMoCo, lead by it's marketing depts fervor to try and capitalize on on the Mustang 50th Anniversary Celebration for an entire friggin year have essentially over-played the hand . . . and that took some doing frankly.

If you think back on it there really was no reason for Ford to do the unveil on a 2015 car back in December 2013 almost SIX WEEKS before NAIAS! From that point, starting in December 2013 Ford's marketing department has tried to slow walk a product launch, something that would have normally taken 4 - 6 months at the most even for a car introduced at NAIAS, across essentially an entire year. Those goofy press "ride-alongs" and the slow dribble of standard info like hp, mpg, weigh, etc. have lead to this feeling of festering info and the given the way the internet works, the embellishment and wild speculation you've seen - light-speed-esque 0-60 times, hp numbers worthy of a six figure exotic and mpg numbers that somehow rival hybrids - was mostly the result of people being board and trying to fill the void.

The car is likely very good and once people get their hands on it all of this will be distant memory but it's my notion that if they had it to do again Ford would hopefully tighten up the schedule like you've suggested.

 

[stilesg57]

The thing I still like to point out though is that marketing should be held directly culpable for the performance let downs. Is a 4.4 0-60 time bad? No; if anything it's actually pretty good for a car that starts below $35k base.

But the simple fact of the matter is that they could have been a lot more transparent and save people the disappointment by letting them know that this launch is all about improving the user experience.

Agreed. I wanted to be fair to Ford's marketing and wait for the full-on product launch even while others were already calling them bunglers. Now the results are in...and it's clear marketing has bungled how they've handled this for months now. As someone who works in marketing and doesn't have nearly as awesome/visceral/emotional products to work with as Ford does with a storied brand like Mustang, I think this is borderline professional malfeasance. Engineering let down a little, but marketing blew the expectations game big time on this.

 

[REX-RACER]

Agreed. I wanted to be fair to Ford's marketing and wait for the full-on product launch even while others were already calling them bunglers. Now the results are in...and it's clear marketing has bungled how they've handled this for months now. As someone who works in marketing and doesn't have nearly as awesome/visceral/emotional products to work with as Ford does with a storied brand like Mustang, I think this is borderline professional malfeasance. Engineering let down a little, but marketing blew the expectations game big time on this.

I agree and that actually made me LOL!

I think this is the result of the marketing depts eyes being bigger than its stomach and their fervor to take advantage of the whole 50th Anniversary thing and slow walk the global launch over the course of an entire year. It seems they shoulda just done a "normal" launch all be it w/ perhaps a bit more relish and otherwise treated the 50th birthday celebration as more or less a separate event. Cross marketing would have likely been fine but trying to bundle these two thing into one huge deal apparently proved to be a bit too cumbersome.

 

[Fenderaddict2]

Agreed. I wanted to be fair to Ford's marketing and wait for the full-on product launch even while others were already calling them bunglers. Now the results are in...and it's clear marketing has bungled how they've handled this for months now. As someone who works in marketing and doesn't have nearly as awesome/visceral/emotional products to work with as Ford does with a storied brand like Mustang, I think this is borderline professional malfeasance. Engineering let down a little, but marketing blew the expectations game big time on this.

As an Ad Guy, I mostly agree with this assessment. In fact, I can't help but feel that Marketings mismanagement led to the lukewarm elements in the reviews. With so much lead time from reveal to test, so much hype and the extended embargoes, journalists simply expected more (like we did) so the real engineering gains (of which there are many) seemed somehow less impressive than they probably are.

 

[Sterling Archer]

First off, dude you're in ISIS?! :lol:

Well I am an American hero that saves the day through the clever usage of turtlenecks. Where else would I be located?

I actually agree w/ a lot of what you've been saying in the past two or three posts and have developed a similar sentiment myself. I think that FoMoCo, lead by it's marketing depts fervor to try and capitalize on on the Mustang 50th Anniversary Celebration for an entire friggin year have essentially over-played the hand . . . and that took some doing frankly.

If you think back on it there really was no reason for Ford to do the unveil on a 2015 car back in December 2013 almost SIX WEEKS before NAIAS! From that point, starting in December 2013 Ford's marketing department has tried to slow walk a product launch, something that would have normally taken 4 - 6 months at the most even for a car introduced at NAIAS, across essentially an entire year. Those goofy press "ride-alongs" and the slow dribble of standard info like hp, mpg, weigh, etc. have lead to this feeling of festering info and the given the way the internet works, the embellishment and wild speculation you've seen - light-speed-esque 0-60 times, hp numbers worthy of a six figure exotic and mpg numbers that somehow rival hybrids - was mostly the result of people being board and trying to fill the void.

The car is likely very good and once people get their hands on it all of this will be distant memory but it's my notion that if they had it to do again Ford would hopefully tighten up the schedule like you've suggested.

As I pointed out earlier, Marketing Rule #1:

Only be silent if you have a game changer. Otherwise transparency will always lead to a happier customer.

Agreed. I wanted to be fair to Ford's marketing and wait for the full-on product launch even while others were already calling them bunglers. Now the results are in...and it's clear marketing has bungled how they've handled this for months now. As someone who works in marketing and doesn't have nearly as awesome/visceral/emotional products to work with as Ford does with a storied brand like Mustang, I think this is borderline professional malfeasance. Engineering let down a little, but marketing blew the expectations game big time on this.

See Rule #1.

As an Ad Guy, I mostly agree with this assessment. In fact, I can't help but feel that Marketings mismanagement led to the lukewarm elements in the reviews. With so much lead time from reveal to test, so much hype and the extended embargoes, journalists simply expected more (like we did) so the real engineering gains (of which there are many) seemed somehow less impressive than they probably are.

Exactly!



Look guys this is an incredible vehicle from an engineering perspective. Don't let the reviews have you dismayed too much, because think about it, the car is being compared to high end European variants in almost all of them. The fact that people casually dropped in into the same sentence as Ferrari etc tells you something about just how advanced and luxurious the new cockpit-themed interior has become.

But the simple fact of the matter is it's still a $36k car (starting point of GT premium model). Should it be able to compete with the m4 in every metric? No, otherwise it would cost $70k base. So give the engineering team credit; they all did their jobs (especially when you consider how hard it must have been to sneak in things like line-lock). It's the marketing guys at fault, so do what the rest of us do, call them a bunch of morons and head over to a dealer

 

[S550_Magnetic]

This here says it all to the people that keep comparing it to the M4! First off WHY do you compare it to a car that cost TWICE as much? Spend $64k on your 2015 Mustang and I guarantee it demolishes the M4 in every aspect.

1. 2015 BMW M4
   Luxury vehicle
2. Engine size: 3.0L
3. MSRP: From $64,200
4. MPG: Up to 17 city, 26 highway
5. Horsepower: 425 HP
6. DIMENSIONS:
   Wheelbase: 110.7 in
   Length: 184.5 in
   Width: 73.6 in Height: 54.4 in
   Curb weight (C/D est): 3600 lb
   
   PERFORMANCE (C/D EST):
   Zero to 60 mph: 4.0-4.2 sec
   Zero to 100 mph: 8.7-8.9 sec
   Standing ¼-mile: 12.2-12.4 sec
   Top speed: 155 mph

 

[StangFX]

Look guys this is an incredible vehicle from an engineering perspective. Don't let the reviews have you dismayed too much, because think about it, the car is being compared to high end European variants in almost all of them. The fact that people casually dropped in into the same sentence as Ferrari etc tells you something about just how advanced and luxurious the new cockpit-themed interior has become.

But the simple fact of the matter is it's still a $36k car (starting point of GT premium model). Should it be able to compete with the m4 in every metric? No, otherwise it would cost $70k base. So give the engineering team credit; they all did their jobs (especially when you consider how hard it must have been to sneak in things like line-lock). It's the marketing guys at fault, so do what the rest of us do, call them a bunch of morons and head over to a dealer

Overall I would agree with this. There definitely seemed to be a disconnect with marketing and engineering. I also think as Mustang owners we put an undue emphasis on quarter mile times and the like, and not enough on driving dynamics, handling and overall comfort/refinement. Things that it needs to compete with cars much more expensive than it. It clearly hasn't done much for Mustang sales so they focused on the Mustang's biggest current flaws and modernized the car. Overall I am still excited about the car but it will require a test drive to seal the deal.

 

[JoeDogInKC]

Sterling, I like the way you think. I stepped away for a day and now have things in a better perspective. However, I've been saying the same things you said above for months now and have been ridiculed for it. Ford could certainly learn a thing or two about Customer Service and Marketing in general.

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