The Gobal Mustang: Raising the Quality Bar

[Josh Painter]

Even red-blooded, flag-raising Americans can appreciate what kind of risk FoMoCo is taking by officially introducing the S550 to the world market. The Mustang has long been judged by people who have insisted on comparing it to much more expensive cars. Some of them have MSRPs over twice that of the Mustang.

As part of its global strategy, Ford picked the Porsche 911 and BMW M3 as targets -- not for marketing, but for quality and performance. There's another thread here which deals with meeting those performance goals. I created this one to focus on quality issues.

I found a good article to open the discussion. An excerpt:

This, finally, is the One Ford Mustang, and as such it's the first Mustang truly designed to go toe-to-toe with the best the world has to offer. It will, for the first time, be offered in a right-hand-drive model for use in places like the UK and Australia. It'll be the first Mustang sold (legitimately) in places like China and Norway. This, according to Susan Lampinen, group chief designer of colors and materials, caused the entire design and engineering team to think more seriously about the whole package, particularly the interior.

The current car, Lampinen says, has a "molded color and dipped plastic look." These are things that do not inspire a feeling of quality. That had to change for 2015. "When we first were designing it we didn't know we were going global. When it began, it was major pressure, it's a really important product... But then once we did decide to go global with it, I stepped back and thought, 'Is the China market going to be okay?' I thought about the European market... They expect a really high quality."

Putting aside any hurt feelings about the perceived acceptability of lower-quality interiors in the US, this improvement is immediately tangible inside the car. The look is simple and sophisticated, maintaining a solid feeling of heritage despite the large, centrally mounted touch screen plus all the buttons and knobs needed to disable traction control and tune the optional 12-speaker sound system. The shiny bits are actually chrome-plated, not just painted plastic, and the dramatic "wing" that sweeps across the dash is a single, continuous piece of brushed aluminum -- available in one of three shades to suit the buyer's proclivities.

http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13746_...lobal-focus-gave-the-world-a-better-pony-car/

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[Fenderaddict2]

Other than the centre console seeming too wide I think the interior is well done. I swapped a Bimmer for my Mustang and the only thing I missed was the quality of the interior. If this car has dealt with that I can see no reason not to buy a Mustang again.

 

[Wildcat]

Real chrome and brushed aluminum? Wow. Can't wait to sit in one. I may sell my soul and load one up. It'll be expensive, but you only live once.

 

[Josh Painter]

Other than the centre console seeming too wide I think the interior is well done. I swapped a Bimmer for my Mustang and the only thing I missed was the quality of the interior. If this car has dealt with that I can no reason not to buy a Mustang again.

Yes, Ford has been working hard to improve the quality of its products since the 1980s and the "Quality is Job One" campaign. But they've learned over that time that quality means more than a part that doesn't fail prematurely or the gap between a door and fender being straight. Computer-Aided Manufacturing has gone a long way to improve both of these types of quality issues.

But the next level up in quality is in the nature of the materials chosen to make a car from and how they all work together to help form the car's identity. This is the next big step and the area where the Mustang has received the most criticism. It's great to see Ford finally addressing that aspect of quality with the S550 and its other products.

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