What? Did you read right? A station wagon Mustang?
In case you haven't heard, Ford is considering a Mustang station wagon and 4
door "coupe" version of it's Mustang.
Hey, I can understand the temptation -- the folks over at Chysler have been
doing something similar with the awesome Magnum wagon, and new Challenger.
A couple of thoughts -- the Challenger thing is a nifty ride, but I've always
thought that Chrysler polluted the original recipe by doing what they did --
and I'm not alone.
The Magnum is a different story -- if I was going to ever own a wagon, that'd
be the ride. It simply looks like something so bad-ass that, well, it gets
a nod of approval -- but it's its own brand, after all. It's not a
Challenger Magnum station wagon, it's a Magnum in its own right.
Circling back to the Stang. Ford needs to do something similar -- call it
what they want, make a Mustang-like wagon or 4-door, but please Ford,
listen closely -- Don't pollute the Mustang brand with 4-doors and Wagons.
For starters, the V6 version of the Mustang already comes close do doing this.
The only reason I'm somewhat forgiving of the V6 version is that they've done
such a wonderful job of making it have some power and economy -- and not all
kiddies should be roaming the country-side with 300 horsepower, after all. My nephew owns one -- it's sounds awesome.
But all kids, from 10 to 60 love the Mustang -- the present brand wealth has
provided Ford with a much-needed shining star in a sea of bland brand
neutrality and at a much-needed time. Ford, where Trucks have been job one
for the past decade, has done so well with the Mustang and done it right for
quite a long time. It would be such a shame for them to blow it by making
something so ordinary as a wagon out of the thing.
What could they do instead (besides watch Chrysler dealers continue to suck
away future family-oriented sporty car buyers with stuff like the Magnum and Challenger)? Well, I'm all
about suggestion...
The Ranchero
What ever happened to this vehicle? Remember the days when Ford made a
two-door car-based truck? Well, they likely still own the trademark to the
name, so why not do some retro exploitation. It can use Mustang parts --
even the sheet-metal (say, look just like the Mustang concept stuff they're
throwing around, even). But have it use a different name, that's all.
People will say stuff like "Look, it's just like a Mustang in the front" -- but
enthusiasts will gleefully say "Yeah, but I own a real Mustang.
And mean it too.
Some other parts-bin suggestions: Take the automated side-doors off of a
mini-van and create a two-door Wagon that has long-ass doors that automatically
open (on track-like rails) so that the front and back seats are instantly accessible. The thing
will look like a Mustang-like Nomad, in other words, and use the hardware
parts used to make a mini-van work. Make a 4-door version, a truck-like version and a station wagon. All of them can use similar parts, the Stang chasis and front end -- for sure the engines -- and the Ranchero brand. Yes, even the 4 door. The Ranchero is dead, but breath some life into it and see what happens.
That way someone gets the coolness of 2-doors, the utility of mini-van and
the sporty-ness of a Mustang all in one shot -- but please, if you do this,
Don't call it a Mustang -- you'll blow the brand and the entire idea of what the Mustang stands for, completely.
While We're On The Subject of BRAND
Listen closely Ford : Please stop tossing out brands like yesterdays trash.
Why, oh why, the 500? Why not the Taurus again? What's with you people? People go
back to dealerships years later to buy the same car they had last time if it
worked for them. If you spent time managing a brand, all the time it takes to
create one and so on, why the hell do you toss it out like this?
Honda still makes the Civic, Toyota still makes the Camry, and so on -- the
people that buy these cars like to believe that they're going to be able to
get another one in a couple of years.
Let's take a real-world example, very close to home. My wife loved her
Ford Probe (yes, at one time, that was going to be the Mustang, so it belongs
in this conversation). The Probe was a Mazda 626 re-branded. It was a damn
good car for a lot of reasons -- sporty, with a hatchback, good utility,
gas mileage and so on. Ford and Mazda got into some kind of stupid pissing
match or whatever, and *poof* it's gone one day.
And we were looking to buy one, at just that time. Luckily for us (or possibly
not) Mercury was re-branding the Ford Contour as a 2-door. It had a hatch, some other probe-like features -- it was the same
formula for the car as the Probe, in other words. That car (the *new* Cougar) was really cool
at the time. By the way, Ford, I distinctly remember riding on a Ferry at Put-in-Bay with my wife, the proud owner of a 1999 Cougar in the summer of 1998 (We were among the first to buy the car). Riding right next to the car was a fairly new, last generation Cougar owner and his wife. Man was he pissed about what Mercury had done to his Cougar -- but my wife fell in love with the car. Among the reasons was the
color, Melina Blue -- purple, which they quickly quit making available, mostly due
to the country's aversion to variety.
Anyway, the Cougar was well designed but so poorly manufactured that within
75,000 miles I was about ready to scream -- every trip to the dealer was a $500 bill.
That is, if you don't count the sunroof track, which was a 1500 dollar bill,
and a joke.
Why make something so good, so bad, you ask? It wasn't a truck, is only my guess.
It's all academic, because when we went to replace the Cougar I decided to
step in and limit my wifes' options -- we were going to look at Honda, Toyota
and Acura (Honda, again). She chose an Acura RSX -- but lets suppose, Ford, you
had done your job, and kept quality at Job #1? She might have been in the
market for another Cougar.
Except, you decided, in your infinite brand-killing wisdom, to simply stop
making them.
Now, some people might point at lack-luster sales figures and say that was
justified. Maybe the sales were related to quality problems -- I'd say that
would be partially true, but even more likely would be the fact that not all
Probe buyers found their way to Mercury dealerships -- two wrongs, in other
words, likely lead to something far worse than one.
Let's suppose instead that Ford still made a quality vehicle, called the Probe.
My wife might still own one -- a new one, and not an Acura. By the way, she
loves the Acura. It's very dependable, handles like a dream and it's got the
exact same formula -- it's one of the few two-door hatchbacks on the market. Oh, and Honda isn't perfect -- Acura is dropping the RSX this year. Great idea Acura...
The lesson here is real-world. People are brand focused, and it's hard to
focus on targets that are constantly disappearing in the night like so many
blurry road-signs. Ford, please look at Mustang sales as a stunning, stark
example (similar to the F150) where you are doing everything right.
So, what else, besides the brand, is right about the Mustang?
Let me count the ways:
- It's sporty, truly: The V8 works, the V6 is good enough for most people
and there's no suppressing the "grin-factor" of opening the throttle on a
Mustang.
- It's Fun (see the above).
- The Mustang has a truly usable back seat. Some people might argue
with this statement. These people are forgetting that mostly kids will be
riding back there. Most reasonably-sized people can fit back there, I'd argue.
People that don't agree with this statement need to try and sit in the back
seat of the last generation Firebird/Camaro (and, yes, I've attempted to do
*exactly* that, and failed -- that is if don't count putting your feet across
the seats, making it into a '3-seater'). I'd argue that this factor alone
cost GM the customers that were looking at the cars in any realistic sense
near the end of its last run.
- It's personal. There's something about the Mustang that's more than a
car, in other words. Like a coat that you've fallen in love with, there's
something more about the Mustang that makes you forgive it for all of its
other faults. Extremely impractical tires, scary winter driving (I live in
Ohio and yes, I've driven many, many miles in the Snow in my Mustang GT),
piss-poor trunk space -- it's got a list of things that make it, um, have
character. We're willing to forgive all this, because it's more than a car
to us.
- It's recognizable as a Mustang. You never mistake it for something else.
If it has 4 doors or looks like a wagon sometime in the future, all of this could
change.
- It's practical, after all (just barely). You can drive it work, you
can still haul a set of golf clubs in the thing. It can carry 4 people -- it's
not a Corvette, in other words. It's not a Honda S2000 (Despite being a short
guy, when I sit in an S2000 I feel like I'm riding in glove-box with wheels.
I have no idea how tall people perceive the thing). It's still usable as a
vehicle and so, arguing that it's truly impractical depends upon what you want
to do with it. For a lot of people, it's a very usable car.
Are you listening Ford? Your executive summary may include stuff like the
Magnum or the Challenger, but please don't go out there and start shooting
holes in the Mustang brand by making variations that water the brand down to
nothing-ness. People still haven't forgotten the Pinto-based Mustangs of
the mid-70s (1974-78) -- some Mustang enthusiasts will even go so far as to
say that those were really "Mustang IIs" -- not real Mustangs because they were
so far off. I'd argue otherwise -- they were close enough to the formula.
In other words, please, please make more sporty family-friendly vehicles, but
brand them with names that will make people recognize them as non-Mustangs.
People aren't stupid -- if you make a Mustang-based wagon and it has Mustang
parts on it, they'll still proudly point at them and feel the inclusion -- but
the lack of Mustang name will make the Mustang owners have just enough
exclusion so as not to be offended.
That's my suggestion. That, and stop killing off your brands. People need
to come back for stuff and have that feeling that something good will be there
year after year -- not necessarily unchanged, but the formula for success
should be incorporated each time. That's really why the brand mention is in
this article -- keep the formula the same, but change the ingredients that
vary often enough to make it all fresh.
And yes, I do so love my Mustangs. Good job there.
Paul Ferris has been writing on-line for the past 8 years or so, mostly about
computer software
He's had several Mustangs, his first, in high-school, a 1969
coupe,
his present fold includes a 2004 Mach 1 and a 2000 GT convertible.
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