A few lucky people were invited to see the 2014.5/2015 Mustang...

[Chris B.]

Ford and some other automobile manufacturers regularly hire market research firms to get public opinion about upcoming and current cars. A few weeks ago, one of the events featured two preproduction 2014.5/2015 Mustangs along with a Challenger, Genesis, and some other cars. Three members of Allfordmustangs.com forums attended the event on separate days. There was a thread on the forum about their experiences, but it was deleted for an unknown reason. Maybe just the traffic to the forums was just too high after it was linked on several automotive news web sites and many message boards.

From what the attendees described, this concept drawing is the closest to the 2015 Mustang that they saw, except the Mustangs they saw had round fog lights, not the triangle shaped fog lights in the drawing, the lower grill opening was larger, and the mirrors were different.


The tail lights were louvered and split into three sections with the outside being smaller than the inside.

The 4 cylinder model had two 6" long chrome bars sticking out from the side of the running horse in the grill. Also, one of the Mustangs had a rear fog light under the license plate, probably to meet European regulations.

Also it will have a 300+ HP 34 MPG 4 cylinder turbo as one engine option according to the information given at the market research study. Maybe that replaces the V6 or maybe the V6 is still the base engine. The turbo 4 cylinder Ecoboost is probably the same engine as the Focus RS. There is quite a bit of speculation about the fate of the V6, but the commercials shown in Europe announcing the Mustang is coming have three distinctly different engine/exhaust sounds in them. So maybe the V6 will still be around in the next Mustang. One of the questions asked on the forms the attendees filled out was, "Would you pay $8,000 more for the V8 model over the price of the base model?"

They said that the interior looked nothing like the interior in the spy photos of the prototype that were seen in several automotive magazines. The spy photos showed an interior similar to an F-150.

So basically what we know about the next Mustang based on this event, spy photos, and what Ford released publicly:

• Independent rear suspension.
• V8 and a 2.? liter turbo 4 cylinder as engine options.
• It will be sold worldwide in both right hand drive and left hand drive configurations.
• It will look similar to the above photo with a few minor differences.
• The European models will have a rear fog light below the rear license plate.
• Ford claims the next Mustang will be a few hundred pounds lighter than the current model. That means it will be closer to the 3350 lb curb weight of the 2005 Mustang GT instead of the current 3600 lb curb weight.