April and May lit a few fires in the pony car world, such matters especially of interest now that there’s one pony car left, the Ford Mustang. GM President Mark Reuss mused on the Chevrolet Camaro to Motor Trend, imagining a fun-to-drive electric four-door priced in the ballpark of the 2024 Chevrolet Equinox EV, which starts at $43,295 with destination. Given a federal tax credit, that would put the Camaro’s price below all of its competition, assuming performance to make the entry-level trim worth it. Across the Michigan suburbs at Ford, CEO Jim Farley gave Autocar his thoughts on what might be possible with Mustang, ruling out a pure electric variant and seeming to rule out an off-road-focused model, while leaving the door(s) open to a sedan-ish model “as long as [it has] the performance and attitude of the original.” Those doors are now officially ajar after Ford’s dealer meetings in Las Vegas. Automotive News reports dealers were shown a variety of potential future models, including four-door and off-road-ish versions of the Mustang.
Unnamed attendees at the meeting said Ford called the family version of the Mustang the Mach 4, shown as a rendering. The second concept, a “rugged” off-road version AN described as a “Baja model,” was shown in a photo. We’re not sure Ford referred to the model as “Baja” or that’s AN‘s description, and we also wonder if the fact that the Mach 4 was a rendering and the Baja was a photo means one is closer to potential market launch than the other.
Vaughn Gittin Jr’s RTR contributed a third take on the pony car, this one an EcoBoost variant to start in the $40,000 area (and probably teased in April). The engine choice strays from the Coyote V8 focus RTR’s known for. Such a model would help Ford expand the performance credentials of the turbo four-cylinder, filling in the blank left by Ford cutting the EcoBoost High-Performance Package for 2025, and at around the same price, too. It’s been reported that RTR is also trying to grow its own range of vehicles and sell them in-house, not just through OEM dealers.
The last horse in the corral was a high-performance convertible ‘Stang convertible with a manual transmission, one noted for bearing no Shelby badges. Ford Authority has said mules and prototypes of what we’d expect to be a new Shelby GT500 have been testing for about a year, however, Ford might want a new name. The rumor is that the company is mulling an original name it coins — like Dark Horse in the Mustang realm or Raptor and Tremor for the pickup line — instead of continuing to license a badge.
Not mentioned in any of this, we must also remember the overhead view of a Mustang doing a four-wheel burnout in April, hinting at even more ideas, perhaps those of the EcoBoost hybrid variety.
Elsewhere in the range, dealers got a look at a physical mockup of a compact van based on the Maverick pickup platform. This would effectively return the Transit Connect to our market, perhaps under a different name, and could roll out as soon as 2025.
Dealers were also given a preview of a coming battery-electric platform to support a variety of models including a sedan, a small SUV, and a pickup.
When AN asked Ford about the preview, an automaker spokesperson replied that there are “very exciting plans to expand our portfolio with new vehicles at all price points.” Dealers seem enthused, one calling it “awesome,” another telling AN, “It was the first good meeting in five years as far as being positive and focusing on the future.”
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