Wild About Mustang
Customer, dealer and media reactions to the 2005 Mustang are glowing
Press Release
By: Brad Nevin | Ford Communications Network
Reactions to the 2005 Mustang are glowing. For more information on the new Mustang, visit fordvehicles.com.
DEARBORN, Mich.-- It was a calm Wednesday night at North Star Ford in Duluth, Minnesota when Rusty Fitzgerald, one of the sales and internet advisors at the dealership, saw someone who looked to be about 22 or 23 years old drive up in a 1995 Ford Aspire.
The customer was wearing a green and yellow Green Bay Packers jacket and had a Packers license plate. "He was a kid and looked like he had no money," said Fitzgerald. He came into the dealership and asked about the new 2005 Mustang.
"You want to drive one?" asked Fitzgerald.
Fitzgerald said at first the young Packers fan hesitated with "no…no." But with a little convincing he agreed to try a 200 horsepower Mustang V-6 with an automatic transmission.
"At first he was real timid with it," said Fitzgerald. "I told him to push it a little bit. Even with 210 horsepower, it jumps around pretty good. When he was driving it, he was like, ''whoa.' It's a lot more car than he is used to in his Aspire. When we returned to the dealership, he said 'I love it.' Thirty five minutes later he agreed to buy the red V-6 Mustang he had just driven."
From the time the car arrived at North Star Ford to when it was sold, the car was there for five hours. While the paper work was being completed, Fitzgerald said he saw the Packers fan explaining to other customers the features he had just learned about on his new 2005 Mustang.
"I actually have a guy who is going to order one tonight," said Fitzgerald. "I think Ford is coming out with this car at the right time. In addition to young customers like the Packers fan, there are a lot of retired people who love the retro styling and now have the money to buy one. The look and timing for the new Mustang are right."
If this kind of Mustang enthusiast sounds extreme, consider Rachel Emmons of Alexandria, Virginia. She ordered her 2005 Mustang GT several months ago to go along with her 1967 model.
“People ask me how much am I paying for it, and I say, ‘I don't know,’” Emmons said. She's president of the National Capital Region Mustang Club, which has about 450 members in Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D.C. At first, Emmons said she was hesitant to get the 2005 Mustang. “Then I sat in it and said to myself, 'Who am I kidding? I have to get this car.'”
To understand what all the fuss is about, consider this excerpt from Car and Driver magazine's road test of a 300 horsepower V8 Mustang GT.
"Speaking of gushing forth, let's move on to thrust. Three easy steps here: (1) Disable the traction control -- a large button up high on the dash, just as Don Garlits intended. (2) Zing the revs to four grand. (3) Dump the clutch. The Mustang squats an inch, then launches straight, hard, and true, painting five to ten feet of expensive P Zero Nero stripes, depending on road texture. In a flash, the V-8 bangs off the rev limiter, and the tires bark on the upshift to second like deep-chested Newfoundlands. Beautiful, man—smoke, noise, velocity, enraged neighbors. Unalloyed essence of Mustang…Sixty mph is yours in 5.2 seconds, 0.3 second quicker than the old five-speed GT and identical to the performance of a 305-hp, 32-valve Mach 1. One hundred mph looms large in 13.2 seconds, a 1.7-second improvement over the old GT. And the quarter-mile is history in 13.8 seconds at 102 mph."
TheCarConnection.com even went so far as to say, "The GT car is enough to fill our pleasure centers for years."
Another story in the Miami Herald newspaper quoted David Lucas, a vice president with Autodata, an industry consulting firm in Woodcliff Lake, N.J., saying that there is a dearth of competition for the new Mustang, as General Motors stopped producing the Chevy Camaro and Pontiac Firebird a few years ago.
With no specific competition, the 2005 Mustang's performance value is unparalleled. At $19,410 for the 2005 Mustang V-6 Coupe, Mustang is the only sports car in the market that delivers 210 horsepower for under $20,000.
At a starting price of $24,995, the new Mustang GT Coupe, with its 4.6-liter 3-Valve V-8 engine, delivers 300 horsepower. There is no production sports car that delivers 300 horsepower for less than $31,000.
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