Random Thought 9 Mustangs

I'm sorry if I offend any Ford fans out there (Maybe I'm not, actually) but I hate Mustangs.

Yes. I said it. Mustangs suck. And it's not just because I'm a Dodge fanboy. It's because for the most part, they really do suck.

First Generation:
The first generation was the best generation. There's really no argument on that. It sold millions of units, I'll admit to that because it's true. The problem with the first gen Mustang is that EVERYONE loves it. It's that "muscle car" for people that don't know anything about muscle cars, because they don't actually know that the Mustang is not a muscle car.

Pontiac GTO: Muscle car Dodge Charger: Muscle car Ford Mustang: Pony car

The Mustang is MUCH smaller when put next to a real muscle car. It wasn't intended to have an absolutely massive engine from the start, but it ended up that way. In the beginning, it was built to handle and run with the European cars of the day.

Second Generation:
Okay, Lee Iaccoca, the savior of Detroit, came into power at Ford in the early 70's and wanted to make the Mustang more fuel efficient. The US was in a fuel shortage and the Mustang had to adapt.

So it did. And built a fuel efficient muscle car on the Pinto platform. Don't worry, your 2nd gen 'Stang isn't going to blow up. At least I don't think.

My problem with this car it could have really been a good looking car. They almost had the looks down, but the platform of the Pinto, and the quest for MPG strangled the styling and left it looking like a half hearted attempt at a car. It's too curvy. Muscle cars aren't curvy. Yeah, they have some curves, but not like this car.

Third Generation:
This is easily the worst Mustang generation ever. It is absolutely neutered. All Mustang styling is gone. It's a harsh reminder of the hatchback Gremlin ridden days that Ford had come from, and their desire to keep the nameplate alive. But this, this is just a disgrace to the nameplate. Yeah, it had a pretty hot running 5.0 in it and a Cobra model, but it's sooooo ugly. I just can't get past it. The only solace I take is that in the mid 80's they were going to build a redesign off of a Mazda platform and it was going to be Front Wheel Drive, but they didn't and that car became the Ford Probe.

THE PROBE! Did Ford have no knowledge of what happened during alien abductions?

Fourth Generation:
I remember vaguely when this was in production. It came out when I was a year old, and ran till I was eleven. I thought it was not a very good looking car then and I still don't. It's better than the generation previous, but it still looks like it's put some lame Mustang body kit on a normal 90's car

Fifth Generation:
I think this is the best generation and the worst generation of Mustang. They're good looking cars, the retro styling is great, they have great engines, cool retro packages like the Boss 302, and they're dirt cheap.

The problem is that everyone knows that and they are EVERYWHERE. I swear I will see at least three fifth generation Mustangs on any given day, and everyone that owns one things it's the hottest car to grace the pavement since Benz rolled out his first car back in the 1880's. It's crap. 90% of those cars have been poorly taken care of, or have V6's that could be beat by a Honda Accord.

Anyway. Rant off. I gotta write a paper.

Yay Finals week.

Random Thought 8 Brand Specialties

Well, I forgot I had made two drafts of posts, and kinda forgot I did until now, so today is a two for one day.

This is a topic that I get the logistics and focus of it, but I don't really like it. What I mean by specialties is when a auto company has multiple brands with each brand having their own niche. For instance, GM has Chevy has the every day car, Buick as the Premium brand, Cadillac as the Luxury brand, and GMC as the truck division.

One company I haven't gotten is Chrysler. Yes, I don't like how my favorite car company does SOMETHING. They're not perfect. (but they're pretty close)

Pre-2008 Chrysler (the overall company) had three manufacturers. Dodge built cars and trucks, Jeep built super off-roaders, and Chrysler (brand) built luxury. Each had their SRT performance variants of production cars.

In their Post-2008 Fiat owned period, they have Dodge, Jeep, Chrysler, Ram, and SRT. For some reason, they wanted Ram to focus on building trucks as a whole new brand and SRT as a whole new brand to focus on building screaming performance cars.

I get it. If there's a whole other group working on one sector of the market with their own allotment of funding, their own teams, leader, and their own focus, you can get things done, but with the red tape you would have to go through and rebadging and the confusion of splitting things up, my question is "Why?" Truely, could Ram not be what Ram is today without being seperate? Does it really bring more sales? Ford doesn't do that and they've been the sales leader for years in trucks. Does the Dodge name make trucks any more tough? I don't think so.

SRT being a completely different division is just asinine. No one else does it and so far, there has been no sales difference to speak of. I know they're trying to go for the whole "It's not a Dodge Challenger, It's a SRT Challenger" to get away from the slightly redneck upbringing Dodge has had, but I don't think people care that much. I sure don't.

If I had a car company, it would be one company that built everything. There would be no dealer left out of the car segment, or a a cowboy in rural Texas could buy my performance sports car and not have to drive 100 miles to go to an SRT dealership or anything like that.

It's Goofy. That's about all I can say.