morgande

1. I never said MPG wasn't important. I said I would have preferred more emphasis on its performance because its a performance car. The performance was barely mentioned (at least from a text standpoint). 2. The quote doesn't make sense. They compare a V8 RWD $30k+ vehicle to a 4-banger/V6 FWD that cost mid $20k? What does that prove? PS: 4x4 wannabe.... there is no factual evidence in that post. So there was nothing to 'confuse me' with. I gave my opinion....and my reasons. Your certainly entitled to disagree. Argue your point...but keep the rhetoric at home please. Final note: I don't see why there is so much animosity towards me...just because I might argue you a point you don't agree with. I don't bash Ford. I don't hate Ford. I own a Ford. I've own two of their cars in my lifetime. I encourage my family and friends to evaluate their products and incorporate them into their buying decisions. Just because I might not agree with the direction the company is going sometimes doesn't mean I don't support the company as a whole. Other people are free to express their ideas on this forum....about what they like and don't like. But when I do it...suddenly my race gets called into question. My maturity. My background. Its an attack on me..not my stance. Arguing points in one thing...but it seems some people are not given the fair shake of doing that. Suddenly its an attack on them...and not their opinion. I can see if I was a person who came on this board to only post negative comments, only bash Ford. I don't do that. I might give my opinion..sure. But I don't bash the company. I support the company. But still...I have to put up with pointless attacks on my character...just because its something to do. I've grown tired of it. Can an admin please close this thread. I'd appreciate it if I just died and went away.

By 1 MPG? Two completely different cars? Different manufactures. Different looking body styles. Different colors. Different interiors. Different equipment options. And 1mpg is going to be a difference maker? I can say you neglect to inform a person that the delta is only 1mpg. That's just capitalizing on the fact that the customer wasn't very informed. But you want to sit here and tell me that someone would walk away from one vehicle over another...in this case of a Mustang and a Camaro...over 1mpg?????????

Guy owns more cars than anyone else I can think of...Im sure he knows what he was talking about. Again, this is not a purist argument here... So let me see...a person (guy or gal) is going to say to themselves: "I would get the Camaro V6 but the Mustang has 1 mpg better fuel economy so I'm going to go that route instead". You would never in your life see a 1mpg improvement. You'd never notice it. Its purely bragging rights. Period.

Cheap compared to the GT..it most certainly is!!!! V6 base: $22,195 GT base: $29,645 What other 300 hp SPORTS CAR do you know of that can be had for under $22k ($500 rebate will bring this under 22)? My heads not in my rear end. I'm arguing my point. Surely you can argue yours without any needless rhetoric or immature insult? Or is such a reasonable request beyond your feeble brain's ability to comprehend, let alone honor?

But if you took the time to actually READ my post, you would see that I'm not trolling. I dont come on BON and state something trollish like "Nobody wants to by a piece of crap Ford" or something else idiotic like that. I posted this last night after watching game 2 of the NBA finals (when I saw the Mustang commercial) and I typoed the spelling of his name by accident. Flag me for not fact-checking his name...fine. But to call me a Troll because I did, without actually reading my post and trying to get an idea of where I'm coming from....makes you a lemming in my book!

Really Nick? This is not a debate on the purist concept of what is and is not a sports car. The Mustang is considered a sports car in terms of its category for most of the buying public. It sure the hell isn't a sedan. Jay Leno's Garage calls it a sports car - http://www.jaylenosgarage.com/at-the-garage/sports-cars/2011-ford-mustang-gt/ Amazon sells a book called "Mustang: The Affordable Sportscar" - http://www.amazon.com/Mustang-Affordable-Sportscar-John-Gunnell/dp/0873413105 MSN's Most popular sports cars (mustang is #2) - http://editorial.autos.msn.com/listarticle.aspx?cp-documentid=434651 Get the point? I never said that people ignored fuel efficient. I said its not the most important selling point when selling a performance car. Key word: Performance. Nobody is going to pick a Mustang V6 over a Camaro V6 because the stang has better fuel efficiency! Its not a bad thing...buts not the selling point!

You can get 26mpg on a 430hp vette. So the Stang isn't the first to produce both high performance and still have some decent MPG to boot. As I said before, the new V6 gets 45% more power over the outgoing model. That is a feature that should stand alone. It warrants its own text fly-by in the commercial. It need not be combined with 31mpg in order to sell to public, it can sell itself alone. For every spot in that commercial that said '31mpg [insert here]', it should have read "305 hp [insert here]". And then in the last spot, show the Mustang parked in a green pasture full of trees and state "31mpg green". It would be the last feature that is advertised. It hits home. Its the last thing you see, but it doesn't overshadow the fact that this is a 300+ hp sports car...its not the puny Mustang V6 from before ".

Well lets see....there is no more Ford GT. No TBird. Not much else in blue ovals arsenal to call a sports car. So the Mustang IS a sports car for FoMoCo and it has been so for some time. People buy the V6 because its cheap. It has nothing to do with fuel economy. It has EVERYTHING to do with price of the freaking car. Again....31 mpg should not be focus on selling this car. It should be icing on the cake, not the cake itself. Ford is showcasing the icing, and forgetting about the cake. Argument stands.

When you buy a Mustang, what are you buying it for? The MPG or the performance? Even in V6 trim, its still a performance car. There is a striking difference between a sports car and a sporty car. I would call a Mustang (regardless of V8 or V6) a sports car. It is not a sporty car. The Fusion is sporty. You expect a performance car to be about performance. They mentioned the MPG 4 times!!!!!! 4 different times. And when they did tell you about the cars performance, it was referenced it terms of its MPG again. So it was a total of 5 times they told you it gets 31 mpg. Clearly that is the selling point for this car. It gets 31 mpg. But what about...I dunno...the performance? Isn't that a big deal too? After all, this is a Mustang right? What are the priorities for this car? Is the focus to make a fuel efficient car as sport(y) as it can be? Or is to make a performance car still have good fuel economy? Too vastly different philosophies. I think Ford is too obsessed with fuel economy right now. Make it a focal point...sure. But don't make it the focal point. As if to say that the its the primary goal for everything. Especially when your talking about a car that is not about MPG in the first place.

So I am a troll? How do tell...am I a troll?

The first commercial you air sets the tone for what you want to be known for. You might go through many different commercials to highlight specific features, but the first debut commercial sets the stage for the main selling point of the car. In the case of a performance car, I expect that main selling point to be performance related. The first...let me repeat that...THE FIRST...thing they should have mentioned was the new V6 with 305 hp. It makes 45% MORE horsepower than the 2010 model. MPG is a 19% increase. Now, everyone knows that increasing MPG is a far more difficult task than power...which is why it should be touted. But when updated model makes almost 50% more power than the outgoing model, and were talking about a PERFORMANCE CAR, that is the feature. Anyone who looking at a Camaro or a Hyundai Genesis coup now can easily add the V6 Mustang to the list. When before it wouldn't have even been a consideration against the other two. I did watch the whole commercial. Perhaps YOU didn't. For the first 8 seconds, you see the car. And the push button start at the end is about a second worth of viewing time. So....from 10 seconds in, you don't see anything meaningful (no car shots, no text displays of features) until you get almost 30 seconds in. That is 20 seconds of purely useless footage. From there, the remaining two features of the car that are showcases (SYNC and hands free) are done so WITHOUT USING THE CAR. A unicycle acronym for hands free is cleaver, but stupid for a feature you want to display on a car. And what does an umbrella have to do with SYNC? On and that CAR (which is the whole purpose of the commercial) doesn't show up again to almost 45 seconds in. 15 seconds wasted trying to showcase features about the car without showing the car. You never get a real shot of the interior. And when the car does show up, its has 0 focus on the frame. Its just 'there' along with the 20 billion props used on the commercial. Pretty big deal? What is? The 40 mpg maybe? Ok I get that. Thats one feature that is hard to show in a commercial by showcasing the car. You just gotta text-display it and more along. But what about hands free? What about SYNC? What are those things? A customer would walk away never knowing the car had hands free phone and infotainment capability by viewing this commercial UNLESS they already knew it had them in the first place. All in all, you see the car for exactly: 25 seconds...and not even all 25 of those seconds show something unique. There are two basic shots of the car, one far off, and another view of the passengers. That's it! I don't see how you can defend a commercial for a car that barely shows the car. Its nearly as bad as the 'safest car in America' Taurus commercial a few years ago. TERRIBLE!!!!!

Oh, and I know a few of you lemming will be quick to say that performance Mustangs have always been about the GT. You want a real mustang, get a GT. But from a critical standpoint, the V6 has always been laughable. Finally even the base model V6 has some performance features worth mentioning. No longer is the GT the only thing worth mentioning. Remember, the Mustang is a sports car...at least for Ford it is. And I think that the focus of marketing this vehicle should be that the new V6 is about performance first, and its fuel economy as an added bonus. Not the focal point.

I don't know who is signing off on these latest commercials, but they SUCK. Just saw the Mustang Pony car commercial. The main takeaway: it gets 31mpg. The Mustang is a muscle car. Right now, its the only sports car in Fords lineup. It new V6 puts out almost as much power as the old V8. Its almost 100 hp more than the old model V6. By V6 Mustang standards, its in a class by itself. But the main takeway of the commercial: 31mpg. They mention it 3 times! The average Mustang customer is not buying a Mustang (even in V6 form) because it gets 31 mpg. Is 31 mpg good? Sure! Should it be featured? Most certainly. Is it the main selling point? Hell no! And it NEVER EVER SHOULD BE. If it is, then Ford has indeed gone to shyt. This is a Mustang, not a Prius! Fiesta. 40 mpg. Ok....its a great feature. A small, subcompact is suppose to get great MPG. You expect it to get good MPG, thats why you buy one in the first place. But 40 mpg is impressive. But every other subcompact also gets good MPG. So what ELSE does it do besides deliver good MPG?????? Go ahead and showcase the MPG, but can I see something else it does? Can they AT LEAST show more of the car?????????? There are more needless naked unicycle stuntmen who get more more camera time than the car (ok they weren't naked). But Almost the entire commercial is showcasing something that has NOTHING to do with the car. Noting worst than a car commercial that isn't about the car. Ok, I get it...Ford is very much interested in showing the world that Toyota and Honda aren't the only car companies that can make a car with good MPG. But there is a law of deminishing returns. Fuel efficenty doesn't sell sports cars. You want to showcase MPG, do it on the Fusion Hybrid and the Fiesta. The Mustang should be about a 300hp V6 that still manages 31 mpg, not a 31 mpg Mustang that just happens to have 300 hp. Priorities people!!!!!!! Alan Murphy has shown himself to be a very shrewd businessman. I give him a lot of credit. But I also know that he secretly wants Ford to be Toyota. And I get the feeling that his non-car-guy underpinnings are starting to show. A Mustang that is all about MPG is a step in the wrong direction. I think both of the commercials need to be re-done ASAP.

Interior shot of 2010 Fusion: http://z.about.com/d/alternativefuels/1/0/u/L/-/-/10FusionHybrid_24.jpg Interior shot of 2010 MKZ http://www.clutchd.com/wp-content/gallery/19_march_2009-2010-lincoln-mkz/2010-lincoln-mkz-5.jpg Interior shot of 2010 Camry http://images.newcars.com/images/car-pictures/original/2010-Toyota-Camry-Hybrid-Sedan-Base-4dr-Sedan-Interior-Front-Seats-2.png Interior shot of 2010 ES http://image.modified.com/f/26253733/modp_0909_05_o+2010_lexus_es_350+interior.jpg

You taking that out of context. I was saying that the MKZ is basically appealing to set of buyers who are Ford Loyalist (or Lincoln Loyalist), and who don't want to spend a lot of money. That has nothing to do with the comparison of a Fusion/MKZ and a Camry/ES based on price points. The value add of the ES over the Camry has nothing to do with price.