Mustangs and Corvettes
What's in a name?
Today a digression into cars.
What is the essence of a car? When is a Mustang no longer a Mustang despite being made by the same company and having the same logo? Or a Corvette no longer a Corvette? It also touches on an earlier discussion that Alexander Hellenne started on when does a band stop being itself despite keeping the name - is it when it has no original members? Is it the style?
The Corvette
So let’s start with the ‘Vette. Every generation of the Corvette, even the underpowered and anemic 70’s version that was hobbled by lowered engine pressures and horsepower for fuel efficiency - and to my mind was the biggest betrayal of the intent of the vehicle - has shared visual cues. Some generations, the fender humps were more extreme, and sometimes even less, but pretty much every generation was a dedicated - if heavy - sports car, and not a muscle car. Ergo why the 70’s version to me was the biggest betrayal of the intent. They hobbled the car, trying to market it on it’s reputation as if people who drove a sports car only wanted looks and didn’t care about performance.
Admittedly, the late 60’s iteration drank fuel like an unrepentant alcoholic, as in “watch the gas gage drop when you floor it”.
It’s also why I’m unsure if the current mid-engine iteration is a ‘vette. On the one hand the visual cues are still there, and it is absolutely a dedicated sports car. On the other hand, it’s shifting to a more european tone, and it’s the first iteration that is a mid-engine vehicle. As someone who appreciated both the MR2 (mid engine) and Mazda Miata (front engine) back in the day, those are two very different layouts and flavors for a sports car.
I’m just not sure I quite consider it a Corvette. That said, I don’t think it’s a betrayal of it’s spirit of “America’s pure sports car, designed as such from the ground up” - the 70’s version was, much more so - and it also carries forward the aesthetic of its forebears. I also don’t know that Chevy could pull off a new model name, even if I think it would be the right thing to do, even as a spiritual successor.
The Mustang
The actual sports-car Mustang of the last several generations is also, to me, one of the few “retro” cars that hasn’t worn out its welcome with me, unlike the PT Cruiser and the Thunderbird. Compared to the unsightly and utterly horrid 80’s and less revolting 90’s aesthetic, the redesign understood why people loved those 70’s Mustangs.
Of course, those eras, along with 1974’s “Mustang II”, also introduced a 4-cylinder variant as a fuel efficiency measure, selling the car on presentation and association much as the gimped Corvette did rather than for what it actually did, so it’s little surprise to me that in the 80’s, the aesthetics shifted toward those of Ford’s family sedans looking like nothing so much as a knock-off Escort or Taurus with pretentions. To be fair, ugliness aside, and the 4-cylinder option aside, at least they had a v8 and v6 that could deliver. But the 4? You might not get whatever cachet was left to the name “Mustang”, but you’d get better bang for the buck out of an Escort GT.
The Ford Mustang Mach-E
Well, it has the name. From Wikipedia:
Unrelated to any of the pony car Mustang versions, it is an electric crossover with rear-wheel or all-wheel drive, depending on trim level.
It is literally a Mustang in Name Only. Unlike the hobbled versions of its namesake or the Corvette it isn’t even trying to look like a sports car or pretend to be one. I’m sure it has good acceleration and likely handles OK, and I don’t care. There are a lot of crossover options if I want one that I can actually park in a parking garage.
That bit in Demolition Man where Simon Phoenix blows up an electric police car looks somewhat prophetic.
Now, part of my dislike is, indeed, my dislike for overhyped EVs and the push to impose them on everyone, but it doesn’t change the fact that whatever this vehicle is, it is not the mustang sports car that has been both loved and laughed at for decades, nor its successor, spiritual or otherwise.
The Skin Suit is often the Uncanny Valley to those looking for Truth and Beauty.
The interesting thing about this kind of “kill it and wear it’s skin like a suit” is that many people see it and recognize it for what it is—attempting to sell your (typically failed) vision while cloaked in the trappings of a successful one. They know that Superman is really Clark Kent, not the flavor-of-the-week wearing his outfit; they know that Dot’s Pretzels made by Hersheys is now going to suck; just like they know that slapping the name “Mustang” on a mediocre car built with a wild array of internationally sourced parts is not your daddy’s “Mustang”.
Notice who cares and who does not. The ones who care likely still hold the flame of “the Mustang” in their heads and hearts and want to make it live again, though likely in some other shape and form. Those that don’t care? They are just Consoomers.
As a side note to this, it is rare in the extreme for such skin suiting to last or to recapture it’s audience. The original that has been subverted is almost always returned to it’s former state to even hope to regain ground that has been lost.
As an example from comic books, few if any replacement characters for superheroes have succeeded in the last 80 years. Almost always the replacement fails and the original is restored. That included of course, killing the original, then having to bring them back from the dead. Sorry, Disney.