If there is one thing Ford has learned the hard way, it's not to mess with success. So the revised, 2013 Mustang is still recognisably a classic Pony Car - but with even more attitude, thanks to a host of detail changes.
The new Mustang, Mustang GT and Boss 302 will make their world debut today (November 16) at the Los Angeles auto show and, in typical US jump-the-gun style, will go on sale in the US from the second quarter of 2012.
The biggest styling change is at the front, with a new bonnet over a more prominent grille and a stronger, better-defined splitter. The rocker panels along the side, traditionally blacked out, are now body colour, but there's a new, high-gloss black panel between the tail lights.
The Mustang also hasn't escaped the current fashion for LED running lights, with two light bars in each headlight and three red LED bars making up the traditional three-bar tail lights.
A revised wheel selection offers rims from 17” to 19” (the latter in gloss black with machined faces) and, in a special new touch, when you unlock the car a special projector in each side mirror throws a Pony logo on the ground.
The standard V6 engine is unchanged but the five-litre GT V8 has taken a few lessons from its muscular 302 sibling that raise power slightly, to 313kW, while both models can now be ordered with a six-speed Selectshift auto transmission that gives the driver the choice of manual shift for “sportier driving”.
Ford says very specifically that the transmission won't override the driver, either at the top or the bottom of the rev range. Manual, it says, means just that: manual.
Whether it will pass the acid test of allowing the engine to stall in the higher gears, without defaulting to auto mode and changing down, we'll have to wait and see. Despite protestations to the contrary from several European makers, no auto transmission IOL Motoring has driven or heard of will do that.
Options include a Brembo brake package (355mm vented discs, four-piston callipers, 19” rims and uprated tyres) and, on manual V8's only, a GT track package that include the Brembo brakes, an upgraded radiator, an oil cooler, softer brake pads for more initial bite and the Torsen limited-slip differential that's standard on the Boss 302.
Hill hold is now standard, as is a 107mm liquid-crystal performance analysis screen, navigated via a fiveway control button on thre steering wheel that shows either instantaneous fuel consumption or Track Apps such as g forces, acceleration and braking times - and even gives you countdown start on request.
BOSS 302
The 2013 Mustang Boss 302 takes the new styling of the V6 and the GT, - and shoots it straight back to 1970 with reflective hockey-stick graphics down the sides, just like the original Boss (think Eleanor in Gone in 60 Seconds) - it's even available in school-bus yellow, in honour of Parnelli Jones' 1970 Trans-Am championship-winning Pony Car.
The black plastic covers where you'd expect to see front foglights are actually dummies, which can quickly be removed with a screwdriver to provide extra cooling for the brakes on track days.
The 325kW, 516Nm, 302 V8 is unchanged, as are the standard six-speed manual 'box, limit-slip differential and Brembo brakes.
The Boss also has stiffer springs all round, stiffer suspension bushings and a larger-diameter rear anti-roll bar; ride height is 11mm lower in front and 1mm lower at the rear and the 19” hoops are shod with Pirelli PZero rubber - 255/40 in front and 285/35 at rear.
Then there's the Boss 302 Laguna Seca, mechanically the same but with a cross-brace finished in metallic grey instead of a rear seat, and metallic grey trim elements throughout for a non-nonsense race-car look.