[Tony Alonso]

Sorry this post took so long!

I told Raj that I had multiple pages of questions mainly related to the Mustang, and of course, as you find when approaching any Ford person about the next car, they politely declined to answer specifics.

However, here are some of the specifics that he shared with the group who attended this event.

Raj, being the driver of a GT500 and a racing enthusiast, says that he wants all Ford cars to perform in such a way that a driver gets out of the car, feeling like they are better drivers than they actually might be :-) Said another way, he wants a driver to feel like the experience was one of mastery of the vehicle's dynamics and leave them with a positive impression. He wants both cars and truck to have "personality" and not just be appliances in the driving experience.

Raj also said that delivering a new vehicle to market is a team sport. He sees his role as ensuring that the engineers are able to infuse the aforementioned personality into it, as well facilitating whatever they can do to bring it to market while balancing cost, quality, features, safety, fuel economy - often conflicting priorities.

Regarding the next Mustang, he did share in general terms that Edsel Ford was extremely enthusiastic about the direction it was taking - design, feature content, etc. He was so enthusiastic they quickly moved into the funding to proceed full steam ahead with a minimum of bureaucracy. Raj said they of course were trying to keep enthusiast in mind along the way. In fact, he pointed out that parts availability is one of the many considerations when they are going through the engineering phases. When I asked him about parts for special edition Mustangs like our Mach 1s, he mentioned that he understands there are certain parts that might be difficult to get after the vehicle is out of production for a long time. He did say that Ford, in general, would be willing to review and perhaps collaborate to have other companies be able to produce them. He didn't make promises, of course, since there is a lot to getting these items released.

Raj mentioned that the input enthusiasts provide through Ford Racing and the Ford Customer Service Division is considered. Since the Mach 1 Registry is in partnership with the Ford Racing group (thanks, Dave Wagner, for agreeing to this), we have a direct link to the company that we can leverage over time.

He did conclude his remarks about the Mustang with the statement that "We will never be all show and no go with the base level car." He said the team's desire is to have a vehicle which is considered dynamically fun, not just styled nicely without the performance.

My general takeaway is that he gets it, and in his influential position as VP of Product Development, he would be pushing for the things that would make the next Mustang as fun as the current and past ones over the last 2 generations.

After the presentation, we were given rides with some of the ride and handling development engineers on the Dearborn Development Center test track. This is similar to what is arranged for those attending Mustang Alley get on the Friday before the event. We did see some prototype 2015 Mustangs that day on track. When I heard what I think was the V8-powered GT drive by, the exhaust note was really quite nice for stock.

I got to ride in a Fiesta ST model. Though powered by a small 1.6 liter turbo engine, the powerband and the handling performance were impressive. It was thrill ride to go airborne on part of the track where there dips on the straightway and in the S-curves. After that ride, I can safely say that we can believe the next Mustang will be full of performance personality.