The “mustang mach E” - while by all accounts a great car - is just an absolutely catastrophic branding decision imo.
A Mustang is a sports car. A Mustang is not an SUV.
Honestly, it’s just so dumb. They could have picked another horse-oriented name if they really wanted to, but this is like calling an electrified Blazer a “Camaro” (to GM: please… don’t…)
Edit:
Good horse names instead of “mustang mach e”:
Clydesdale (honestly, this seems like a slam dunk. The car is heavy, but very powerful, and will likely be used by families as a “workhorse” car)
Andalusian
Appaloosa
Percheron
Shire
Ardennais
And this way, instead of the inevitable profusion of suffixes that special and sporty editions will create, you can clearly differentiate between the “sports car” line and the “electric sporty SUV” line. And do not try to fucking tell me “it’s an electric sports car!” It is not. You are lying to me and you are lying to yourself.
What's really stupid is that like you said, it's actually a great car. It could have stood on its own! Instead, it got a bunch of backlash hate. I wouldn't even look at it for a long time because of the name. After I finally did, I was pretty impressed.
Ford had been annoying people with this stuff for like 40 years. The 90’s and 00’s were full of cars brands that were slapped on random things that didn’t look or feel anything like their predecessor.
Ford is the worst offender (and more specifically the one who does electric SUVs) but the Mitsubishi Eclipse and Dodge Hornet are gas/hybrid SUVs that reused nameplates from sportier coupes on an SUV. I suspect the Honda Prologue might’ve been the Prelude at some point but that’s just a guess. At least that one didn’t get a reused name.
They're still have the same issue but it is not just the EV SUVs. They did the same with their ICE Mustang & Challenger. Although the latter felt marginally better than the former. Almost all cars nowadays have the same issue of looking like chubby babies with fat rolls.
The 14.6-inch vertical touchscreen
Ugh, can we go back to buttons and standard sized head units already? Add another smaller display for EV status or whatever… anything but a massive touchscreen.
I really want a hybrid system of physical and touch controls. There are a few car companies that do this, but it’s not the norm. I used to have an Audi that was physical buttons and a scroll wheel for CarPlay / Android Auto. It was nice, but there were some times when I just want to tap the screen.
Touch screen keyboard would be useful for entering a GPS destination or initial radio programming, but I shouldn't have look at a screen to change the climate controls or pause music.
The bmw solution is pretty good, at least relatively recently it was a touch screen, but also navigable by knob for all the screen features including Android auto, and hard buttons for most everything I want to actually do.
The Polestar 2, the XC40, and the Crown are all the same shape as this Capri. Welcome your new sedans standard shape, it's totally not classed as an offroad vehicle to cheat emission regulations. Those angular lower fascias and high center clearances spitting in the face of aerodynamics are just for style, not approach/departure angle/high center qualifications /s
Yes, the introduced electric version is an hommage indeed. A couple of months ago I read that they are planning to make the Manta a SUV instead. I am not on my own device right now, so I can not provide a source for that right now.
My dad had a 1972 Mercury Capri when I was growing up. I learned to drive stick on that and eventually ended up with in college. That car was so light, you could push it by yourself on flat pavement, hop in and jump start the car.
People my age associate the Capri name with an abomination of a car that was absolutely terrible. One of my high school girl friends had one and it was awful- unreliable and underpowered.