Maybe offering it as an option would please everyone, but you're going to have people on both sides of this one. The secretaries will check the box with the heavier IRS, be slower, have to deal with wheel hop, pay more, and break more. Good news is, she can put on her lipstick on the way to work.
I don't wear lipstick. I drive fast.
I'm going to check the only box that matters: SRA.
For the record, the Mustang has outsold all those cars that "cater to the secretaries buying needs" for decades. Because it's a Mustang. Not because it's trying to be a "sports car" as you put it. Save that for the 65 year old guy in the Vette that will never go past 2,000 rpms. He probably doesn't want to spill the dish of wet dog food on the floorboards for Fluffy.
I think an IRS would potentially make the Mustang a "sports car". Problem is, we don't want a sports car, we want a 'Stang.
BTW, I know you've driven the new one, Sam. That was directed more generally than at you, but I knew it would let you relive your road trip.
__________________ Have: '89 GT 5 spd.
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If Ford ever comes to their senses on the rear suspension there wont likely be an option for one or the other. That would be too much brain damage on the production line, on sales lots, and for every part of the picture.
If it is done right, IRS is not always heavier. In fact, it can be lighter. Most importantly, getting rid of the live axle gets rid of unsprung weight which is MOST of the handling problem with the design in the first place.
If it is done right, you don't get uncontrolable wheel hop. That is not a problem in any of the high powered Mercedes and BMW's I have driven, nor was it a problem with my 2003 Corvette Z-06 (which by the way I owned in my early thirties and romped on it silly to the redline all the time). It was only a problem in the 1999-2004 Cobra which had an aweful IRS that was cobbled together to a price, and made to fit in a car made for a live axle.
If it is done right, it does not break more. BMW, Mercedes, and even Chevrolet have 500+ horsepower cars with IRS that dont break like the 1999-2004 Cobras did on the race tracks. But most people breaking those were hammering them on the drag strip. Again, that is less that 1% of the total buyer makeup. Why should 99% be ham-strung with a clunker for the 1% who want to drag race. Ford Racing can offer up some high end parts for them that can take that. But again, that system in the 1999-2004 was TEE-RASH as it was massaged by the same bean counters that didn't want an IRS in the first place. It really gave IRS a bad rap in the Mustang realm.
In the end, when you start charging as much for a Mustang as a BMW M3 or any thing else that betters it in specification you are rolling the dice in a losing game of you come to the table with inferior nuts and bolts. You have to compete with the goods if you are to be taken seriously in the big game. This is 2010, not 1969. Times have changed. Ford will eventually come around.
__________________
There are reasons for things. Sometimes we don't know why, or by whom those reasons are. But there are reasons for things. There are no things without reason.
For all of you who are bemoaning the lack of IRS in the Mustang I have just one question, well, actually two.
First of all, have you ever owned a high performance car of any sort with an IRS? I have. I currently have a 99 Cobra that I have owned since new. Granted, this was Ford's first attempt at an IRS in the Mustang and it definitely could have been done better. While the Cobra has very nice road manners it absolutely sucks at hard acceleration from a dead stop. I also owned a Thunderbird SC for several years. Same thing. If you try anything more than half throttle on a wet highway below fifteen mph in either car all you get is instant wheelhop. And that is just everyday driving, not drag racing on the strip. Oh yeah, there are things you could do to combat the wheelhop like installing extra bracing, harder bushings, etc., but not everyone wants to be modifying a brand new car that is never going to be raced.
My second question is have you driven a new Mustang with the factory SRA setup? I cannot say that I have either but from all the road tests and comparisons to the Camaro and Challenger I have read it seems pretty obvious that Ford has managed to make the Mustang a better handling car than either of those. If the only drawback is that it might jump sideways in the middle of a bumpy corner at illegal speeds then I would say it is a SUPERIOR design for a street driven high performance car, especially one in the price and horsepower ranges of the Mustang. Call it whatever you want but if it works better in everyday driving than the ones I have owned with IRS then I say if it ain't broke don't mess it up with something that is heavier, more expensive to build and more expensive to fix and that is arguably MORE of a compromise on this type of car.
There is also one other point I would like to emphasize and that is platform sharing. The Mustang does not currently share its chassis design with any other Ford product. Granted, the 2005 chassis was developed using some of the elements of the last Thunderbird, Lincoln LS and Jaguar S Type platforms but in the end the Mustang didn't even use the front suspension design from those cars much less the IRS.
On the other hand, the Camaro shares it's chassis design with the now defunct Pontiac G8 and the Holden sedans from Australia where it was originally developed. Similar for the Challenger. It shares it's chassis design with the Charger, Chrysler 300 and previous generation Mercedes sedans. All this means that those other brands have the cost advantage of sharing their chassis design. The Mustang does not.
If Ford decides to follow GM's path and design the next generation Mustang and Australian Falcon around the same chassis then we may yet see another Mustang with IRS. I just hope they do it right.
......
First of all, have you ever owned a high performance car of any sort with an IRS? I have. I currently have a 99 Cobra that I have owned since new..............
Re-read post number 12 above
__________________
There are reasons for things. Sometimes we don't know why, or by whom those reasons are. But there are reasons for things. There are no things without reason.
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