Ownership Verified: I was looking for a new car. Instead I got a horse...

Congrats. Nice choice of car. Is this the first horse of this generation on FG?
 
Yeah no, it wasn't me with the surprised face.. Since I am probably not completely innocent in terms of him ordering it to begin with.. ;)
 
Congrats. Nice choice of car. Is this the first horse of this generation on FG?

I don't think so. Maybe the first among the European FG'ers, though.
 
No gear stick proof pic? I don't believe it's yours :tease:

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:p
 
Wow! I was not expecting this. Brilliant choice, and love the colour (Ruby Red is close to the Octane Red of my Dodge). It's a great car, and may it bring you hundreds of thousands of kilometres of sublime joy.
 
So, I arrived back home savely from Ringmeet and the odometer shows now 1100 kilometers. Time for a quick interim conclusion and some more detailed explanations about my decision to buy a Mustang.

Ever since it came out in 2015 and Ford announced it will be available in Europe for the first time, I had been playing with the idea of getting one. At first it seemed like a completely bonkers idea because on first glance, the Mustang is a crazy choice for a European: It's got a V8 motor with 5 liters of displacement, it emits 299 grams of CO2, which is bad for the planet and the fuel consumption almost never gets in the one-digit area (liters/100 km). Also, it's American and American cars have a reputation here of being horribly built and often unreliable.

On the plus side: The looks, the image, the heritage, the coolness factor, the sound, the fun, the power, the speed and the fact it's not your boring average run-of-the-mill Audi/BMW/Mercedes, etc. The Mustang is unique, it's a class of its own. Nobody can say something "Oh nice, my grandfather owns one as well, only as a diesel", which will happen for instance, if you buy an AMG Mercedes. If you buy an M3, everyone will ask you if you have a Turkish passport yet and if you meet with your friends at the McDonald's parking lot every night. If you buy anything Audi or VW, everyone will tell you "But basically it's just a Golf underneath, right?"

Nothing of that will happen with a Mustang. Instead, strangers come to you from everywhere, making compliments about your car and start talking to you. People turn their heads and smile when you pass by. Yesterday a Passat driver cranked down his window and stretched his arm out and gave me a thumbs up, when I overtook him on the Autobahn. Suddenly you are popular :blink:

And you'll get a naturally aspirated V8 with a manual gearbox. Which the German competition simply don't offers anymore. Also, like in many other fast cars, there isn't a monkey on your back that constantly tells you to floor it. Yes, it goes like stink when you want to but it's also a very comfy cruiser and you don't give a damn when some cock in an Audi overtakes you. You know you could catch him anytime if you wanted. Yesterday, on the way back from the Eifel, a Golf VI R was behind me. I accelerated long enough to show him he lost, then I pulled over and let him pass. No need to prolong his suffering. He's already punished enough by driving a Golf. I know that feeling.

And then there is the price. 44,000 Euros. Might seem much for an American but it's half the price of a BMW M4 or anything else from a German carmaker. You can spec a Golf GTI up to that price here, no problem. And all you have then, is a VW Golf. You can also get an Audi A4 with a 1.6 liter diesel engine for that price. The prices of German cars are ridiculously insane at the moment.

In the end, I told myself that I'm 51 years old and when if not now? I mean, who knows if V8 motors are still allowed in ten years from now?

So, after careful consideration and throwing my rationality overboard, I decided to not buy a new Tiguan or something else that my mom would consider sensible, and ordered the Mustang. The current state of the German car industry with all its cheating and lying and trying to get away with fraud and cartel agreements, completely confirms that my decision was right. So I traded in the Tiguan after the warranty wore out and am now owner of a Ford Mustang.

Mind you, though, I am NOT a U.S. car fan. Frankly I quite despise the whole U.S. car fan scene here, with its rituals and the tendency to only meet at U.S. diners in cowboy boots while listening to country music. I bought the Mustang because I like this car and not US cars in general. The Mustang is basically an offer you cannot refuse because it ticks all the boxes in the brain of a petrolhead.

I put down the order on October 10th, 2016. I only told Thomas and Adunaphel about the order and asked them to not tell anyone because I wanted it to be a surprise for next Ringmeet.

Back then I was told that delivery would take six months, so probably April 2017. Enough time for next Ringmeet, right? But nothing happened. I registered at a German Mustang 6 car forum and learned that you can track the vehicle by its VIN, which will be created roughly a week prior to production. This is what it looked like in the system back then, when all seemed to be fine:

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But by March 2017, I still didn't have a VIN. My dealer couldn't help me with it because for some reason the communication between Ford USA and Ford Europe is abyssmal. Finally, in May, I received the VIN and learned that our American friends at Ford had simply lost the order in their system for five months before finding it again. The Ford Order tool wrongly stated the order date as March 24th!

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Nobody ever bothered to tell my dealership or even Ford Europe. I only found out because through the Mustang forum, I had contact to someone who works at Ford in Cologne who has better access to the systems. Yeah... Ford - a real global player :rolleyes:

Finally, the car was built on May 19th and then got shipped to Europe. And by then they had also corrected the order date again:

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I could track it with the VIN across the Atlantic aboard the "Fidelio" - which is a really nice feature, by the way - and it was unloaded in Bremerhaven on June 25th.

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Then the waiting began because no tracking possible anymore from then on.

One week passed - nothing. Two weeks passed - still nothing. Three weeks - zip. I called my dealer several times but they were helpless as well because the logistics company that's responsible for upfitting and delivering the cars to dealers, simply doesn't have a contact person or a phone number you can call. You are practically forced to wait. I saw on the Mustang forum that people whose cars had come with the same ship, already received their Mustangs - in Bavaria, in Berlin, everywhere. Only here, 50 km away from Bremerhaven - sitll nothing.

So I was already planning to attend Ringmeet with the Tiguan again - which I would have absolutely hated at that point, not to mention the fact that it would put another 1000 kilometers on the car I was about to trade in for the Mustang, when finally the delivering call came on Friday, August 4th, almost six weeks after unloading the car in Bremerhaven and six days before Ringmeet.

I received the car the following Tuesday, two days before Ringmeet. I really wish for no one to go through such a tense waiting period. And may I remark that my Ford dealership behaved very commendable all the time - only Ford itself kinda sucked.

Here are a video and a few pics I made with my mobile phone the day the car arrived in town:

https://www.flickr.com/gp/28478121@N02/hN1Dh0

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But the one thing I can say with absolute certainty is that it was worth the wait. I love this car. It's not made for long, fast Autobahn runs, though. It gets quite a handful at high speeds and you have a lot of noise inside. But that doesn't matter because it wasn't made for that. You can give it the beans for a moment when you fell like it and then you're satisfied.

For the first time in my life I chose the risky option. I received a car that has character, something that can't be said anymore about 95 % of all other cars in the world. And I'm happy about it. I haven't stopped grinning behind the wheel ever since :D

I'm probably going to take some more pictures with my Canon during the week and post them here :)
 
You know what's great? Your story on getting it because it only adds to the experience and character of the 'stang. :) That startup video, that noise, I'm so happy another person has ditched a tiny engine in favor of a V8. There really isn't anything more pleasurable then the sound of a V8 noise coming out of a set of tailpipes. I know, I grin every time I use the remote start and hear Vladof come alive. :D It just makes me all warm and fuzzy inside. :cool:

Looking forward to those pics!




P.S. I'm really digging those Euro-spec tail lights. Any chance you could snap a video of the rear of your 'stang with a turn indicator on? I'm curious how that would look with amber lights sequentially.
 
This is fantastic! Always am a fan of new Mustang GTs on here, but one in Europe is even better. I hope you get many many miles of enjoyment out of yours. I'm right around 50k miles on my car and I still can't stop myself from grinning ear to ear each time I drive it.

There are only two things that bother me a bit: the tank could be bigger and I have no idea why the filler cap is on the left side and can't be locked.

There is a locking cover you can get for the filler. https://accessories.ford.com/locking-fuel-plug.html
Not an elegant solution but better than nothing if you're worried about that sort of thing.

Congrats. Nice choice of car. Is this the first horse of this generation on FG?

I believe Nabster has an S550.


P.S. I'm really digging those Euro-spec tail lights. Any chance you could snap a video of the rear of your 'stang with a turn indicator on? I'm curious how that would look with amber lights sequentially.

Euro Mustangs loose the sequential indicators.

 
That's part of the "brake lights can't also be your turn signal" rule over there?
 
Brake lights have to be red and turn signals have to be amber, so in consequence, yes.

Also, and I have to repeat myself for the 1000th time here: What an absolutely brilliant purchase! You did everything right!
 
Euro Mustangs loose the sequential indicators.


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That's too awesome of a feature to lose. Why couldn't they use those dual function LEDs to avoid this problem so you can keep both the sequential turn indicators and brake lights when not indicating?
 
The Mustang is awesome enough on German roads without the sequential indicators :)
 
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The Mustang is awesome enough on German roads without the sequential indicators :)

You're completely right, but, those sequentials.... :drool:
 
The factory Euro indicators are still tons better than the usual crappy conversions I see, with amber bulbs wired into the reversing lights etc.
 
I suppose I could understand indicator regulations, but why don't the Euro GT's have the little hood vents?

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Never noticed.. potentially pedestrian safety regulations. Which is what changed hoods in the past years.. and hood angles, heights, slopes, space between the engine and the hood.. all those..
 
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