SPEEDZZTER: NOW ON BANGSHIFT.COM!

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Truth With Speedzzter is now providing "front page" content for Bangshift.com. Speedzzter's first article is entitled "The Top 11: Never Made Special Edition Ford Mustangs."

MUSTANG IS THE NUMBER ONE CAR TEENS WANT

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The elite automotive press often makes it seem like only Japanese invader cars are the only ones popular among America's "Fast and Furious," video-game-saturated teen drivers.

Think again.

According to a recent survey reported on Forbes.com, three of the top ten most popular vehicles among teens are Fords. And the most popular vehicle of all? Ford's Mustang!

This is not a new position for the lead ponycar.

Unfortunately, some parents who buy cars for their young drivers don't seem to be as enamored with Ford's iconic ponycar.

However, this survey shows that many of America's kids aren't ready to quietly acquiesce to the Prius-ification of the American highway. Soulless, government-approved FWD Obamamobiles haven't yet captured the hearts and minds of our next generation of drivers.

For Mustang brand manager Allison Revier and the others charged with nurturing the Mustang legacy, it is critical that Mustang be kept true to its legendary V8, RWD heritage and not be diluted into a FWD ProbeStang gelding.

This will be hard under the crushing burden of the Obama Administration hikes in the Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards. However, Mustang is a defining, aspirational model for Ford. Much like some Harley-Davidson motorcycles, Mustang provides an iconic canvas for self-expression. It has strong cross-generational appeal. It is the spiritual successor to the '32 Ford V-8 as a foundation of grassroots motorsports.

Even though most of the current Mustang powerplants (excluding the hyper-exclusive Shelby GT500) are way down on power to GM's Camaro and other competitors, the Mustang remains the true heart and soul of the Ford Motor Company. Other Fords may sell in greater volumes, but the Mustang is the one that Fordophiles care about.

Jim Farley, Ford Group Vice President of Marketing and Communications, told 0-60 Magazine that "The Ford Mustang is one of the world’s most beloved automotive and cultural icons . . .Since April 17, 1964, it has been a symbol of American freedom and fun.”

Thankfully, many of the kids still "get that."

42 M.P.G. CAFE AND THE FUTURE OBAMA-ENVIRONAZI BODY COUNT

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Dreamkilling Barack Obama may have conducted his propaganda photo op announcing the death of automotive liberty in America in the White House Rose Garden, but it's a different kind of flower that will proliferate under the 42 M.P.G. automobile Corporate Average Fuel Economy standard: FUNERAL FLOWERS.

USA Today, which is hardly a reliable bastion of automotive liberty or conservatism, has a "day after" story on the grave safety concerns of the fast track to micro-cars that is sure to result from the Obamanator-Governator-EnviroNazi "deal" to jack up fuel economy to Prius levels by 2016:

The National Academy of Sciences, Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, Congressional Budget Office and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration have separately concluded in multiple studies dating back about 20 years that fuel-economy standards force automakers to build more small cars, which has led to thousands more deaths in crashes annually. Even though the standards were updated in recent years to reduce the incentive for automakers to sell more small cars by allowing different fuel-economy targets for different vehicles, the fastest way to make cars more fuel-efficient is to make them smaller.

Some safety experts worry that the administration's green focus could reverse progress made in reducing the highway death toll. The fatality rate in car crashes reached its lowest ever in 2007 and is projected to drop even lower for 2008 — to 1.28 deaths per 100 million miles traveled.

Of course, it doesn't take a Harvard-trained physicist to figure out that: (a) weight and fuel economy are inextricably linked; and (b) smaller and lighter loses out every time to bigger and heavier. The pre-Obama CAFE was a proven killer. Now the Obamanator and the governator have just made it even worse.

However, the mere mention of hiked fuel economy standards and more "hamburger on the highway" was enough to cause the granola-eating, all-natural-fiber high priests of the environmental left to kowtow Obama into sacking his initial NHTSA nominee.

President Obama this month withdrew the name of his nominee to lead the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, longtime safety advocate Charles "Chuck" Hurley, after an outcry from environmentalists over Hurley's statements linking fuel-economy rules to highway deaths.

(However, sporting motorists were hardly sorry to see "MADD Chuck" go, given that he was poised to be the Obama Administration's stalking horse for a return of the 55 m.p.h. national speed limit)

FoMoCo's face of limp-wristed appliance motoring (other than William Clay Ford, Jr.), Vice President for Environment and Safety, Sue Cischke weighed in with the obvious:

When regulations establish requirements on what people buy, not what we make, if people aren't buying those, we have to offer incentives . . .We can't force people to buy what they don't want to buy.

We already know FoMoCo's favorite incentive is a draconian federal fuel tax . . .

Cischke also gave a clue about the butchering up of the next generation Mustang:

Though it'll be expensive, Ford's Cischke says, a lighter car can be made as safe as a heavier car.

Even before the new regulation, Ford Motor was planning on "taking between 250 and 750 pounds from (each of) our vehicles. That's a huge challenge," she says.

"It's all about managing the energy, protecting the crash cage," she says. "There are ways you can design a vehicle to be very strong, to provide the same crash safety as a heavier one."

Although anyone familiar with NASCAR racing knows that a "cage" can provide remarkable strength-to-weight and protection, the cost and the inconvenience is enormous. Thus, "taking between 250 and 750 pounds" out of the Mustang without using cost prohibitive methods, such as aluminum unibodies and carbon fiber, while at the same time beefing up the "cage" MEANS DOWNSIZING, CANNING THE V8s, AND FRONT WHEEL DRIVE.

If that happens, most Mustangers probably won't care if the ObamaMobile FWD "Mustang IIs" aren't as safe, because they'll be so depressed at the death of the "real" Mustang (V8 & RWD) that they'll WISH THEY WERE ALREADY DEAD!

Across-the-board downsizing is virtually a certainty in the lower-priced ranks because it does no good to build rolling high-tech fortresses of carbon fiber, magnesium, aluminum and dozens of airbags if regular wage earners cannot afford to buy them.

The $1,300.00-per-vehicle average price "tax" that will be extracted from new vehicle buyers to cover the fuel economy technology doesn't take into account the hidden costs of the Obamanator CAFE hike, such as higher insurance premiums that will be required to cover increased personal injury payouts, lost productivity, and manifold pain and suffering that will occur when the ObamaMobile hybrid minicars collide with working trucks or vintage vehicles that survive the Billy Ford and the Democrats' war on historic vehicles (a/k/a "Cash for Clunkers").

But as the highway carnage inevitably rises with the downsizing of the fleet, the radical Obamamaniacs and the freedom-hating EnviroNazis will certainly be waiting in the wings with the final piece of 1970s greeniac nostalgia: The federal 55 m.p.h. speed limit.

CAFE + CASH FOR CLUNKERS = FOMOCO'S "ONE-TWO PUNCH"

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No doubt about it, William Clay Ford, Jr., Alan Mulally and the other radical greens at Ford Motor Company threw the automotive enthusiast and racing communities "under the bus" when they caved in to the infamous Obama-Schwarzenegger 42 m.p.g. Corporate Average Fuel Economy deal, and supported the disguised bailout/corporate welfare plan known as "Cash for Clunkers."

The company that's been gouging us for years on the overpriced Shelby GT500s, and which further plans to rip-off more of its most loyal customers with the bogus, V8-less Taurus SHO, is likely planning to use the OBAMA-nator's artificial market limitations to line its corporate pockets and kill off virtually all OEM rear wheel drive performance vehicles.

Under this fetid "deal" "Truth With Speedzzter" predicts that the vaporware "Coyote V8" will have one of the shortest careers for a mass-production engine ever.

Ford will wholly abandoned all pretense of serving the traditional RWD V8 enthusiast as it does backflips to cajole us into tiny, expensive Fiestas and other mini-cars that RWD V8 lovers will absolutely hate.

Whatever the OBAMA-Schwarzenegger-Eco era "Mustang" becomes, it's likely that current V8 ponycar customers will reject it as a worthy successor (even as Ford has done its dead level best to lag behind in the Second Supercar Era horsepower race with undersized V8s constructed with the weakest, cheapest, most worthless possible internal components). Of course, factory-paid journalists and propagandists will extol the virtues of the next generation wimpy, V8-less spiritual successor to the horrible 1974 Mustang II and the awful FWD Mazda-Probe-stang.

When that happens, there will be little if any reason for any Ford V8 traditionalists to darken the doors of a Ford dealership. The only thing that will be left of eighty years of affordable V8 performance tradtion at that point will be fading memories, and the dwendling number of collector Fords that somehow manage to escape the jaws of Billy Ford's "Cash-for-Clunkers" crushers.

Ford's "eco" politicking is simply a one-two punch to the guts and the wallets of its most loyal customers.

About the only other thing that's certain is that everything will cost a lot more.

Car Connection had this analysis:

The only reliable prediction, in fact, is that it will cost more--simply the cost of developing low-consumption new cars and advertising them to an uncertain public.

More involved is the dynamic for used cars. On the one hand, used-car prices are sure to rise as consumers can no longer buy a brand-new Chrysler 300C or Cadillac STS--as those companies get out of the big rear-drive-car business and shift their product mix heavily downward in size and engine output, some will opt instead to buy used and see how the new cars size up later. Since there will be a shortfall of new models as automakers spin on their heels to meet the new rules and to change American tastes roughly overnight, there will be a resulting shortfall in used cars as well. Shutting down production of bigger new cars now means fewer of them for sale later--and at the same time, more of you will want recent-model used cars that are bigger and safer on average, when compared to what you'll be offered in 2016.

Also pushing used-car prices higher: proposed cash-for-clunkers legislation. While some think it's yet another sop to the rich, giving a credit to people who can afford new cars, cash-for-clunkers deals also pull used cars with some value off the market. According to the Detroit News, under a plan still wending through Congress, drivers who turn in a car getting less than 18 mpg and purchasing one with fuel economy better than 22 mpg would get a voucher for $3,500 to $4,500 off a new car. Those incentives might very well take good used cars off the market for families that need low-cost used transportation.

Whatever the end result, the car of the future will look a lot less like today's Chrysler 300 and Ford Crown Victoria and a lot more like the 2011 Chevrolet Volt and the 2011 Ford Fiesta. Of the roughly 300 models sold in the U.S. today, about 130 meet a 30-mpg standard--not the nearly 40-mpg goal that will be required to blend with truck requirements and meet an overall goal of 35.5 miles per gallon

In other words, pay a lot more and get a lot less. Just like back in the 1970s.

FoMoCo and William Clay Ford, Jr. in particular, of course, apparently don't care about any of that. The Panther's dead. RWD is dead. V8s are dead. The Mustang as we know and love it is now on death row. Obama's plugging the wimpy hybrid Escape. And they're most likely giddy about all of that.

And they'd probably be happier if the Obama-Schwarzenegger assault on vehicular liberty destroys the "business case" for SVT, Ford Racing Performance Parts and Ford's support of motorsports. The appliance motorists in the Glass House will raise a toast with the liberal U.A.W. at the death of factory-built "American Muscle." The bean counters and "Steady Eddies" left in FoMoCo's bureaucracy will celebrate the "deproliferation" of high-performance options, just like they did in the 1970s.

As long as the per-widget profit margin is high enough, most of the hacks at Ford Motor Company would be happy building glacially-slow, one-cylinder plug-in hybrids. They simply just don't care about serving the wants, needs, and dreams of potential customers in the high-performance V8 market niche.

They will decry market-based oil imports as dangerous to "national security" even as they hypocritically become more beholden to cheap imported components and materials from Communist China and other places that categorically oppose America's national security.

And when the cookie-cutter, expensive new OBAMAmobile FWDs do not sell in sufficient volume to be profitable, William Clay Ford, Jr. and his paid public relations henchmen will undoubtedly be lobbying the Democrats for a draconian increase in the federal gas tax as a means of "re-educating" Ford customers to what Dearborn thinks is best for them.

The sad thing is that the thouands who would have enjoyed GT500-level RWD performance, had it been packaged in a more affordable form, will never have the opportunity.