As of late, the Blue Oval company has been thinking hard about motorsport activities like the introduction of the Mustang GT3 and GT4 racers or the bonkers Ford Performance SuperVan 4.2 that competed recently in the 2023 Pikes Peak International Hill Climb and came out second overall.
But maybe they should instead focus on bringing out the seventh-generation Ford Mustang to the market as soon as possible. After all, it will remain the lone flagship of ICE-powered pony and muscle cars when Chevy ends production of the Camaro nameplate after the Collector's Edition plus ZL1 Garage 56 limited series and when Stellantis finally morphs the Charger into a Banshee EV hero with nine levels of zero-emissions power.
We are only giving advice, though – and the corner office head honchos are free to do as they please. But already, everyone is robbing the S650 Ford Mustang of its most attractive attributes, such as the different styling DNA deployed for the EcoBoost, GT, and Dark Horse variants. And, as it turns out, even the imaginative realm of digital car content creators wants a piece of the Coyote V8 pie.
Just recently, we saw various pixel masters start thinking about the S650 Mustang from an SUV perspective – though not the Mach-E everyone would expect. Instead, the CGI experts decided the upcoming facelift of the U625 sixth-generation Explorer mid-size crossover SUV needs to adopt some of the Mustang GT and/or Raptor R traits to make customers happy (again).
Now Dimas Ramadhan, the virtual automotive artist behind the Digimods DESIGN channel on YouTube, has also taken up the task of revealing a refreshed Explorer SUV - in CGI and with ample 2024 Ford Mustang GT references. Well, that would be interesting indeed – if we had a Ford Explorer EV in Europe that mixes its stylish design with the VW MEB-based EV architecture and also a different, larger Ford Explorer in America that 'stole' some design traits from the S650 Mustang GT series.
The main elements of the new Mustang GT – such as the different front fascia plus the arrow-shaped rear LED lights, do not necessarily look bad on the sleek Explorer body, as it turns out. It's just quirky to see the pony badge on the radiator grille of the Explorer and not the Mustang Mach-E. Anyway, it remains to be seen if any of these design specifications actually make it into the final design of the facelifted Explorer crossover SUV. Until then, please remember to take all this with a healthy dose of salt, as nothing is official just yet. But, of course, it would be pretty neat to see the big and hulking mid-size SUV return to a 5.0-liter small block V8 lifestyle, this time of the feisty Coyote variety, right?
Aurel has aimed high all his life (literally, at 16 he was flying gliders all by himself) so in 2006 he switched careers and got hired as a writer at his favorite magazine. Since then, his work has been published both by print and online outlets, most recently right here, on autoevolution. Full profile
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