11-21-08: At the 2010 Mustang reveal at the Los Angeles International Auto show we had a chance to catch up with Mustang design chief Doug Gaffka. The man has been involved with the design of Mustangs for several years and has most recently been credited with the look of the 2008 Shelby GT-500KR.
We asked him some of the questions we have been hearing from readers and enthusiasts around the country. The following is our interview.
TMN: When you sat down with your team to design the 2010 Mustang, what were some of the key goals?
Gaffka: First of all, make it more aggressive. Make it leaner. Make it more modern. Those were the three goals. I think today’s car is nice, but it’s a very linear car. It’s not really aggressive, you have a clean hood. The 2010 has a strong power dome, fender flares, you have the whole basis of the car being sucked in. The front end is tighter. It’s just all about making the car more muscular and leaner.
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TMN: When the 1999 Mustang came out the styling was nicknamed “New Edge”. Many of the latest Ford designs from Europe are called “Kinetic”. Does this new Mustang’s design language have a nick-name?
Gaffka: No. This isn’t Kinetic by any means. This is strictly sculptural. There’s a lot of sensual form and voluptuousness, where today’s car [2005] is more extruded in terms of being linear. This car isn’t linear any longer. The car really wants to sit like a rear wheel drive car so all the weight is planted on the rear wheels with the haunch and the way the beltline tapers. So we don’t really have a name for it, I would just call it sculptural.
TMN: There is a very significant design separation now between the Mustang GT and the Mustang V6. What was the impetus for this?
Gaffka: We wanted to separate them further. We wanted to give the GT in particular a very sinister look. We created this band of black between the headlamps. Even the pony on the GT is black chrome. So we want to get almost a sort of super hero look where you get the little mask where the eyes come through as a black slot. So this is kind of the super hero of Mustangs. The V6 has the color keyed struts around the corral between the hood and bumper. The GT grille surround comes in two different colors in both grey and black, so there’s some variation there. We could probably do it in body color too if we wanted and do all sorts of feature cars. It’s a separate piece.
TMN: The 2005 Mustang was definitely retro. With the new 2010 Mustang, have you expanded on retro or moved on from it as a theme?
Gaffka: The challenge with this car was to make it more modern. And that’s modern in terms of proportionality. And that’s in keeping with I think the times. The car isn’t smaller but we wanted to make it like it’s tighter, wrapped around the structure tighter. A lot of that is in shortening the look of the overhang in the back.
And I think that all the surface development on the car as far as the wheel flares, the hood development, and making the grille smaller in appearance instead of deeper. We made the rear end look wider with the black appliqué and the trim, which all makes it look more modern. I really want to get off of this retro kick because I think so many other cars, you get a BMW or Mercedes - any other car in the world that develops car in sequential design through time, it’s never called retro. It’s called evolutionary.
Whenever we do a car it’s called retro. This car isn’t retro, it’s evolutionary from today’s car and I think moved forward a step in modernity.
