False Start: Here’s the Reason the Mach-E is a Mustang

By John Coyle - December 28, 2020

You might think there was some internal opposition to the Mach-E being a branded a Mustang — and you’d be right.

When Ford first announced that its first clean-sheet electric car was going to be branded a Mustang, there were lots of Mustang fans that howled in protest. But as a story from the Detroit Free Press reveals, the idea of the Mach-E wasn’t exactly popular in the halls of the Blue Oval either.

There were lots of people who had to be brought on board to make that a reality — including someone named Bill Ford Jr. And one key reason it happened? As the article explains, the first draft of the all-electric machine was boring.

Senior Ford executives felt the whole thing wasn’t a breakthrough moment. Ford realized competitors would soon be flooding the market with all-electric vehicles. The 117-year-old carmaker needed to stand out. Their all-electric vehicle, at that point, was unexciting.

Given that the green machine landscape has changed dramatically in the past few years, coming to market with something underwhelming could have been a disaster. So the management team decided to give the project some spice, and building off the legendary name and trademark styling of the iconic pony car was an easy — if not initially popular — way to do that.

So now that the Mach-E is showing all the signs that it’s going to be a smash hit, it’s important to note that Jim Farley was the man who said this project could be a successful proposition.

Now, if you’ve followed the automotive industry for any length of time, you’ll know who Jim Farley is, and you’re likely familiar with his cousin’s work too. As President of Ford Global Markets, he wields an immense amount of power inside the company. But more importantly? He’s also a dyed-in-the-wool car guy.

You can see his car guy cred when he talks to another, slightly more famous car guy in the video below, and in many ways, the Mustang Mach-E is the realization of his vision, as this insight from Mark Truby, Ford’s Chief Communications Officer, makes clear:

The man who put his fingerprints on the design and pushed the designers to get out of their comfort zone and get into new territory, that was very much Farley, Truby said. But it was Hackett who urged the team to reexamine the product line.

Hackett and Farley had to say to Bill Ford, ‘We’re thinking of doing something.’ And Ford, executive chairman of the company and a longtime fan of the classic Mustang, said, ‘You’re not messing with the Mustang, are you?’

While the question might have been intimidating to hear from the great-grandson of Henry Ford, it’s obvious he and the other holdouts eventually came around to the idea. To read more about how the Mach-E came to be, make sure to check out the full article, as it’s full of interesting tidbits, along with some drawings of the initial electric car design, which for the record, I don’t think looks half bad.

That said, to get an idea of the energy that Farley brought to the project, check out the video of him at Jay Leno’s garage below.

Photos: Ford