500-HP 2005 Ford Mustang Giugiaro Concept Tested on the Track

Originally published in the March 2007 issue of Motor Trend under the headline "Pony Expressed," this story examines the one-of-a-kind Giugiaro Ford Mustang Concept. Fabrizio Giugiaro, the 41-year-old styling director of Turin-based Italdesign Giugiaro SpA (founded by his father Giorgetto Giugiaro in 1968), admired the redesigned 2005 Ford Mustang so much—rating it alongside the Bentley Continental GT and VW Phaeton—that he asked Ford chief creative officer J Mays at the 2005 Detroit auto show to build a concept on its platform. Following Giorgetto Giugiaro's 1965 Mustang concept for Bertone and after a pause to complete the 2005 Ferrari 612-based GG50 concept marking Giorgetto's 50th anniversary, Fabrizio and his father developed the Mustang Concept over 30,000 man-hours, finishing it in September 2006. It debuted at the November Los Angeles auto show, appeared at the Detroit show in January, and was tested at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway road course ahead of its European debut at the Geneva motor show in mid-March.

Built on the production Mustang's 107.1-inch wheelbase, the two-and-a-half-box fastback measures 185.2 inches long, 78.3 inches wide, and 53.7 inches high—making it more than two inches shorter, two inches lower, and over four inches wider than the standard car, with a manufacturer-claimed curb weight of 3,300 pounds. Its lightweight carbon-fiber bodywork features front wheel arches flowing into a one-piece nose clip with a pony-cutout grille, 20-inch O.Z. Racing wheels, arrowlike three-bar vertical LED taillights, and electrically operated Lamborghini-style scissor doors controlled via dash buttons. A single-arc curved crystal roof panel made by Solutia in Detroit filters out 100 percent of UVA rays, complemented by fixed polycarbonate door windows that Giugiaro considered replacing with glass before Geneva.

Inside the four-passenger, two-door coupe cockpit, chrome-ringed analog gauges sit on a door-to-door glossy black Plexiglas dash housing three TV screens fed by rear- and side-view cameras instead of mirrors. A connecting-rod-shaped chrome shifter controls the 5-speed manual transmission, the engine starts with two pushes of a dash button, and the cabin is upholstered in orange and dark-brown cowhide styled to resemble horsehide.

Mechanically, Ford Racing fitted the SOHC 24-valve 4.6-liter V-8 with an intercooled twin-scroll supercharger running 11 psi of boost to produce an estimated 500 horsepower, enabling an estimated 0–60 mph time of 4.3 seconds. The chassis incorporates Ford Racing's Mustang GT Handling Pack with lowered, stiffer springs, shocks, and thick anti-roll bars, plus Brembo brakes added by Italdesign. On the Las Vegas track, the multi-million-dollar prototype drives with the confidence of a Shelby GT500 despite minor show-car squeaks and ripples in the glass roof. Fabrizio Giugiaro confirmed the concept is not a preview of the 2010 production Mustang, serving instead as Italdesign's fully functional calling card for American automakers.