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| 2005 Mustang Awards |
The new Mustang has gathered up a massive amount of awards for its amazing new design, its spectacular well-fitted interior, and awesome performance. Car and Driver, Motor Trend, and SEMA have all nominated the Mustang for special awards. In addition, the Mustang is nominated for Spike TV's upcoming "auto award show", along with a nomination for North American Car of the year. When there's updates, I'll add them to this page.
Motor Trend magazine nominated the new Mustang, along with the 300C and Chevrolet Corvette for its Car of the Year award. Unfortunately, the 300C Hemi won the award. Of course, we could look at this as a loss and say that the Mustang didn't win or we can count this as a win and say that all of the final nominees were American-made. Either way, it was pretty cool that the Mustang was nominated. One thing I want to point out is that all 3 of those nominees are American performance vehicles, while the car that received the award last year was the small, hybrid Toyota Prius. For more information, go to MotorTrend.com
This year at SEMA, Ford was named the Manufacturer of the Year. Running along side of Ford's status at SEMA was its flagship car, the Mustang. SEMA named the Mustang the most "Accessory-friendly Vehicle". The Mustang was up against several different vehicles, including the Chrysler 300C, the Dodge Magnum, the new Corvette, and even the Scion tC. There was a total of 15 aftermarket Mustangs at the show.
Three nominees were chosen for the North American Car of the Year award that will be announced at the upcoming North American International Auto Show in Detriot, Michigan on January 9th. Once again, its competitors are the Chrysler 300C Hemi and Chevrolet Corvette. Hopefully the Mustang wins and is once again the huge success at the show as it was last year when it was premiered. UPDATE: The Mustang was again beat by the over-hyped 300C.
Spike TV has an upcoming 90-minute long "Auto Award Show" that will air on January 25th at 9PM (eastern time). The award show, named "AUTOROX", includes a whole bunch of "ghetto-inspired" award categories like the "Mad-real SUV of 2005", the "Most Jammin' Truck of 2005", and the top award known as "THE Ride of `05". The Mustang is only nominated for the top award where it goes up against the Chevrolet Corvette (for the third time), Lotus Elise, Porsche 911 Carrera S, and the Mercedes-Benz SLK-AMG. *Somehow, no 300C Hemi was included*. The question that will decide whether the show is good is whether they make it a mainstream piece of junk for anybody or they make it a heavenly 90-minutes for car enthusiasts. I doubt the latter choice. UPDATE: The award show wasn't really that good and focused way to much on Carmen Electra's ass and Kid Rock. The Mustang also lost to the new, slow-poke (for 44 grand) Corvette as the Ride of `05.
For more information, go to SpikeTV.com or Autorox.com
Road and Track held their Reader's Choice Award. Readers of the magazine voted for the Best Car of 2005 and the Dream Car of 2005. Unfortunately, there isn't alot of Mustang fans that read R&T (likely excuse...huh?) and the Corvette just so happened to win. The 300C followed behind that in third. Luckily though, the Ford GT won the award for Dream Car of 2005. GOOD GOING FORD!!! For a complete list, go to RoadandTrack.com. For a direct link to the two lists, go here: Best Car and Dream Car of 2005
UPDATE: MotorWeek has given the Mustang the BEST OF THE YEAR award for 2005. Finally, someone has picked the Mustang as the Best Car. GOOD GOING MOTORWEEK!!! Also, another great award that the Mustang has picked up was the Canadian Car of the Year award. It seems that our neighbors to the north know what an excellent automobile is. One other thing I'd like to mention is the fact that the Mustang has received five stars in both frontal crash ratings and a four star side crash rating. If you don't know, those ratings are through the roof, especially when it comes to smaller sports cars. Just for comparison, the Rx-8 got a 4-star driver and 5-star passenger frontal crash rating with 4-star side impact ratings. For more infomation, go to Motorweek, NHTSA, and Canadian Car of the Year
The one last award (for now) that the Mustang was given was when it was included in Car and Driver's 10 best list this year. It hasn't been in the magazine's 10 Best list since 1988 when the good ol' 5.0L was in there. The Mustang has been on the list 4 times (including the new one); once in 1983, 1987, 1988, and now 2005. This year, the list was much more performance based than economy based like it was last year. Below this is an interesting chart that I put together that might reveal something that us Mustang and muscle car fans might enjoy. For more information, go to CarandDriver.com
Cars by Region
T
Y
P
E
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YEAR |
2003 |
2004 |
2005 |
Japanese |
6 |
6 |
4 |
American |
2 |
2 |
2 |
European |
2 |
2 |
4 |
Although this chart doesn't look all that great, try to make the best of it. In 2003 and 2004, the Japanese dominated the list with 6 cars, while the European and American automobiles only had 2. Then, in the 2005 list, we see that the American cars might be coming back. The Japanese and American cars split 8 of the cars, while the Europeans still remain with only 2. Now, here goes another chart showing you the full list of 10 Best awards for the past 3 years.
2003 |
2004 |
2005 |
Subaru Impreza WRX
Porsche Boxster
Nissan 350Z
Mazda 6S
Infiniti G35
Honda Accord
Ford Focus
Chevy Corvette
BMW 3-Series/M3
Acura RSX |
Acura TSX
Audi S4 Quattro
BMW 3-Series/M3
Chevy Corvette
Frod Focus
Honda Accord
Honda S2000
Infiniti G35
Mazda RX-8
Toyota Prius |
Acura TSX
Chevy Corvette
Acura RL
BMW 3-Series/M3
Chrysler 300/300C Hemi
Dodge Magnum
Ford Mustang GT*
Honda Accord
Mazda RX-8
Mercedes-Benz SLK 350 |
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