2010 MUSTANG.

2010 Mustang Gets A New Pony Badge

With the unvieling of the 2010 Mustang coming in November Ford has decided to tease us a bit with a look at the new pony badge set to adorn the front grille of the V6 and GT models. From first glance you notice several things different about the 2010 pony badge, for starters it has a dark tinted chrome finish that gives it a stealthy look. Also the lines on the badge are crisper and more defined to give it a more muscular look. Another difference are the hoofs on the pony actually come to a point unlike the previous year badge which were rounded. The last thing I noticed is this pony badge gets an eye unlike previous year�s badges. Could this pony badge be what we will be expecting with the actual 2010 Mustang model, a more defined, muscular, crisper, stealthier looking Mustang, this could be what Ford�s going after.

After the jump I have added high-res photos of the new 2010 pony badge and the press release.

Press Release:

Curious about what the 2010 Ford Mustang looks like? Its new pony badge offers a clue. Like the upcoming restyled Mustang, the new pony is more defined, more muscular and sure to catch the eye of Mustang enthusiasts.

�It�s just a faster-looking steed,� said George Saridakis, Design manager for the 2010 Mustang.

A stronger, more dynamic pony badge with defined edges and crisper forms in a subtly toned tinted-chrome finish will charge across the grilles of the V-6 and GT versions of the 2010 Mustang. For the first time, a black-chrome version of the Mustang pony badge will accent the new GT grille.

�We wanted to give the Mustang pony a more realistic feel,� said Douglas Gaffka, chief designer for the 2010 Mustang. �We lifted the head to make the pony more proud, tipped the neck into the wind to give it a feeling of greater speed and better balance.

�It�s more chiseled and more defined and looks more like a wild horse,� Gaffka added. �It�s more realistic in terms of proportion to an actual Mustang.�

Senior Designer Rick Howard spent hours researching images of horses and understanding their appearance in natural, wild settings. That effort, along with his personal riding experience, helped bring forward the design of the Mustang pony badge.

Like the Mustang itself, which was revealed at the 1964 New York World�s Fair, the Mustang emblem has a proud heritage. The original Mustang logo was drawn by Phil Clark for the Mustang I. The Mustang logo then was refined for the Mustang II in 1974 by Charles Keresztes, a former member of Hungary�s Olympic equestrian team. The pony continued on the front grille through 1978 when it was replaced by �FORD� in block letters through 1982. The iconic Ford Blue Oval graced the front of Mustangs through 1993. The pony emblem returned in 1994 with some refinements. The logo was updated again in 2005.

For Howard and the team, creating the new badge was a labor of love.

�We�re very much concerned with detail and precision in our cars at Ford, and that includes the art we do,� Howard said. �We want our Mustang pony badge to be as good as the rest of the car.�