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2015 Ford Mustang prototype spotted on the street

Our trusty spy photographers have snapped the first photos of the 2015 Ford Mustang prototype out on public streets. With nearly every square inch of the machine covered in heavy camouflage, it's difficult to discern details, but we can see smallish horizontal headlamps at work in the coupe's nose. Ford has made it clear that modern lighting technology will allow the company to get away from large, expensive headlamp arrays in the near future, and the 2015 Mustang may very well be the first of the automaker's products to bow with the new tech. The philosophy was first displayed on the very attractive Evos Concept.
The extensive cladding doesn't extend all the way to the prototype's rockers in the instance, giving us a look at the heavily-sculpted sills. Overall, this test car looks considerably smaller than the current generation Mustang, and elements like a short front overhang and beefy dual-piston calipers give us plenty of hope for the future model. Of course, reports that the 2015 Mustang will bow with an independent rear suspension and EcoBoost power certainly don't hurt our feelings, either.

Autoblog Podcast #317

Mitsubishi Mirage, Toyota thinks of beefing up US production, Marchionne on Alfa, Dart and minivans, Ford Atlas concept, Honda Gear concept
Episode #317 of the Autoblog Podcast is here, and this week, Dan Roth, Jeff Ross and Michael Harley bookend the other podcast topics with a pair from the Montreal Auto Show, the Mitsubishi Mirage and Honda Gear concept, and in between we talk about Toyota building all its US-market cars stateside, Hyundai building a Nurburgring test facility, Sergio Marchionne's latest words about Alfa Romeo, Dodge Dart powertrains and the future of Chrysler vans. Some chatter about the Ford Atlas concept finishes up the meat of the 'cast and then we wrap with your questions. For those of you who hung with us live on our UStream channel, thanks for taking the time. Keep reading for our Q&A module for you to scroll through and follow along, too. Thanks for listening!
Autoblog Podcast #317:

How and why Ford is rolling out Vignale in Europe

We know that Ford is positioning the new, upscale Vignale brand in Europe to fill a niche market of customers who want a bit more luxury, a lot more service and the same reliability and dependability that a non-Vignale Ford offers. But so far, we've been in the dark regarding how the Blue Oval will sell Vignale vehicles, how many of them will be created, and what the new sub-brand has in store for the future.
Gaetano Thorel, Ford's European marketing head, recently was interviewed by Automotive News and shared details about Ford Vignale. Thorel says, "The Vignale trim line will be priced like an ST model but attract a completely different type of customer." Specifically, he says it will attract customers in the upper 15 percent of the price band who don't want a performance-oriented ST model. He adds that Vignale cars will be about 10 percent more expensive than Titanium-trim cars. About 500 of Ford's European dealers will sell Vignale Fords, Thorel says, "in areas that make sense." The automaker expects 10 percent of its European sales to be Vignale cars, which equates to about 5 percent of its global sales. When asked if there are any other Vignale models planned beyond the Mondeo, Thorel said, "There is nothing written in stone yet."