You will never be a real Mustang. You have no V8, you have no two-door coupé body, you have no RWD. You are a shitbox crossover twisted by designers and marketers into a crude mockery of Lee Iacocca’s perfection.


All the “validation” you get is II-faced and half-hearted. Behind your back people mock you. Car guys are disgusted and ashamed of your existence, your passengers laugh at your fat, unsporting appearance behind closed doors.


Mustang enthusiasts are utterly repulsed by you. Sixty years of ceaseless Mustang production has allowed them to sniff out frauds with incredible efficiency. Even the Ford Probe looked uncanny and unnatural to the Mustang nameplate – its drivetrain was a dead giveaway, and so it never dared to disgrace such a valiant name. Even if you manage to get a drunk car reviewer home with you, he’ll turn tail and bolt the second he’s not greeted with the familiar musk of high-octane gasoline.


You will never be loved the same way even a ’75 Ghia can be loved. You wrench out a pathetic electric whir at every Mustang meet and tell yourself you’re unique and special, but deep inside you feel the corporate soullessness creeping up like a weed, ready to crush you under the unbearable weight.


Eventually it’ll be too much to bear – you’ll malfunction, lose control of your computerized steering system, and plow into a crowd of disgusted onlookers. Your owner will see you, heartbroken but relieved that they no longer have to live with the unbearable shame and disappointment. They’ll send you to the junkyard a mere Ford, stripped of the falsified Stallion they pressed on to you at the factory. And once the rest of your ilk is out of production, every automotive journalist for the rest of eternity will know that you were a marketing mistake made during the peak of the EV fad. Your bodies will decay and go back to the dust, and all that will remain of your legacy is the name that never truly belonged to you in the first place.