The Mustang is one of the most popular Ford cars of all time. They’ve been depicted in movies and there’s an entire culture of Mustang-lovers throughout the world. Since the Mustang market such a huge and successful market, the engineers at the Ford Motor Company are anxious to hear the concerns of Mustang owners to help keep it one of the most popular cars in the world.

To find out what Mustang owners wanted in upcoming models, Ford’s chief Mustang engineer gathered 40 members of his team to do some research. They flew from Dearborn, Michigan to Tampa, Florida where there are more Mustang owners than anywhere else in the world. They interviewed about 70 performance car owners, including several Dodge Charger Owners and GTO owners as well.

The team from Ford identified themselves as a general marketing group so people would be honest with their interview answers. They compared the answers from Mustang owners with the answers from other performance car owners to see if the former was more passionate about their vehicles. Is there any surprise that Mustang owners were much more passionate when talking about how great their cars are? Overall, they were extremely satisfied with their Ford Mustangs.

In addition to that, the researchers also found the majority of complaints coming from owners of other performance vehicles that weren’t made by Ford. According to Ronnie Ahmad, a Ford product specialist, the experience was encouraging in that it was “very interesting to hear the pride in Mustang owners’ voices.” He went on to say that one woman compared her Mustang to a Transformer because it “makes her feel like a superhero.”

With this type of passion and dedication, is it any wonder why the Ford Mustang is one of the most recognized icons of the American auto industry?