Ford Ranger, Missed Muscle, and Mustang GT!

The automotive landscape continues to evolve, but midsize pickups maintain their special appeal—offering substantial capability without the urban parking nightmares of their full-size counterparts. Ford's completely redesigned 2024 Ranger emerges as a compelling option in this space, bringing sophisticated design and impressive performance credentials to the segment.

Jeff's Car Culture takes a look at some of the Muscle Car Misses that no one really misses.

Then we get a look at the Mustang GT - the 7th generation of an iconic pony car that started an automotive revolution.

The Lupe' Tortilla Restaurants
Lupe Tortilla in Katy, Texas

Gulf Coast Auto Shield
Paint protection, tint, and more!

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

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Transcript

2024 Ford Ranger Review

Speaker 1 0:04

All right time now for this hour's car review. Had a chance to drive the 2024 Ford Ranger midsize pickup truck. Final assembly location Wayne Michigan.

Speaker 2 0:15

Yeah, baby.

Speaker 1 0:16

Available trim levels XL, xlt, lariat and Raptor. Now I will tell you that I drove two Rangers back-to-back. I just got out of the Raptor, which I'll review next week. This is not the Raptor. Okay, so it falls under the XL, xlt and Lariat trim levels. I had the SuperCrew 4x4 Lariat Standard pickup truck, midsize, as we call it, five seats in it. It was all new for 2024.

Speaker 1 0:49

Exterior features Ford-esque styling with attractive grille design. Body side sculpting on regular trims adds to the overall look. And I say regular trims because the Raptor has got different trim and different sculpting on the side. Didn't know that had to look. Full vent on the front fenders like that. Tailgate and rear lighting are modern and add to its attractiveness. Overall, this truck gets high marks for exterior design. What could use improvement? Nothing. Interior highlights Again high marks for interior design. What could use improvement? Nothing Interior highlights Again, high marks for interior design. Ford knows trucks and they know how to build them and they did a bang-up job on this one. This trim level comes with larger infotainment screen Looks and works great.

Speaker 1 1:39

Cubby above the glove box is really nice. It's a handy feature, especially for your passenger. Materials throughout the cabin are nice and they're also of the heavy-duty variety. So it's not going to be the lush, plush velvet in Mom's Cadillac. In that, what I liked. Even the cloth seats are attractive and comfortable. What could use improvement? Some instrument gauges are a little bit too small for these old eyes to read clearly, for instance the gas gauge. Oh boy, it's tiny and you've got to really pay attention and look at it.

Speaker 3 2:16

You've got to look for it.

Speaker 1 2:17

You've got to look for it. And once you get there, okay, where is the gas? Is it a quarter of a take? I really can't tell. So if that matters to you, then complain.

Speaker 1 2:28

2.3 liter turbocharged four-cylinder, that turns out 270 horsepower, are you going? Oh well, that's not much. Yeah, it's matched actually pretty well with this midsize truck 310 pound-feet of torque, 10-speed automatic transmission. Tow rating 7,500 pounds, that's a lot. Haul rating 1,800 pounds. Now, manufacturer miles per gallon City 19. It's rated 23 on the highway for combined at 20. I averaged 21.1 miles per gallon over 406.9 miles.

Speaker 1 3:02

What I liked about it plenty of pep and capability with this engine-transmission combination. And the reason that they're able to get away with 270 horsepower is that 10-speed automatic transmission. And we talked to the guy at Stellantis last week that forget the drive ratio in the rear axle. These days they do it all in the transmission and man, I'm telling you that 10-speed automatic transmission, sweet, makes a lot of difference. Yeah, it really does.

Speaker 1 3:29

Ride and handling is great, especially for an unloaded pickup truck, because really to be a true tester you need to put about 1,000 pounds in the bed and or tow something with it to get the real gist of what that truck is made for. If you're just going to buy the truck because you like the way that it looks great, you don't have to worry about it. It's still a good ride. But to do it the right way you've got to put a load on it, and I didn't do that. Shame on me. Did you say it was a compact or a midsize pickup? It's a midsize. The compact is the maver in just a second Ride and handling great. In my opinion, we could use improvement.

Speaker 1 4:07

If you want more of this size truck, get the Raptor. You'll understand why when I tell you this Base trim price $55,620. Prices tested $60,050. Base model price $32,670. Shop, shop, shop this truck if you really are interested in that size truck. Now competitors the Chevy Colorado starts at $29,500. Now the Ford, again, base is $32,670. Base on the Chevy Colorado $29,500. Toyota Tacoma starts at $33,700, right in the ballpark with it and the smaller Ford Maverick and I threw this in there just so you get an idea the smaller Ford Maverick starts at $23,920. That's $10,000 less on a starting price than the Ranger. Does it have the capability? No, it's a smaller, it's a different truck, but I thought it would be interesting to know what's the difference. Well, I like the Maverick, but I like the Ranger not quite sure. Don't really care about the size as much. Well, the Maverick is definitely smaller, but starts at $23,900.

Speaker 3 5:17

Yeah, so you've got the Maverick, the Ranger, the 150, and the price steps up accordingly. Yeah.

Speaker 1 5:23

But overall I really did like it a lot. And you know I go back to the original Ranger. You still see those stupid things on the road. They've got to have a million miles on them and the guys that have those, they take care of them.

Speaker 2 5:37

Yeah. Nothing wrong with that? Nothing wrong with that at all. You can't replace them.

Exterior and Interior Features

Speaker 1 5:42

That's right. You can't, and I'm sure that there are plenty of replacement parts available for them as well. All right, if you'd like to get in touch with us, shoot us an email. The address here is info at inwheeltimecom. We're back after this quick break. We appreciate you, and time now for Jeff's car culture Classic cars that didn't live up to expectations. I bet you there's a ton of those.

Speaker 2 6:12

Yeah. Well, what doesn't and doesn't qualify as a failed ugly muscle car should be pretty straightforward. Do they lack engine power or they look like they've just been replaced? It's enough to sway opinions negatively on its own. Do they shove gas zipper engines into what should be a sports car? More to the point, does it take a classic muscle car nameplate and turn it into something as a bad economy car? Well, we're about to find out. So here's one Fifth generation Dodge Charger with only 84 horsepower. What, yeah? That's why I paused.

Speaker 2 6:43

Offered by the time of the early 80s, dodge at least attempted to lend some sporting credentials to this generation Charger with an optional turbocharger for its engine. Shelby even put a unique performance touch on a handful during his brief exodus from Ford. Still, this was nothing more like the Chargers that we know and love, and its reputation just went downhill. Next one we have is a Ford Mustang II King Cobra. In fairness, people really do like the look of this, and they're fond of it for this generation of Mustang. Never mind the newly minted emissions restrictions that laid waste to the engine power, the Mustang II King Cobra did at least look the part Still 139 horsepower from a 302 cubic inch V8 was underwhelming in the mid to late 70s. Add the blob-like styling and the Mustang II King Cobra cemented its status as a pariah, one that will never be held in the same regard as before Let me ask is that a bird on the hood?

Speaker 2 7:46

That is a bird. What do they call it? A screaming chicken from Pontiac.

Speaker 1 7:49

No, but they stole it from Pontiac. I don't know.

Speaker 3 7:52

That looks really more like the screaming chicken, not a thunderbird.

Speaker 2 7:55

Whatever, maybe it's a dragonfly or something. A dragonfly?

Speaker 3 7:58

No, I think that's a snake right there at the front. Oh, it's King Cobra, there you go, yeah. Yeah, there's a snake, Mike got it Ding ding ding.

Engine Performance and Capabilities

Speaker 2 8:04

Well, the next one we got is Snake with wings, Sixth generation Olds 442. Many of the much beloved second generation Olds 442s left the factory with a mighty 455. I had a 455 in my 71. What's that? One got 4.5? No, it was a 455. By the time the sixth generation hit the scene, there was little left for the original Flair. It was kind of laughable.

Speaker 2 8:27

There's no DNA shared with the older cars in this visual department whatsoever. It's just a mid-'80s Cutlass Calais with a 2.3-liter Quad 4 output of 180 horsepower. But that depends on whether you have the W40 or the W41 designation.

Speaker 2 8:44

At least that's the number GM claimed back in the day. The next one Don will love this one is a C3 Corvette after 1973. That's important to know. I had one. Take this with a grain of salt, don, because vets from the C3 era are starkly divided between pre-'73 gas crisis models and the ones built afterwards. I had the one afterwards After the oil crisis. The Corvette platform, continuously neutered year by year to the staggering degree, goes along with my personality doesn't it.

Speaker 2 9:15

Big V8s that once cranked 350 horses or more, suddenly found themselves making a fraction of that, 150 horses or more suddenly found themselves making a fraction of that. The most, I should say the worst of the worst, was the 1980 California spec Corvette with a 305 V8, 180 horses. That's what mine had, yep.

Speaker 3 9:32

That's all you got from that motor.

Speaker 2 9:35

Yeah, it was a disgrace. So two were the looks altered by years and years of design Body lines became softer, curb weights rose and the C3 Corvette became a large, less aggressive-looking vehicle. And the last one I have on my list is a ninth-generation Chevrolet Impala SS. Credit to it. The ninth-generation Impala SS sported a 5.3-liter.

Speaker 1 9:56

LSV8. No pipsqueak of an engine.

Speaker 2 10:00

On that alone, any coupe or sedan could have the foundations of a great muscle car, but the Impala SS simply fell flat in that regard. Trim-specific alloy wheels and a small spoiler that you could just easily find on a Honda and some SS badging well, which wasn't that great. But there's a difference in the Impala SS from one of its lower, less powerful trims. It's just a normal-looking mid-size-ish sedan by most expectations. Did we mention that it's front-wheel drive? I don't think we did, but that's part of it as well as an affront to historic nameplate that people know and love. The Impala is by far the worst offender of disrespecting of his ancestors. Two thoughts here.

Speaker 1 10:43

Did you see Cletus McFarlane's post this week? No, I didn't.

Speaker 2 10:46

I don't follow him.

Speaker 1 10:47

Where he had an Altima race. There must have been 75 Altimas at his racetrack down in Florida, All racing at the same time on the same track. It was absolutely hysterical. All front wheel drive cars. They were doing donuts with front-wheel drive cars out there in the middle of the field. It was absolutely hysterical. And the other thought going back to this whole stuff with the SS badging, it's kind of like having a Cadillac and putting the V emblem that you bought from the Cadillac store into a regular Cadillac.

Speaker 2 11:20

Yeah or an.

Speaker 1 11:20

SRX.

Speaker 3 11:21

That'd be great. Or get one that's like three sizes too big to make sure it really stands out.

Speaker 2 11:26

No, you have to be proportionate. If you're going to do it, if you're going to try to fool people and be a clone, be proportionate. Mine was an actual, honest dealing, even though it wasn't it was. That's all I'm going to say. So why don't you tell that story? When I was on the road for American Tire, I'd drive to San Antonio, I'd drive to Dallas and the local Corpus Christi's and stuff. Anything beyond that it would fly.

Speaker 2 11:52

So I've Cadillac, I'm a Cadillac guy, I had a lot of Cadillac friends and dealerships and things and I used to get my car washed quite often, sometimes twice a day. Hey, you know what do you charge for car wash? Well, let me have your keys. We'll have it done by the time our meeting's done. So you have an hour and a half meeting. Your car's all spick and span Didn't cost you nothing, didn't cost me nothing. So there's one time I took it in and they said we got a little issue the 3.6 brush machine that they were washing them. Okay, put a new one on. We don't have one. It's going to be several weeks. We've got to get it from Detroit. They've got a guy with a smelting factory in Europe or wherever. He's got to make one. So I said, all right, what do you got? Well, we've got a V, put it on. So they did.

Speaker 3 12:33

There's the story of the V6. Yeah, there you go, v-cert.

Speaker 2 12:37

Thank you, Michael. He just verified my whole conversation there there you go. Yeah, and it stayed on there to the day I traded it in. In fact, I think I got more money because they thought it was a, V and well Time Car Talk Show continues after this quick break.

Speaker 1 12:55

Good morning, let's get to this hour's car review. We're a little bit late doing that.

Speaker 3 13:06

Mr Morris has the GT Ford Mustang that he wants to talk to us about, and I really do. Now, this is the seventh generation of the Ford Mustang, so it's been around a while. It's got some new sheet metal lines on it, but this is the Mustang GT.

Pricing and Competitor Comparison

Speaker 3 13:14

Premium, that's good looking brother. Yeah, it is. Now this car comes in four trim levels Excuse me, five, I can't count Five trim levels with the GT Premium being the top of the line, just short of the new this year Dark Horse. It's really kind of more of a track car. Now this car is assembled in Flat Rock Michigan. All right, it is the 2024 GT Coupe. Premium is the trim level that we're working with, and for some reason your government calls it a subcompact car, which I Okay. It does say it will seat four. I want to point out.

Speaker 1 13:53

It's a four-seat sports car. Let's just leave it at that.

Speaker 3 13:55

It's a four-seat sports car that only weighs 3,800 pounds, so it's nice and light. Front seat, I want to point out legroom 44.5 inches Rear seat. Legroom 29.0 inches Legroom rear seat. Put the little ones back there. Up front, you're going to find that you've got the Mustang lighting approach lamp. So you've got the little Mustang emblem. That's really cool looking on the ground. Automated auto LED headlamps, led lights. We've got the sequential taillights. That's something that I've always loved about the Mustang. Mine's got that.

Speaker 3 14:33

I really like that. It looks really cool. Rain-sensing wipers. Got the Brembo braking on it, black calipers with white lettering. It's kind of different for the GT package. It's got a rear wing on it. It's called the performance wing because it's not just a little spoiler sticking up there. It's got some angles and some things to it that's supposed to help it whenever you get up over speeds you're not supposed to be doing on the street. It's got the active valve exhaust system. Now I love this. Got different settings you can put on it. You're on the track. Got a track mode. You can put the exhaust on. It drowned out all the road noise Really cool going down the road. But it's also what I got. Got what I call the 2 am setting. You want to come home at 2 am, kind of quiet. You can put it down and it muffles it down.

Speaker 1 15:12

What do you know about that?

Speaker 3 15:14

people that need to kind of speak up.

Speaker 2 15:16

He's such a liar. No, he's just always coming in at 2 o'clock in the morning.

Speaker 1 15:19

Exactly. Well, he's meeting his granddaughter that's just coming in the front door from work at half the night, yeah yeah, and we were rolling on some optional 19-inch wheels.

Speaker 3 15:29

It has some 355 gears in the back of this thing, so it's got a little juice on it. So it's got what I really liked it of some of the newer age styling on it, but it's got a lot of the classic mustang touches, you know, like the taillights and the hood scoop, things like that. Now you get to the interior and this is where it's been. Some updates done got a black leather, onyx leather trim across the interior front bucket seats. The rear seat is a split folding. You've got ambient lighting on the inside of it that you can adjust. Now what's new is it's got a 12.4 inch lcd digital instrument cluster that you can adjust. Now what's new is it's got a 12.4 inch LCD digital instrument cluster that you can adjust and kind of range the way you want it. 13.2 inch LCD center stack screen.

Speaker 3 16:08

This is where you're going to find your convenience controls, your navigation, your audio, the whole infotainment system setup. It also has a wireless charger down at the bottom of that stack and it's kind of vented, but for mine it was. It made my phone hot and it was actually shut down for some reason. Uh, kind of weird on the way that worked got paddle shifters, 12 speaker, bno audio system and it's the. It handles the ford sync 4 is what is the infotainment system, and I thought it was a little slow reacting so I could literally crank the car up back out and be headed down the road before it cycles up and brings up all the things that I want to mess with one that I'm supposed to say I want to go back to the bno sound system, isn't it?

Speaker 1 16:50

the bno railroad used to be a bno railroad, yeah but you gotta pass go yeah go ahead up under the hood 5.0 liter v8, this is the engine.

Speaker 3 17:00

They've had in it for several years, different variations. This one has 480 horsepower, dang At 7,150 RPM. Now it also has 486 pound-feet of torque at 7,200 RPM. So you've got to wind it up. And when you get up, it's all up there in that upper power band. We had the 10-speed automatic behind it. Now it up, it's all up there in that upper power band. We had the 10-speed automatic behind it. Now the epa says you should be looking for about 16 miles to the gallon city, 24 on the highway and 19 combined. I drove this vehicle 446.5 miles and I averaged 18.6 miles per gallon in it and I was quite happy with that, considering considering your lead foot well, it becomes very obvious with the lightweight and high horsepower why you see so many of these out on the road, driven by younger people.

Speaker 3 17:43

It's easy to get into it, it really is.

Speaker 1 17:49

The throttle is what he's talking about.

Speaker 3 17:50

Yeah, yeah yeah, well, I say I like the styling on it. It does create some vision issues, a few little blind spots whenever you get to the pillars, particularly on the Fastback model. And you can if you're low riding in it, if you're being cool and low riding it's definitely there Got a typically firm ride for a sports car, but you can turn up the audio and the exhaust and drown out all that. Business Base trim price on this vehicle is $47,390, which is another reason you see so many of them $47,000, okay.

Speaker 3 18:23

Yep. The base model price is $31,920. And I want to point out that that is a 2.3-liter EcoBoost engine with 315 horsepower, so this is not a stripper model with no juice to it. Our MSRP is tested $61, 61 580. Had a few options on it, looking for something to compare it to I mean obviously the dodge challenger that they don't make anymore, but I found a 2023. They started around 30, 24. Chevrolet camaro starts at 32 495 and the 24 nissan z started at 42 970. So there's some more two-door coupe, small four passenger vehicles that you can compare it to, but it's it's definitely the mustang. If you're looking for a mustang, it's one you're looking for thank you, sir.

Speaker 1 19:13

Time now for the cruise.