Special Edition MustangAnyone that has been paying attention to the Ford Mustang lately has no doubt seen Ford and aftermarket companies such as Roush and Saleen produce Special Edition Mustangs with very limited production numbers, usually 500 or less. This usually isn’t that big of a deal. In the past you generally had a V6 Mustang, Mustang GT, Mustang Cobra and some kind of aftermarket Mustang from Roush and Saleen with different performance and styling per model.

It’s not quite the same now with the S197 Mustang. Ford has drastically changed their approach by dropping the Cobra name, which still upsets many Mustang enthusiasts to this day, in favor of the Shelby GT500. After outsourcing the high performance Mustang model to Shelby they continued to churn out more Shelby Mustangs with the Shelby GT, Shelby GT-H, and the recently announced 2008 Shelby GT500KR. That’s four flavors of Shelby Mustangs you have to choose from on top of the V6 Mustang and Mustang GT. The Shelby GT and Shelby GT-H only give a mild performance increase over a stock Mustang GT and the Shelby GT500KR being the rumored equivalent of the Cobra R Mustang, which also saw its demise to Shelby.

Saleen has stayed consistent with their Mustangs releasing the S281, S281 Supercharged and S281 Extreme although they recently announced the 2007 Saleen Parnelli Jones Mustang. So we are up to 8 Special Edition Mustangs right now and we have only looked at two aftermarket companies.

Roush has produced seven S197 aftermarket Mustangs. The Roush Mustang Sport, Stage 1 Roush Mustang, Stage 2 Roush Mustang, Stage 3 Roush Mustang, Roush Stage 3 BlackJack Mustang, Roush 427R Mustang and Roush Mustang Roadster. That’s fifteen aftermarket Mustangs. We aren’t done yet.

When you throw in the Chip Foose Mustang, A.J. Foyte Mustang, Giugiaro Mustang, Legend Mustang, Retractable Hardtop Mustang, Bullitt Mustang and the rumored Boss Mustang you go beyond 20 special edition Mustangs to choose from.

So how many is too many? Do you think Ford would benefit by backing off with the Special Edition Mustangs and make the ones that they do produce truly worth purchasing with decent power and appearance upgrades or do you believe that the current path Ford is on with regard to their Special Edition Mustangs is working well for them with the extra media exposure?

For those that are interested this is the list of Special Edition S197 Mustangs that I was able to compile: