Lucas Bell 
When people have an expectation surrounding something they know, they generally don’t prepare for that expectation to change. When Ford announced that an electric SUV would be joining the Mustang line-up, a model that has represented a two door muscle car since 1964, people understandably freaked out. Now that the Mustang Mach-E has been unveiled and the world has gotten a better understanding of the SUV, plenty of people are still unhappy. In fact, there is even a petition out there to get Ford to drop the Mustang Mach-E nameplate.
The petition found of Change.org was launched by automotive journalist Jimmy Dinsmore, who also co-wrote the book Mustang by Design. The automotive journalist believes that the choice to use the Mustang name for Ford’s first attempt at a fully-electric crossover is offensive to long-time Mustang fans, according to his twitter profile. Dinsmore is not alone in his dismay, as the time of writing this article the petition currently has nearly 14,000 signatures at the time of this writing.
At the same time, the Ford Mustang Club of America President has fully endorsed the Mach-E name.
Ford will tell you that they chose to call their electric crossover the Mustang Mach-E so that they would be forced to build a vehicle that lives up to expectations of what a Mustang is. While we understand this explanation as to why Ford chose the Mustang name for the Mach-E, it’s not like Ford doesn’t have a lot of other historic nameplates that they could have borrowed from. You’d be hard pressed to find many people upset if they would have called it the Ford Galaxi-E, and we’re sure the name Prob-E could have drawn up plenty of media attention.
Regardless of how many people sign the Change.org petition, the Mustang Mach-E is definitely going to keep its name. The uproar might make other automakers think twice about pulling a marketing move like this, but what is done is done.
