If ever a car illustrated how out of touch a company can be with its customers, it's the Mustang. It wasn't long ago that an accountant-rich, enthusiast-poor Ford was about to shoot the most revered stallion in its stable and replace it with the latest 4-cylinder, front-wheel-drive bar of soap from Mazda. Think about that: America's favorite sports car could have morphed into a 110-horsepower foreign economy car, then died in 1997. No more Mustang.But thanks to a fervently faithful crowd of Mustang owners of which Ford was previously unaware, the past unraveled along a different timeline. Deep passions fueled a very vocal, angry campaign to stop the blasphemy before it could begin. It worked: Mazda's creation instead came to life (and death) under the name of Ford Probe, and even if the 1979-engineered Mustang lived on with the same skeleton for many years, at least it lived.And you know what? No one cared that the Camaro was faster, that the imports were more lithe, or that Ford held an ongoing lie about the size of the "5.0-liter" engine. Mustang sales remained in the six digits year after year, and this limitless enthusiasm encouraged Ford to bring back the glory. Pony car fans, your day has arrived. Here we are with the first all-new Mustang in 26 years.