Any time a new generation of Mustang comes along the design becomes a polarizing issue, and we as Mustang fans seem to have short memories with regard to the outgoing generation’s design. As cool as the retro-new S197 body style has become, we can remember it having plenty of detractors among fans and the press when it first debuted. Comments were, that it’s too big, it doesn’t look tough, Mustang design should keep progressing -not go retro, were all screamed. Ten years later the S197 is loved by most, and heralded as the best Mustang to date.

When spy photos started coming out of the 2015 S550 Mustang, and then the big reveal, we heard similar cries, and imagine that we’ll continue to hear them for quite some time. The fact remains that the design must evolve, or lose sales and thus lose justification for the model to continue being built. The 2015 in-spite of it’s revolutionary new look, still retinas many Mustang hallmarks, and Ford has released several drawings, videos, and interactive graphics to demonstrate key Mustang DNA that has been carried over.

The Shark-bite nose, which is canted forward and the trapezoid grill are both design elements that will continue. Along the sides, the hockey stick shape remains, as it has since it was revived 20 years ago for the 1994 model. The fastback look is also still there, a mark of the Mustang since it’s debut in 1964. The tri-bar tail lights also remain in the rear, something that came back in 1996, although Ford tried to evoke that image with the horizontal bars in the 1994-95 tail lamps. Inside the twin-brow dash, something that sort of disappeared with the Mustang II and even the Fox body, but came back in 1994, is carried on as well as the round shaped gauges which were revived in 2005.

Whether you love or hate the new design, there’s no denying these elements are present in it, and as such the Mustang will carry on, and continue with DNA from it’s past, but always moving towards the future.