‘The Bridge to the Future of Mustang Design’: Mustang Interior Design Manager Reflects on Evolution of Pony Car’s Design

Growing up in Tijuana, Mexico, Ricardo Garcia – as well as customers, media and the rest of the automotive industry – was awed by the 1986 Ford Taurus. His father drove one, and its futuristic aerodynamic shape inspired Garcia’s artistic passion.

“I was sitting with my jaw open when he brought it home because of ‘Robocop,’” said Ricardo Garcia, Mustang Interior Design manager, of his father’s car, several of which were used as police vehicles in the 1987 film. “I was so excited about it. I used to draw it a lot. I used to sketch it and say, ‘I’m going to work at Ford,’ and here I am. It’s been a dream come true. Ford has always been good to me.”

While Garcia admired and sketched the car relentlessly, the company also gave him an assist when it came time for him to take his talent to the next level academically. He initially took night classes at city and community colleges in California. He later attended ArtCenter College of Design, where he received a Ford scholarship that covered tuition and supplies.

“That was the first indication I wanted to work for Ford,” he said. “I’m always very grateful for the company and happy to be at Ford.”

Garcia started at Ford in 1999 as a product designer with the components team and would go on to work on the fifth-generation Mustang. He left the company in 2004 but remained in the automotive industry before returning to Ford in 2016, when he would go on to serve as interior components manager on the Mustang Mach-E. Recently, he worked as the interior design manager for the all-new, seventh-generation Mustang.

Inspired by a jet fighter cockpit, the interior of the Mustang has been completely redesigned. Customers were invited into the research phase to examine the new interior, moving items around as they saw fit.

“Ultimately, the exercise showed they were more engaged with the cockpit-style interior,” said Garcia. “It’s the fun part of the design process for us because it’s like having a canvas, but we also had to consider the essence of Mustang. It was very challenging for us in design to disrupt an interior in an icon.”

Garcia called the new Mustang’s interior a modern interpretation that retains the essence of the Mustang, as evidenced by elements such as the new flat-bottom steering wheel. Offered for the first time outside of Ford Performance Mustang models, the wheel retains traditional design cues such as three spokes and a deep dish. It also has an improved grip.

“The flat-bottom wheel has this performance feeling, and when you grab it, you’re feeling really engaged,” said Garcia, “The team lobbied to make the wheel standard on all Mustang models.”

Garcia’s team also looked for inspiration from the car’s exterior to help create a cohesive design, such as with the register vents in the car’s center stack.

“We wanted it to look sharp, but we didn’t want to make it overly refined because we’re trying to retain the American icon in Mustang,” he said.

The car’s interior also integrates today’s technology and connectivity, creating a gaming-like experience as part of what Garcia called “the most technologically advanced interior in Mustang’s history.”

“It had to adapt to our new ways of using technology,” he said, “These changes will make the Mustang more competitive in the marketplace. We didn’t want to just have a big display, we wanted to design it according to what we wanted to achieve.”

Other updates include a shift away from Mustang’s traditional “double brow” on the dash. Moving functions closer to the display freed space to create a more open center console and a storage bin that includes a phone charging mat.

“Our changes open up the interior for the driver and the passenger,” said Garcia.

The Electronic Drift Brake, developed in conjunction with professional drift racer Vaughn Gittin Jr., blends well with a performance approach to the interior. Also helping disrupt the Mustang’s interior, Garcia’s team also engaged millennial and Gen Z designers and engineers in 2020 for their input.

“We wanted to bring Mustang to a new generation,” he said. “It really helped us a lot to design from their input.”

That feedback emboldened the team to move on from the “double brow” to an angled and curved display. The younger designers and engineers appreciated the new approach, calling it driver-centric and engaging, Garcia said.

Garcia is very proud of his team and acknowledged all of the design updates would not have been possible without the collaboration of the Mustang engineering team, which led to the brow-less display cluster.

“This Mustang is a dream come true,” he said. “This is the bridge to the future of design for Mustang.”