Back in the summer, I screwed up big time by losing the fob to a shiny new Ford F-350 Super Duty. The people of Ford were so kind and caring throughout my whole ordeal and had even sent out a driver to give me the second key to the truck. That driver raced from Detroit, Michigan to Hagerstown, Maryland, just to save my silly self.
That driver was like a knight in shining armor. He arrived right there in the calm between two major storm systems, the second of which would have ruined the interior of the bricked truck. My hero’s horse? A Mustang GT California Special from Ford’s press fleet. Apparently, since the driver was so willing to help me out, Ford let him drive any car he wanted.
The Mustang rolled up to the hotel with that distinct Mustang 5.0 V8 growl. But it wasn’t the sound that caught my attention the most. So many cars today are painted in boring, monochromatic shades. Everything is so white, gray, or black. This Mustang put a little color on the current trend. Yes, it was silver, but it also had lots of splashes of blue, from the badging to the grille. Pictures don’t do it justice because, in person, that blue is striking and beautiful. I also enjoyed how the blue continued inside, breaking up the sea of sleep-inducing black.
Photo credit: Ford
Would I have preferred the whole car to be painted in a dashing blue? Of course! But I’m also a sucker for cars wearing contrasting colors. It’s part of why I adore the Smart Fortwo so much. I’d also love the California Special if it were inverted and it was blue with silver accents.
Thomas wrote about this car in 2023 and most of our readers agreed with him that it was one ugly unit. I fully admit that I have questionable tastes. I mean, I did intentionally own two high-mileage Volkswagen Phaetons, four high mileage Volkswagen Passats, and just attempted to purchase a 190,000-mile Chevrolet Corvette C6. That ignores the five Smarts that some of our own readers have tried convincing me to get rid of. There’s no denying that I genuinely love the unloved.
But to me, if we’re going to be stuck in this world of everything being a dreary gray, black, or white, at least give me some color in other places. The only thing I really didn’t like was the fact that adding a splash of color added $1,995 to the price of the GT.
Photo credit: Ford
To me, the crossover version of the California Special, which adds $2,495, is nice, but way too mild. From a distance, it just looks like any other Mach-E to me. But the interior is really solid. I would have loved to see truly blue seats in the coupe for sure.
Either way, I’m going to dig my heels in and say the coupe version of the California Special is the better one.