Ford Mustang
Published · Researched 2026-09-21
Buy the 2023. That's the whole review, but since you asked for 700 words: buy the last year of the old car, not the first year of the new one.
The S550 Mustang that ran from 2015 to 2023 is a known quantity the way a hammer is a known quantity. The 5.0 Coyote V8 with the six-speed manual is the combination Car and Driver keeps telling people to order, and owners keep agreeing — CarGurus has the 2022 at 4.78 out of 5 and the 2023 at a full 5, with the manual specifically called out as the reason. The 2023 cars also caught Ford's quiet mid-run fix to the 10R80 ten-speed's internals, so even the automatic buyers are getting the better version of the gearbox. At around $33,000 average asking, a final-year GT is the cheapest entry into a sorted, 460-horsepower, rear-drive V8 with a stick that has ever existed.
Now the asterisk, and it's a generational one. The S650 that launched for 2024 is a better car on paper — 480 to 486 horsepower in the GT, 500 in the Dark Horse, a genuinely modern digital cockpit — and a worse ownership proposition in practice. First-year reliability dipped, the 2024s accumulated twelve recalls, and the two complaints owners repeat most are frozen infotainment screens and a ten-speed that can't make up its mind at parking-lot speeds. Then came the recalls that actually matter: 105,000 cars for water getting into body control modules and killing taillights, and in September 2026 a 149,000-car recall for a wiring-harness grounding defect that can cut drive power entirely. Ford says eight warranty claims prompted that one, which is either reassuring or terrifying depending on your temperament. The 2025s improved — J.D. Power back up to 85 — but the 2024 sits inside every bad population at once.
A few things the forums will tell you that the brochures won't. The Coyote drinks oil on some 2018–2020 cars (there's a TSB admitting more than a quart every 3,000 miles and a class action floating around the 2023s — check the dipstick on any used buy). The EcoBoost four is quick and sounds like a vacuum cleaner having an existential crisis; its intake valves cake up with carbon because direct injection never washes them, so budget a walnut-blast past 60,000 miles. And if you tune an S650, know that Ford's over-the-air updates have wiped custom tunes overnight while owners slept. The aftermarket is enormous, the knowledge base is deeper than any car on this list, but the new car's electronics are a landlord you don't get to negotiate with.
The social pulse is a civil war fought politely. S550 loyalists treat the 2021–2023 cars as the last real Mustangs — analog enough, cheap enough, manual available on everything that matters. S650 defenders point at the power bump and the cockpit and say the old car is a museum piece. Both are right, which is why the used market has priced it for you: the 2023 at $33k is the value play, the 2025 at $44k is the new-car play, and the 2024 at $38.5k is neither — it's the launch-year tax with a software-update schedule. One Threads user summed up the V8 case in six words: "There's just something about a 5.0." The counterargument is twelve recalls.
Value call, straight: new GTs start at $46,560 and dealers aren't discounting much beyond clearing 2025s for the 2026s. The Dark Horse at $64,080 is a track toy for people who've already decided. The 2026 Dark Horse SC with its supercharged 5.2 and rumored $170k price is a press release with wheels — UNVERIFIED pricing, ignore it until Ford puts a number on the website. For everyone else, the 2023 GT with a stick is the buy: final year, sorted gearbox, five-star owner rating, and thirty-three grand. If you must have the S650, make it a 2025 and budget patience for the recalls.
Skip the 2024. Buy the 2023. The Mustang remains the cheapest V8 thunder per dollar on the planet, and the evidence says the old car's last year is the one to own.