It’s a new day and we all know what that means! Yet another post about the Mustang. Most of us here at Autoblog are unabashed Mustang fans. So when the call comes from Dearborn to drive yet another new Mustang, we invariably set about rearranging schedules. Such was the case last week. No sooner had we returned to frost-bitten Detroit after the LA Auto Show than the call came to return to SoCal. It was time to take the 2010 Mustang off the LA Convention Center stand and out into what passes for the real world in these parts.

Before we hopped into the updated Mustangs, Ford wanted to give us a refresher on what was being left behind. We were supplied with 2009 models to drive from our hotel to the staging area in Malibu. Anyone who has ever spent time in a 2005-09 Mustang is immediately aware that the weak link is its interior. In a word, it looked and felt cheap. The order of the day for the new 2010 model is refinement. Find out after the jump if Ford has made a Mustang worthy of competing in the now crowded class of modern day muscle cars.

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With Dodge having introduced its new Challenger last spring and Chevy’s new Camaro about to go on sale, Ford could hardly stand pat with its current Mustang, which is now four years old. That’s why Henry’s company introduced this new 2010 version of its venerable pony car at the Los Angeles auto show.

The keen observer will notice a close resemblance to the current model in size, profile, and overall shape. In fact, the 2010 Mustang is not an all-new model, but rather a heavily revised version of the current car, with changes concentrated in the areas that called for the most improvement.

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The countdown has began for the announcement of the European ‘Car of the Year 2009′ winner as the organizers released the shortlist with the seven finalists. The cars that made it to the final round of the 2009 COTY are: Alfa Romeo MiTo, Citroen C5, Ford Fiesta, Opel/Vauxhall Insignia, Renault Megane, Skoda Superb and Volkswagen Golf VI. The COTY jury, which is made up of 59 senior motoring journalists from 23 countries around Europe will reveal the winner on November 19.

The COTY’s organizing committee also released a statement in concern of recent news stories that gave the result of a ‘European Car of the Year’. According to the committee, this contest was a national one staged by the Italian Motor Journalists Association and had no connection whatsoever with the ‘Car of the Year’.

COTY PREVIOUS WINNERS

• 2008 — FIAT 500
• 2007– FORD S-MAX
• 2006 — RENAULT CLIO
• 2005 — TOYOTA PRIUS
• 2004 — FIAT PANDA
• 2003 — RENAULT MÉGANE
• 2002 — PEUGEOT 307
• 2001 — ALFA ROMEO 147
• 2000 — TOYOTA YARIS
• 1999 — FORD FOCUS
• 1998 — ALFA ROMEO 156
• 1997 — RENAULT MÉGANE SCENIC
• 1996 — FIAT BRAVO / BRAVA
• 1995 — FIAT PUNTO

When we put the production Ford Kuga next to its progenitor, the Iosis X show car, on our test drive in Belgium, we couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed. The Kuga is a fine looking cute-ute, but lacks the aggressive styling that made the Iosis X such a show stopper. Ford promised to close the gap a little with the Individual version of the Kuga, launched here in Paris.

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Spy shots of future versions of the Ford Mustang are hot properties, no matter what trim level or body style they reveal. And so we struck gold when our spies captured the new 2010 Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 convertible—among the fastest, most desirable, and most collectible of all Mustangs—strutting its stuff outside Ford’s Dearborn headquarters several months before any Mustang is to be shown to the public.

Even better, this working prototype is wearing virtually no disguise other than its charred-Cheetos-on-a-white-tablecloth body wrap—complete with racing stripes, of course—revealing design details we’ve never seen before that will apply to all Mustangs. These include the new, shrunken headlamps, which are now assemblies that include the turn signals. The back end shows the pinched taillamps set high up in the new rear bumper. The freshened skin is somewhat more beveled, with a front-to-back crease and what appears to be some sort of front fender ornamentation. Read more »