A Faster Horse

As the fiftieth anniversary of the Ford Mustang approaches, the company decides to redesign the car. It is not a simple decision: this is a model carrying fifty years of legacy, with millions of devotees, and identified with Detroit itself. Dave Pericak, the engineer in charge, has to produce a new car without breaking the old one. There is also a vibration in the steering wheel that will not go away. David Gelb, who made Jiro Dreams of Sushi, is looking at the same thing here: how a craft gets handed on. The inside of the plant, the design rooms, the test tracks and the workers on the line are all shown together; the work of an industrial city just out of a crisis rides on this car too. The title refers to a line attributed to Henry Ford, though whether he actually said it is doubtful.