Looks like a fancy version of the new Fusion. You're right - it's not bad at all, but it's no more a Mustang than the Mazda-based Ford Probe almost was.
I predict that like the Probe, this gets offered alongside the Mustang.
I swear from the back seat of a brand-new '90 we were doing 100 in second gear in about 3.7 seconds.
I've been looking at Consumer's Report and other used- and new-car guides going back to 2004. I collected them while I was saving coin (or trying to) for my 2007 Mustang GT that I got last May.
You're right that the Probe in its day, and now the Fusion, are based on the Mazda 6/626 platform. The Mercury Milan and also the Lincoln MKZ, as well as the Jag X-Type, were all based on the Mazda 6 as well.
The key is the coming 2013 Fusion, due to debut next month. This is part of a top-down corporate strategy, the One Ford strategy, that embraces all the subs and all their models (call it a New World Order for Ford cars).
The drive is toward less choice, fewer models, and smaller cars with smaller "Ecotec" engines. That's why the Mercury line and the much-demanded, police- and fleet-standard, FULL-SIZED Crown Victoria went away and Jag got sold off. The Five Hundred/Taurus is a waystation; it'll disappear, too, because even though it's less car than a Crown Vic, it's still too much car for the money, and Ford wants to sell still-less car, the Fusion, for the same money. With the two hybrid versions, the price band for the Fusion is almost on par now with the last Crown Vics, in the $24,000 - $42,000 range, spread over a ramifying four or five trim levels. (You know you're in trouble when they announce that the car with the equipment you want will be called the "Titanium" or "Platinum" model.)
The Taurus will go away (I predict), leaving the Fusion as the "big" "family" car.
The Fusion is losing its V-6 offerings. The base (in more ways than one) normally-aspirated four-cylinder stays, which puts out about 140 HP, but the only upgrade engines will be a pair of 2.0-liter turbo jobs, the better of which will generate about 211 horse, less than the V-6's make now, or about what the normally-aspirated V-6 that was being dropped into plain-jane 2010 Mustangs made, before the Ecotec 6 showed up with 306 horsepower in the Mustang (and more than that in the uprated Taurus offerings).
Expect all the Ecotec sixes and eights to go away. They're too good for us -- Nancy Pelosi and Barack I Osagyefo have spoken, and Ford obeys.
The Ford of the future will have smaller, fewer engines, less horsepower, front drive, gunking and turbocharger problems, and wider profit margins. That's what is going on: Congressional Democrats plus automotive bureaucrats = GIANT SCREW JOB.
Thank you.