How Much Does Curves Cost

In Charge: The 2012 Mustang Boss 302

Recently, an erroneous report circulated through the esteemed halls of our nation’s local news stations that Ford was killing the CD player in its cars and would begin the process next year.

As it turns out, those who actually read the press release know that the automaker is only removing the “multi-disc player” from its youth-oriented Focus compact, as it finds that more and more drivers carry their music around on iPods, iPhones and other devices with names that shouldn’t begin with the letter i, but do. A slot for a single CD remains and all other cars in the lineup are spared the change…for now.

Nevertheless, the move does presage the beginning of the end for the CD, which surely will one day join the cassette, 8-track and even the LP record as a historic form of in-car audio. Next up: the exhaust pipe.

Electric cars don’t have them. Hybrids only use theirs part of the time. Soon they will be replaced en masse by speakers that fill the void with artificially-created sounds to warn pedestrians that they are about to get run over by a zero-emissions blob in the process of saving the rest of the planet.

All well and good, but for those of us who prefer listening to the sweet song of internal combustion while we’re driving cars, rather than Weezer covering The Cars, there is also good news from Ford. And it’s as analog as AM radio.

The 2012 Mustang Boss 302 is and -- given the state of environmental politics today -- may always be the most powerful naturally-aspirated production ‘Stang ever built by Ford. To achieve this, the 5.0-liter V8 from the standard issue Mustang GT has been given a thorough makeover with a new racing-style short-runner intake system, CNC-machined ports, forged aluminum pistons and connecting rods, lightweight valvetrain components and a host of other changes that act as a giant Breathe Right strip to increase the flow of air into and out of the motor, providing a boost in power from 412 hp to 444 hp. But its engineers didn’t leave it at that.

You can’t see it in most pictures, but to take full advantage of its newfound lung capacity the Boss has been fitted with a quad exhaust system. Along with the pair of 4-inch pipes out back, there are two additional oblong outlets tucked under the sides in front of the rear wheels -- directly below your ears. I would describe the result as the automotive equivalent of Quadraphonic sound, except that there’s more. As is the case with the GT, a sound induction tube pumps engine noise directly into the cabin, so what we’re really talking about here is the mechanical engineering equivalent of Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound.

Eoghan O'Neill: In which I ask a lot of questions about pricing ...

Certainly not me; I operate at the grubbier end of the shoe market. Caldwell, however, commented, "When behavioural economics can answer this, we've won." Caldwell's blog Knowing and Making and Twitter feed are both essential reading; they're the sort of effort that make one wish they had studied economics at university (or even at school). I know next to nothing about either pricing or behavioural economics (Caldwell's specialities) but I have read snippets by Ward Edwards and others on the marginal utility of money and perceived price, and it set me on a daydream. The starting point is that the actual price of a product, and the price that the consumer thinks  it costs are different entities. The relationship between actual price of a good, and its perceived  price by a consumer is not necessarily linear. It might also depend on the product, sector, economic circumstances or, of course, the individual consumer and his whims. If you ask people "which do you think is more expensive, good A or good B?" for a range of products, then you can roughly calibrate a "perceived price" scale - which, after all, is going to drive the purchase decision far more than the actual  price of the product. This got me wondering: if the perceived price depends on the individual consumer, for a given product, under given test conditions (economic circumstances, etc), if you were to plot a histogram of those perceived prices, what would the dispersion of the curve be? And how does perceived price change depending on the consumer's income, and indeed over time? These aren't just "nice-to-know" theoretical questions. If your company's product is the same price as a competitor, but people think it's more expensive, then this will very likely have an effect on the purchase decision, all other factors being equal. Although whether it's a good thing to be perceived as more expensive is not necessarily clear cut, either; it might be offputting (consumers might opt for the commodity they think is cheaper) but on the other hand if "more expensive" equates to "more desirable" then it may be an advantage ( - although then, presumably, that brand's prices are set too low.So the prices received - and indeed the perception of the speed of price change - will surely be different between the bus fare, beer, washing powder, a packet of crisps - or designer shoes. Perceived value for money may depend on external factors.

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