A 1965 Ford Mustang with autonomous driving... that isn't quite so autonomous

The challenge of Ford presenting an autonomous 1965 Mustang at Goodwood didn’t go as well as hoped, although it’s clear that autonomous driving is the future.

Autonomous technology promises to be the future of motoring: in a few years we won’t have to touch the steering wheel to reach our destination. However, to learn to walk, you first have to crawl. One of the clearest examples of this saying has been provided by the beautiful Ford 1965 Mustang Siemens, in an attempt to turn a classic into a self-driving car at the recent Goodwood Festival of Speed.

This fully autonomous model had a performance at Goodwood that didn’t go as well as expected, judging by somewhat erratic behaviour that caused the car, on its run, to come too close – at times far too close – to the hay bales lining the track.

The images show the start of this autonomous prototype, which proceeds without driver intervention until the car begins to turn left for no reason at all. As the car continues along the course, it swerves from left to right several times, even nearly leaving the road. The run continues with problems for the “safety driver”, who had to intervene several times. Unfortunately, they were not quick enough to prevent the Mustang from crashing into the hay barriers protecting the course. It was not a serious accident, far from it, but it is not the kind of autonomous technology that was meant to be showcased, especially after the latest fatal accident involving the company Uber.

It is not known in detail what caused the accident and the serious failures in autonomous handling, although it may be due to a fault in some of its sensors or a poor GPS signal it may have been receiving. While the content of the images is not the marketing Siemens would have hoped for, here is a video where the car can be seen progressing up the hill to Goodwood.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I09fzzFU1pU

Technical specifications of this car

CoupeFord Mustang6 versions · from 62,405 €