2015 Ford Mustang shows its face in public

Ford is planning some big changes for the 2015 Mustang – likely the biggest shift in its iconic pony car since it ditched its previous jelly-bean-ish shape for the retro lines of the current model. Now it's leaving that design behind as well in favor of a more dynamic figure previewed by the Evos concept. But while we've known that to be the case for some time, the only prototypes we've spied to date have been heavily camouflaged. So heavily disguised, in fact, that you can barely tell what's underneath. Fortunately for us, a lot of that shape-obscuring body cladding had to go when it came time for hot-weather testing.

As you can plainly see from the shots above, Ford's development team kept most of the camo in place aft of the A-pillar, but this uncovered nose gives us our best glimpse at the upcoming 2015 Mustang yet. Here we can see the shape of the hood, grille, air dam, air inlets and the outline of the headlights, even if their jeweled intricacies remain obscured, and we can see that the basic Evos shape has been muscled up a bit for Mustang duty.

As for what's sitting under that heavily padded hood, we're not quite clear. Whatever it is – we're thinking a 5.0-liter V8 is likely, possibly along with some smaller turbocharged options – performance should be good considering the rumored weight loss routine the car has apparently gone through. It's intriguing to see a Mustang Boss 302 S following behind, too.

Our intrepid spy photographers report they had to go to greater-than-usual lengths to get these shots, shadowing Ford's team for days on end to bring you this most revealing look at the next Mustang yet. So we hope you enjoy them.