Let me start by saying that as a
product, the Mustang is a good car. It fits nicely in the sports coupe segment, and it performs very well for the price. Clearly, I prefer my Camaro SS, but the Mustang GT is a worthy adversary.
I personally don't take Ford very seriously as a performance brand. Outside of the Mustang, they just don't seem to take performance seriously. The Raptor is nice for truck performance, but the market for modified trucks is mostly an aftermarket affair. For cars, performance exists in a variety of categories that Ford ignores or has cancelled over the years. With the exception of the Mustang GT, nothing really aggressively competes in any performance car market. While the Corvette is battling foreign exotics on the track, Ford appears to have no interest in selling anything without a back seat. On the other hand, I will concede that the Focus ST is a nice small-displacement addition, and that it does draw attention to them in small cars, it doesn't impress me the way the LNF-powered Cobalt SS did or the way Dodge's Neon SRT-4 blew away its competition at the time. In effect, the Focus ST seems like a desperate attempt to compete with existing benchmarks, ultimately failing to produce an attractive car that actually wins in comparisons.
Car and Driver reports that the 2014 Focus ST went from beating the 2013 GTI by one point to losing by 24 for 2015. I would hardly consider that performance an indication of taking this product seriously. Meanwhile,
Edmunds would prefer a GTI over their long-term ST after driving it for a while.
Unfortunately, Ford only really has 3 performance cars, the Mustang with various trims, the Focus ST, and the Raptor. Everything is lipstick on a pig—family sedans with dual exhaust or EcoBoost, not really track-tuned performers by any standards. Performance products are the personality—the soul—of a car company. Ford is two steps above Toyota, a completely soulless company, on that ladder. Meanwhile, companies like Porsche, a known performance brand, and Nissan, a competitor in various segments with a history of performance cars, offer unique products that have personality.
That's why I don't particularly like Ford.