The Mustang has been America's best-selling sports car for 22 years.

The company says the new pony badge offers a clue to the look of the upcoming model.

"It's just a faster-looking steed," says George Saridakis, Design manager for the 2010 Mustang.

A stronger, more dynamic pony badge with defined edges and crisper forms in a subtly toned tinted-chrome finish will charge across the grilles of the V-6 and GT versions of the 2010 Mustang.

For the first time, a black-chrome version of the Mustang pony badge will be available on the new GT grille.

"We wanted to give the Mustang pony a more realistic feel," said Douglas Gaffka, chief designer for the 2010 Mustang. "We lifted the head to make the pony more proud, tipped the neck into the wind to give it a feeling of greater speed and better balance.

"It's more chiseled and more defined and looks more like a wild horse," Gaffka added. "It's more realistic in terms of proportion to an actual Mustang."

Senior Designer Rick Howard spent hours researching images of horses and understanding their appearance in natural, wild settings. That effort, along with his personal riding experience, helped bring forward the design of the Mustang pony badge.

The Mustang was unveiled at the 1964 New York World's Fair.

The original Mustang logo was drawn by Phil Clark for the Mustang I. The logo was refined for the Mustang II in 1974 by Charles Keresztes, a former member of Hungary's Olympic equestrian team.

The pony continued on the front grille through 1978 when it was replaced by "FORD" in block letters through 1982. The iconic Ford Blue Oval graced the front of Mustangs through 1993. The pony emblem returned in 1994 with some refinements. The logo was updated again in 2005.

For Howard and the team, creating the new badge was a labor of love.

"We're very much concerned with detail and precision in our cars at Ford, and that includes the art we do," Howard said.