Kerrang Mustang!
It’s loud and powerful and you’ll get a real adrenaline rush in this exciting racer
THE last time that I drove a Ford Mustang in Ireland, I promised a friend that I would take him out for a spin in it. ‘Give me a shout when you’re close,’ he said.
‘No need,’ I promised, and I was right. When I pulled up at the house, he already was outside waiting, He heard me from half a kilometre away.
That’s the joy of a massive 5.0-litre V8 engine that puts out 444hp horsepower. It does so with the roar of a lion, not the whinny of a horse, and gunned aggressively, it could wake the dead.
He might not have been quite as impressed if I lived next door and had an early start every morning, so in that sense, it’s probably welcome news that Ford now has added a Good Neighbour mode to the engine, one that reduces noise on start-up so you don’t wake up half the street. On the other hand, if you hated your neighbours, you could leave it off in perpetuity.
It’s just one feature of this slightly revamped Mustang I tested last week in the south of France and very glad I was of the heads-up, because we won’t see the car here until December, at which point most will order for 191 registration. The engine line-up is as before – that big V8 and the 2.3-litre EcoBoost – but while the former has been given extra power, the latter has lost some thanks to new safety aids and lower emissions. What that means in the V8 is a 0-100km/h sprint of 4.3 seconds when combined with the new 10-speed automatic gearbox. Sure you’d be half way to Cork before the neighbours even woke.
There are new colours too, all three of which looked, I suspect, a great deal better in blazing Côte d’Azur sunshine than they will in Ireland. The Kona blue is beautifully vivid, and the Orange Fury just the right side of lurid. The Royal Crimson, so rich it seemed more like mulberry to me, is an absolute showstopper. I’d remortgage my house to get the convertible version in that shade.
The real advance, though, is in driving dynamics. The old joke about American cars says that they’re great so long as you point them in a straight line, but they’re almost as bad at taking corners as a lowerdivision soccer team.
No longer. The test route took us through the hills and mountains of Provence, and if you’ve ever driven them, you’ll know that basically means roads that double back on themselves as you ascend, in a series of chicanes that to be honest quickly feel interminable.
None proved any problem at all for the new Mustang, which handles exceptionally well, though still not on a par with German rivals.
That’s not a problem when it still looks like a muscle car, though, not as refined as some of the rivals that are wolves in sheep’s clothing, and a bit soft and cuddly for my taste. As it happens, three of us drove through the town of Grasse in convoy around the time school finished, and I’d say they’re still wiping drool off the footpaths; every head in the place turned and looked in in awe.
The new optional MagneRide damping system uses a unique fluid inside the damper that can be electronically stimulated to offer higher or lower damping resistance, depending on the road conditions, and sensors monitor conditions one thousand times per second to ensure optimum handling performance.
There also are two new drive modes to help drivers match electronic stability control, throttle response, automatic gearshift patterns, steering and Active Valve Performance Exhaust settings to the driving conditions. As well as Normal, Sport, Track, and Snow/Wet Modes, you now get Drag Strip Mode for maximum acceleration standing starts and quarter-mile performance (at dedicated drag racing strips, Ford says – yeah, as if some young fella from Wexford wouldn’t be trying that in the SuperValu car park), and My Mode, which allows drivers to select their own preferred settings for performance, dynamics and exhaust sound.
There’s more safety equipment too, including adaptive cruise control for the first time on a Mustang, pre-collision assist, pedestrian detection, and lane-keeping assist, which should enhance the previously average EuroNCAP score of the car.
The big problem still is fuel consumption, which is 12.1 litres in the 5.0 V8 (with 270g/ km emissions for motor tax of €2,350 a year); and 9.0 litres in the 2.3 EcoBoost (199g/km, €1,200). Cost of ownership will not be cheap.
What you will get, though, is a better cabin with new digital dashboard, better handling, more comfort and, above all, that unmistakable Mustang feel.
No prices yet but expect between mid-fifties and high seventies, depending on the model.
A lot of money, for sure, but you’ll enjoy every cent of it.
Just don’t wake the neighbours.