Great looker, shame about the puny sound

OUR first taste of the Ford Mustang, probably the most anticipated car launched in South Africa last year, was bittersweet. While we enjoyed the power and the character of the blue-oval’s pony car, the experience was blunted by an old-tech auto gearbox which felt like riding a racehorse that was wearing heavy rubber boots.

We felt the horse would gallop better with its other gearbox option, a six-speed manual which is available in both the Mustang 5-litre GT and 2.3-litre turbo versions. It’s the 2.3 manual derivative on test here, which at R699 900 is the most affordable Mustang you can buy, as the auto costs 20 grand more.

The choice between manual versus auto is fairly emotive and subjective and both have their adherents, but on a purely objective view the three-pedalled Mustang is, in our opinion, the better car.

In our Gauteng performance test the manual version was quicker in a straightline sprint than the auto, posting a 0100km/h time of 6.6 versus 6.9 seconds and a quarter-mile of 14.6 versus 15.2 seconds. Notably, the manual 2.3 is only half-a-second shy of 0-100 time of the automatic 5litre (6.1 secs).

More importantly though, it was the delivery of the power that made the one with the clutch pedal the more satisfying drive. The auto version’s afflicted with a lazy torque converter transmission that won’t allow itself to be hurried, and its shifts feel obstructively slow when you’re trying to drive it as a Mustang should be driven. It’s a laid-back, old-school gearbox with none of the surgically-sharp responses of many of today’s modern automatics.

In the manual, with the driver controlling the cog-changing, it’s much easier to exploit the turbocharged 233kW and 430Nm nestling under this pony car’s long hood. Admittedly it’s not the slickest manual we’ve tested and the gearshift and clutch are both a little stiff, but the lever snicks with precision through its gate and we didn’t miss any shifts. In fact, this slightly heavy feel suits the overall character of the American machine, which is more of a muscle cruiser than an outright sportscar.

This feeling is visually intensified by the ‘Stang’s very long bonnet which stretches ahead of the windscreen like a big piece of handling-muzzling real estate. This is not to say the American car can’t get around corners at a decent lick. It can, and there’s plenty of driver entertainment to be had even though it doesn’t carve curves with the finesse of a German rival like the BMW 3 Series.

With that long nose the Mustang doesn’t have the sharpest turn-in, but it has sticky tyres that don’t break traction easily, a hunkered-down feel, and firm suspension (now independent at the rear end compared to the bakkie-like solid axle of previous Mustangs) that prevents excessive body roll. It carves curves with a very neutral feel and doesn’t run early into funsapping understeer.

Switching off the traction control allows power slides that are nice and control-