The most fun I’ve ever had driving a car: my day out in the Cotswolds in a 2018 Mustang GT, Ford’s famous five litre V8 muscle car. Almost as much fun as a sportsbike.
Day out in a 2018 Mustang GT, Ford’s famous five litre V8 muscle car. I just had the Cotswolds on a sunny March Monday but with a Mustang you have to think music and movies: Chuck Berry (“My Ford Mustang”), T-Rex (“Mustang Ford”) and Dick Dale (“Wild, Wild Mustang”). Bob Dylan played a Fender Mustang but that’s a guitar. And all those movies: Steve McQueen in Bullitt, Urban Cowboys, Transformers, Charlie’s Angels, Diamonds are Forever...
This day out was the most fun I’ve ever had in a car, almost as much as a bike. The five litre Mustang was actually a pleasure to drive, the car has enough power, and enough brakes and handling to use it. I was even starting to look for apexes on the approach to bends. It’s significantly longer than an average car, so the ride is smooth anyhow, then there’s Ford’s MagneRide™ Damping System.
This one had all the driver aids I expect. Rear camera, parking beeps from range sensors. Cruise control, which seemed to include actively slowing down, not just coasting, so good for speed control in motorway roadworks, as are on the M4 at the moment.
Traction controls seemed to do the trick. Fish Hill above Broadway was a breeze, a total non-event up and down, even the bends which tighten as you get in to them.
Automatic gearbox... Drive like any other drive control, fine in town and a driver fatigue saver but not so good when driving actively. Like all of them, there’s a nasty tendency to change gear right in the middle of a corner just where you absolutely want to be silky smooth for adhesion and stability reasons. Sport mode is much better, the auto kept the revs up and changed at a higher rev point. The magazines say the 0-60 times are better with an automatic gearbox than an average human, but the auto both takes the skill out of active driving along with optimising but without anticipating
The big fun starts above 3,000 revs and neither drive nor sport mode let me anywhere near that except for boot-down starts. Doing that produces a tasty kickdown, threw my head hard back on the padding first time I found it. Red line at 6,500 revs. The suspension goes firm until you leave off the gas.
This one had about 6,700 miles on the clock and was already on new tyres. Big fat rubber, not looking cheap.
Seat pretty comfortable, seat heaters available. Quiet inside as you drive except for rev/exhaust noise, but not a lot of road or wind noise. The low angle windscreen catches the dust plus you’re looking obliquely through it so more critical to keep the glass clean.
Fuel consumption... well this muscle car isn’t about economy. The dash computer indicated 21.4 miles per gallon overall. I had to be trying quite hard to get it to indicate below 20 mpg and to sustain it that low; nonetheless 233 miles used 49.7 litres at the pumps, that’s 13.4 litres per 100km. Worth it.