It’s already the most popular sports car in Australia, but that hasn’t stopped Ford giving the Mustang a thorough work-over for 2018. New safety items are high on the list of welcome additions, as is a 10-speed automatic gearbox. The styling is slightly tweaked too, but for us the best bits are the gruntier V8 and new Drag Strip mode.
If you’re already number one, why try harder, right? Well, I suppose Australia is the home of one-upmanship (“that’s not a knife”, etc…) so perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised that Ford is updating the Mustang — and hiking its prices — even though it’s already the country’s best-selling sports car.
Hang on, sports car? Make that muscle car. Whatever you call it, the Ford Mustang has always been, and remains, a big, chunky, almost-practical coupe (and convertible) powered by a big, grumbly V8 engine.
Amen to that, we say.
Thankfully, Ford hasn’t tried to tinker with what was good; instead it has merely accentuated the good stuff and papered over one or two cracks.
The biggest of these relates to safety, as Ford was given a good kicking over the previous ‘Stang’s safety credentials (the outgoing model got a miserable two-star rating from ANCAP), and criticised for not including vital safety devices such as autonomous emergency braking (with pedestrian detection), lane-keeping steering and active cruise control.
Those are all now present and correct, but even with safety there’s no free lunch — prices have swollen for the 2018 Ford Mustang to $49,990 for the most basic four-cylinder coupe, and a hefty $62,990 to even get in on the ground floor of a V8 model.
Our V8 GT Fastback (coupe, to you and I), with the new 10-speed auto, clocks in at $66,259 — an increase of more than $6000.
Is the new gearbox worth it? Well, maybe. It’s entirely a Ford design, with no input from the outside transmission suppliers relied upon by so many in the industry, such as ZF or Getrag. Ten speeds is a lot, and you’d have the sneaking suspicion that it would be too many for the tranny to juggle, but actually for the most part it’s really smooth.
So much so that, just occasionally, it almost feels like a CVT as it slurs its way up through the cogs. It’s not perfect, though. Once or twice we caught it slapping or shunting into gear with a graceless wallop, and on another occasion on our test drive, no matter what we did, it seemed determined to change down into third.
But that may, to be honest, have been our fault, because we had been playing with the new Drag Strip mode. Now, this has been something of a controversial issue, and looked to be heading for the same ‘you can’t have one’ list as the Drift Mode in the Focus RS, killed by worries over road safety.
Just last month, though, Ford Australia confirmed that you can have Drag Strip mode in the 2018 Mustang (although the burnout-friendly Line Lock is still locked out for Aussies, sadly), and we’ve got to say it’s enormous fun — on a closed road, of course.
Dial it up and the new digital instrument cluster (the current Mustang’s analogue gauges have been replaced by a swanky new TFT screen) pops up a red-amber-green light countdown while you spin up the rear tyres with your foot firmly on the brake.
Release the brake and it’s hello horizon time, with that massive 5.0-litre V8 hurling you forwards and the 10-speed gearbox chucking new ratios into the flames just as fast as it can.
Childish? Certainly. Anti-social? If you use it on the road, deffo. Fun? Oh God, yes…
You need a couple of items to make the best of Drag Strip mode, though. First and foremost is that V8 engine (we tried it with the smaller 2.3-litre turbo EcoBoost four-cylinder engine and, guess what, it’s just not as much fun).
It’s the same 5.0-litre unit as found in the previous Mustang, the ‘Coyote’ engine that, kind of, dates back to the early 1990s. It has been much upgraded for 2018, though, and has slimmer, lower-friction cylinder liners and a new fuel-injection system that liberates a chunk more power.
How does 335kW grab you? And 529Nm of torque? Not figures that will much trouble a Mercedes-AMG V8, for sure, but with a 0-100km/h time of 4.3 seconds, the updated V8 Mustang could become a thorn in the side of any BMW M3 owner. Top whack, where legal (ie: nowhere except the race track or a German autobahn) is 249km/h.
You have to put the work in to get there, mind. A big Yankee V8 this may be, but it’s not a lazy lugger by any means. Peak torque is developed at a lofty 4600rpm, so you’ve got to rev it out a bit to really get things moving.
Not that this is a hardship. The automatic gearbox makes it a one-foot job, of course, but the glorious exhaust note means that the reward is measured in music as well as movement.
The Mustang V8 still makes a proper, down-and-dirty grumble. It’s as if Allan Moffat has suddenly become your best friend and every straight stretch is the Conrod. It’s a proper engine noise.
Thankfully, though, for early starts, the exhaust can be switched into ‘quiet’ mode, so you won’t disturb your neighbours, and there’s even a timer so you won’t forget.
What else do you need? Well, if you’ve got $2750 burning a hole in your jeans, you definitely need the new MagneRide suspension dampers, which react to the road surface as rapidly as 1000 times per second, and allow you a greater deal of control depending on whether you’re in Normal or Sport modes.
They’re seriously clever, and really sharpen up the Mustang’s handling, kind of belying my previous assertion that this is a muscle car, not a sports car.
Actually, on really challenging roads, the Mustang now feels much more agile and precise, and is more rewarding to steer. The only caveat is that, relative to the lighter EcoBoost version, the nose of the V8 is a touch heavier, which makes it a little slower to respond to inputs.
Either way it’s big, big fun, but if you fancy the convertible, don’t bother with the trick dampers — it’s too short on torsional rigidity to make the best of them.
The cabin’s a bit of a weak spot, too. The new TFT instruments are lovely (and in Sport mode include a wrap-over strip-style rev-counter that mimics the dial pack of the original 1964 Mustang) and the addition of niceties like Apple CarPlay and Android Auto to Ford’s SYNC3 infotainment system are very welcome.
The seats are great too (as long as you avoid the too-tight $3000 Recaro bucket seat option). But, in spite of Ford saying that cabin quality has been given a bump, it’s still pretty cheap and tacky in there — especially for something at this price — and the rear seats remain a kids-only zone.
At least it still looks great on the outside. The Mustang, in this form, has always been a great looking car, and for 2018 it gets some aero improvements (new splitter, smoother underbody, optional boot spoiler) plus new LED lights both front and rear, and a set of big, square vents on the top of the bonnet.
Thankfully, it’s been tweaked rather than changed, and still one of the coolest-looking cars around — and one of our favourite performance cars, period.
It’s hardly what you’d call practical, and it’s well behind the big-name Germans in the tech race, but the improvements to the 2018 Mustang have made it quicker, faster and sharper to drive — at a price.
2018 Ford Mustang GT Fastback pricing and specifications:
Price: $66,259 plus ORCs
Engine: 5.0-litre naturally-aspirated petrol V8
Output: 335kW/529Nm
Transmission: Ten-speed automatic
Fuel: 12.1L/100km
CO2: 270g/km
Safety rating: N/A