mmarshall

http://www.fordvehicles.com/cars/mustang/?v=html

In a nutshell: Dynamite looks, but crude, raw, unrefined, and lacking in build quality......a 60's nostalgia machine and little else.




Ah, yes, the Mustang.....perhaps the ultimate automotive symbol of the 1960's and the heyday of the American car industry. After some 35 years, Ford has decided to finally build a Mustang again that LOOKS like a Mustang. Dodge will soon follow with an even more retro Challenger...one of the reasons why I wanted to drive and review the current Mustang. When I review the Challenger, I wanted to have a clear idea of what the Mustang was like so I could compare the two cars fairly. Later, a new retro Camaro will arrive from Chevy...GM has given the green light to that project, spurred no doubt by the great succcess of the new Mustang ( just like 40 years ago ).
I won't bore you guys with the Mustang's history......most of you know it as well or better than I do (even though I grew up with the original car ) and you know how Ford really screwed up the nameplate with 4-bangers, redone Pintos and Fairmonts. But now, we have a Mustang with superb looks once again, but, unfortunately, not-so-superb build quality. And, let's be honest....though there are some good and safe Mustang V8 drivers, many of the ones I see around here are immature, aggressive, doing some really stupid things and taking dangerous chances. Here in the D.C. area, (I have written in CL several times about this), no other car kills or injures so many teen-agers and young people, not even the classic ricer-cars like the hopped-up and slammed Civics and Eclipses.

When I first saw the new Mustang in auto shows, I must confess that I was a real sucker for its looks ( still am ). It's hard not to like a car that, in so many ways, takes you back to your high school days ( really enjoyed my senior year especially ). But, unfortunately, Ford chose to put so much into style with this car that it almost completely forgot about substance. The exterior and interior trim, especially in the base V6 model, IMO was almost insultingly cheap, poorly finished, sloppily assembled, and in some ways reminded me of 15-20 year-old Hyundais and Yugos. Though I was struck by its looks (it needs only chrome bumpers to look almost exactly like the originals), the poor-quality sheet metal, trim, and interior turned me off so much that I did not even bother to formally review and test-drive it. Well, as I've said, I've had second thoughts on that now....there is no denying the popularity of this car and the fact that many people are interested in it, shoddiness or not.....not only the ubiquitous Mustang street-racing crowd but especially aging Baby Boomers like me who have such fond memories of the original ones. Unfortunately, looking AT this car is a lot easier than looking OUT of it....as we will shortly see.

But despite its shoddiness, there are some things to like about this car, too. One does not have to put up with funeral-home paint colors on this car like with many others nowadays....Bright Vista Blue, Grabber Orange, Chrome Yellow, Torch Red, Redfire Metallic, and Lime Green ( 2006 ) are all on the color list, although my test car was black...( it was the only one that had the California Custom package ). With the classic Mustang V8 burble, you will call attention to yourself driving even light-footed down the street......perhaps with cops as well. A full set of gauges is provided rather than just idiot lights. The brakes are well-done, like the superb brakes of the late-60's models. The gas mileage and steering response are markedly better than the original cars. There is ( obviously ) enough power to get out of your own way. You won't hear any contemptous remarks from your uneducated redneck friends or relatives about driving a Kraut-mobile or Rice-Burner. And if you are so inclined to turn off the traction control, pop the clutch at 4000 RPM, and do a nice burnout, and don't mind paying the gas, clutch, and tire bills for it, this car will be happy to oblidge, though I had enough respect for this brand-new car and the dealership and enough maturity not to engage in such nonsense. The simple and durable live axle, despite being ancient in design, will take a lot of punishment....something Ford takes into consideration knowing that a lot of V8 Mustang buyers will do burnouts. ( The upcoming Shelby Mustang Cobra GT500, however, will have an independent rear suspension just like the last Cobra did ).

I chose a 5-speed model to review rather than the more popular automatic because, despite the awful traffic here and the fact that I am not a car "image" person per se, a stick is generally more in tune with the character of this car than an automatic, and Mustang purists will probably insist on having one regardless of traffic.


OK.....now let's have a closer look at this American classic:



Model reviewed: 2007 Ford Mustang GT Coupe Premium

Base price: $27,175

Major Options: California GT Special Package $1895

Leather Interior Upgrade: $460


Price as Reviewed: $30,030


Exterior color: Black

Interior: Black/Gray leather


Drivetrain: Front-engine /RWD, 4.6L SOHC 3-valve V8, 300 HP @ 5750 RPM, 320 ft.-lbs. torque @ 4500 RPM,
5-speed Tremec manual transmission, 3:55 rear-end ratio.







PLUSSES:



Stunning, late 60's looks

Plenty of torque.

Much better handling than the original cars.

Well-done brakes.

Better gas mileage than the originals.

Nice array of paint colors ( though Ford has dropped the lime green for 2007 )

Multi-adjustable instrument panel lighting colors.

Attractive, 60's style primary gauges.

Oil pressure and voltmeter gauges instead of idiot lights.

Room inside for tall people ( in the front seat )

Acceptable if not ultra-roomy trunk space.

Tremendous number of aftermarket parts and tuning companies,






MINUSES:



Poor-quality materials inside and out.

Loud, Nasal-sounding engine and ultra-noisy exhaust ( though this is one of the car's trademarks )

Stiff-shifting, notchy, fairly high-effort 5-speed transmission.

Front-end heaviness from the big engine.

Not suited for slippery roads.

Poor visibility out the rear and sides.

Rear seat almost worthless.

Stiff ride.

Temporary spare tire.

Awkward and poorly-made parking-brake handle.

Open your wallets nice and wide for insurance.






Well, I can't really add a whole lot to what I've already said about the first impression you get of this car as you walk up to it. There was my high school days all over again, right in front of me. All of the new Mustangs, V6 or V8, of course, look strikingly like the originals, but this particular car had the California GT Custom package, ($1895) which added, among other things, a center-hood scoop and twin side-scoops just behind both side doors, and was strongly reminiscent of the 1969-1970 Mustang Mach 1. Paint quality was about average for a Ford-designed product....reasonably well-applied, with a small amount of orange peel and even coverage.....but was nowhere near Lexus or Acura standards.
Closer examination of he car, though, starts to dull the initial nostalgic euphoria. Open the hood to look at the 4.6L, 300 HP v8 ( which, incidentally, unlike the big V8's of the late 60's, fits in the underhood space quite well ) and the hood feels and shuts like it is made out of cardboard. Ditto the outside mirrors, retro-original emblems, spoiler, trim......almost everything on the outside except the California-package scoops, which felt reasonably solid ( they better, for almost $1900 extra ). Ford designers, obviously, must have felt that those who buy this car do not care much about these things.
Nor was a lot of attention paid to the quality of materials inside either, though, once again, it is hard to argue with the interior's looks, which was every bit as good as on the outside. Open the long, low, wide doors, sit down in the low seats, look at the dash and wheel ahead, and suddenly I was 18 again. The twin primary gauges are throughly retro in design but are relatively easy to read despite the slanted, spooky, 1960's Halloween-style numbers. Real oil-pressure and voltmeter gauges are provided instead of idiot lights (one little burned-out bulb can ruin an engine). The three-spoke steering wheel, with chrome spoke inserts, is very much like the original. Round, swivel, chrome-covered A/C vents and a thick, wide, cross-dash strip of brushed-metal help complete the retro look ( V6 models, unfortunately, don't get the nice brushed-metal dash, and IMO they look awful...the whole interior is almost pure stone-cold black ).

But there are a number of problems inside that IMO need attention. Almost all of the door panels, trim, and hardware have a cheap and poor-quality FEEL to them even when, as in the dash brushed-metal strip, they don't necessarily LOOK cheap. The parking brake lever, between the seats instead of the more common American step-on design, is long, awkwardly designed, and has a flimsy feel...it is long, hard to pull up and actually bends up and down a little each time you use it. Shut the doors and they sound and feel flimsy and you hear distinct small rattles inside of them. The rear seat, of course, is almost worthless, as in any Pony car or small sports coupe. No one but small children, especially with the front seats adjusted for tall people, can fit back there. Legroom is almost zero. Consider this basically a two-seater.
Up front, though, there is plenty of room....no complaints at all. You sit so low in this car that the low roof does not impact on front headroom, and with the power-adjustable bucket seats you can set them still lower, Pony-car-style (although, that, of course, can make it difficult to get in and out). The seats are covered with an OK but less-than-Jaguar-quality leather, but here is one of the car's better interior points.....the seats are plenty wide for big, portly Americans like me. Ford, figuring that this car doesn't really handle like a sports car despite the stiff suspension and high-performance tires, wisely resisted the temptation to put in small, VW GTI-like seats with sharp, narrow side bolsters....a car that doesn't handle like a Miata doesn't need those kind of seats, and all they do is make life difficult for those who have big......well never mind. Adjustable seat bolsters, of course, help solve the problem on both sides but are expensive to produce and sometimes the mechanisms break.
One NICE feature inside...and I will give Ford a lot of credit for this; to my knowledge no other production car in the U.S. market has it......is the color-adjustable instrument-panel lights, which can be made to glow at night in any one of some 125 different colors. This is something that many more vehicles should consider offering.
The stereo, despite the cheap look and feel of the buttons, is a KILLER. My car had a Shaker 500-Amp MP3 system that would literally blow you out of the car with noise. It was unbelievable. It didn't quite have the refined stereo sound of, say, the Lexus Mark Levinson system, but it was obvious that Ford designers put it in for primarily young people who want to be heard literally blocks away. I didn't have my AC/DC, Quiet Riot, Judas Priest, and other Heavy Metal CD's with me, but I can just imagine how they would sound on a unit like this.
Visibility looking out of the car is hampered by the small, triangular windows in the C-Pillars, the downsweep of the rear roofline, and the flimsily-built and flimsily-attached rear spoiler. Some aftermarket companies have solid, body-colored panels that fit over the rear C-Pillar windows that make the car look like the 1965-1966 fastbacks, but that option decreases visibility even more.

Start her up with the key ( no starter buttons here ) and at once the long, time-honored, unmistakable, nasal-like burble of the 4.6L V8 springs to life. There is NO mistaking a Mustang V8 sound.....I can recogize one blindfolded. Punch in the slightly heavy clutch (surprisingly, a little heavier than the more powerful Corvette's, but not too bad) slide the notchy, stiff shift lever into first, a little gas, let out the clutch, and go. The clutch engages firmly and with a slight lurch but smooths out as you upshift.
Check for full oil pressure, bring the lever straight back into second, hammer the gas, and you are pushed back into the seat. 4000 RPM ( no more on a new engine ) and up into 3rd. Third, for some reason, on this particular gearbox, was harder to find than the other gears.....you had to be careful not to hit 1st or 5th. After a few miles it got easier. This was not a particularly pleasant manual gearbox to use, however......worlds apart from the snick-snick gearshift of, say, the Honda civic. I though the Corvette's 6-speed gearbox had better engineering overall than the 5-speed Tremec unit on this car.
This car will definitely get out of its own way, but don't drag-race any new Corvettes...you will probably lose. Though I admittedly did not push this car to its limits for several reasons, it is apparant that it does not have the power-to-weight ratio of a 'Vette. It felt pretty close, in performance, to that of the Dodge Magnum 340 HP Hemi with automatic that I reviewed last year....like about the same power-to-weight ratio despite the Magnum being hampered by the automatic. This is a fast car, but it is NOT the fastest muscle car on the road by any means...I myself have driven faster ones, but I still don't know why so many young people drive these Mustang V8's so recklessly and aggressively and do such crazy things and end up killing themselves and others. Even when I was young, I still had common sense.

As expected with a relatively large, heavy V8 up front (though smaller and lighter than past V8's) this car did not quite steer and handle with Miata-like precision despite its fairly stiff suspension and high=performance tires. The live rear axle, of course, takes some of the sophistication out of both ride and handling, but as I mentioned earlier, it is probably a good idea, with its durability, with the tendency of many owners of this car to do rear-end-punishing burnouts. Yet Ford is fitting the MUCH more powerful (500 HP) Shelby Cobra Mustang GT500 with an independent rear end, like the last Cobra had......that is interesting. However, the new Mustang GT DOES steer and handle noticiably better than the late 60's models I grew up with...obviously today's model has much better tires, rack-and-pinion steering, and a more sophisticated suspension despite the simple live rear axle. Compared to this car, the cars I grew up with handle like boats.

Ride quality, however, was not too bad considering the high-performance underpinnings, but you definitely know you are not in a luxury car. Bumps are felt but not heard.....mainly because of the loud, Mustang nasal-like exhaust ( a traditional feature of these cars that, while not my cup of tea, is popular with its many owners ). Perhaps that is one of the reasons why Ford puts in that super-blast stereo....so you can hear the music over the engine. Road noise is similiarly covered up by the loud engine and exhaust. This is not a car I would recommend for either long distance driving.....too much noise for too long.......or for wet / slippery roads. Cars of this type ( front-engine, rear-drive, lots of power, dry-weather high-performance low-profile tires) generally don't do well on slippery roads, even sometimes with traction and stability control. Either park this car in the winter, get some snow tires and take it REAL easy, or do the sensible thing and take the Subaru. ( OK, bit.....your Explorer will also do fine. )

Brakes?.....well the late 60's Mustangs ( and most disc-brake-eqippped Ford products of that era ) were known for excellent brakes, and 35 years later this Mustang caries on the tradition...and the upcoming Shelby Cobra Mustang will have huge, even better Brembos. Firm pedal, plenty of stopping power, and smooth, linear response. The only problem in the whole braking system......and is is a significant one...is the awful parking brake lever I described earlier. It feels like you are pulling a long rubber band up through pure molasses.


OK....the verdict? Here is the car to get if you want to go back to the 1960's and don't care a lot about chassis sophistication, precision assembly, fit-and-finish, or quality of materials.......although Dodge will shortly introduce a new Challenger that is even MORE retro. Yours truly here will review it when it becomes available. Before plunking down 28-30K for this car, it might be worth waiting to look at the Challenger........I got a look at the prototype at the D.C Auto show in January but could not examine it in detail.
The Mustang, particularly the GT, also has an enormous number of aftermarket companies supplying an almost endless number of custom parts, suspension pieces, engine modifications, trim options, etc..... Companies like Roush and Saleen turn out expensive aftermarket Mustang conversions that almost double the power and greatly improve the handling (at the cost of ride comfort). But, depending on your driving record and age, you may have to do some searching and open your wallets pretty wide to get insurance.....and not without reason. These cars, like it or not, are often driven very recklessly and have proven to be very dangerous in the hands of immature, impulsive, and unskilled drivers.......and I, personally, even independent of the statistics, have seen, with my own two eyes, more totalled Mustangs and snuffed-out or damaged young lives than I care to remember .

LexFather

Great review. I've seen abouit 5 here dropped and on 20s (3 of them Crager style) and they look sensational. Wow, the interior really is that bad huh.

30k loaded, not sure why it costs so much when the platform is old the engine is from the last Mustang. Clearly a profit maker.

I think they should bring the Probe back.

mmarshall

Yes and no. It has dynamite looks inside, just like on the outside, but the quality of many of the parts inside is not impressive. But not all is negative.......the seats are well-done for portly guys like me, the stereo is a killer, you have a full set of gauges instead of idiot lights, the panel lights can be adjusted to any of 125 different colors ( no other production car has that ) and the general look inside is a refreshing change from all of the mee-too designs of today.

bruce van

I was just thinking that the other day. The Probe was actually a pretty cool car during it's run. I don't know what market it would be targeted for, but I think it would be cool if Ford had something for the youth market other than the Focus.

mmarshall

When Ford first brought out the Probe some 15 years ago ( a FWD derivitive of the Mazda MX-6 sports coupe ) it caused a storm of protest among Mustang purists, as Ford's plans at the time were to phase out the RWD Mustang and replace it with the more economical and more sophisticated Probe. However, the uproar and letter-writing campaign ( this was in the days before the Internet ) was so great that Ford lost no time in reconsidering its move......and Mustang sales ( and profits ) were good enough to justify that. The Mustang not only survived but evolved into the great-looking car we have today that is so reminiscent of the original one.

Ford, for years, had something for the youth market other than the Mustang......the 2-door ZX-2 and Mercury LN-7 ( basically 2-door coupe versions of the Escort and Tracer ) but they never sold well and certainly did not have the staying power of the Mustang.

GS3Tek

iTrader: (8)

Awesome review mmarshall, I almost missed it

I keep seeing this white one with blue stripes that is very nicely modded. Absolutely stunning-I stare at it everytime I see it

Couple of weeks ago, I saw an episode on Speed where they were talking about Roush and his mustang aftermarkets-talk about a dream job

As for the exhaust, I'm not sure if it was aftermarket or not but that's what I want in a mustang or corvette

I sat in a saleen mustang and it was very plasticky. Everywhere I poke with my index finger, it creaks The seat were HARD, not sure if that is cheap quality or meant to be hard so you don't get fatiqued