To 'Murica Or Not To 'Murica In A 2015 Ford Mustang GT

Rrrrrrrr!

 When I think “USA”, a few specific images pop in my head: spaceships, capitalism, guns, Hollywood, burgers, pick-up trucks and American flags sold by the ton. But, when you search up American car in the ‘Muriclopedia, you find a picture of a Ford Mustang. It’s one of the few cars, along with “Ferrari” and “Porsche” (not “Porsh”, you Yankees) that every non-car person has probably heard once in his/her life. To put it short, it’s become a legendary model name. So, when, out of all places, I got the chance to debunk the legend of the pony car at Chalkidiki, Greece, I’d have to be in R.E.M. to miss out on such an opportunity. All hail the V8!

This pony likes to bite

Sick rims, brotha

The “Mustang” is one of the longest surviving model names in the auto industry, having been continuously in production for 55 years. When Ford introduced the first generation in April of 1964, the people went wild. I mean, record-breaking insane for this new type of stylish coupe: the pony car. Mustangs were selling as fast as freakin’ whoppers. By the first 18 months, 1 million had been produced. To put this into perspective, the Chevy Camaro, the Mustang’s number one rival,  took 6 YEARS to reach the 1 million mark. How on earth did Ford manage to build such a successful, new car?  The idea was quite simple: make an affordable coupe or convertible, front-engine, rear-wheel drive, with room for four and a relatively spacious trunk. Then, recycle the chassis of the Falcon and plenty of switchgear and drivetrains from other Ford models to keep the price down, offer plenty of customizability to the buyer and Voila! You have a sales hit. On top of all that, the Mustang’s presence in the entertainment scene cannot be overlooked. It’s through movies that most of us outside the U.S.A. got to see it for the first time. Here are a few films in which the Mustang was the star car: “Bullit”, James Bond’s “Goldfinger” and “Diamonds are Forever”, both “Gone in 60 Seconds”, “Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift”, “30 Minutes or Less” the list goes on and on. The Mustang is a legend, whichever way you look at it.

Love that swoopy nose

The first and last time I went for a ride in a Mustang was around 4 years ago. It was a Canadian import ’66 Coupe, silver with a black vinyl top and interior and a 289c.i. (4,7 lt) V8 mated to a 3-speed automatic. Quite a leisurely, cool, comfortable car to cruise around in… but that’s all it is. Everything mechanical on the first-gen Mustang is slightly more advanced than a motorized carriage. That’s the degree of engineering implemented into its design. The brakes kinda slow you down, the handling is comparable to a pick-up truck and the fact it had three speeds would be more interesting in the kid’s version, not the life-size one. I wonder if 50 years was enough for Ford to turn the Mustang into a decent driving sports car. Let's find out!

Best looking Mustang since the original one

  What’s cool about the current S550 generation Mustang is its newness. It’s not like all the previous generations, where it was only a new body, mo’ powah and slightly improved anchors. Finally, after half a century of ball scratching, Ford’s R&D nuts started to bleed and they took the leap to transform the Mustang’s cornering capabilities. The introduction of independent rear suspension (IRS) to replace the medieval live rear axle was a very welcome update. Yet, I can’t congratulate Ford for offering its 435 hp sportscar with an IRS set-up, a feature that the Citroen 2CV, France’s cheap-ass people’s car, had in 1948. 

An original one for reference

  And what year did the sixth-gen Mustang go on sale, for comparison’s sake? It came out in 2014, only 66 years after the 2CV. That’s corporate laziness at its best. And then, the Americans laugh at the French for making weird, unreliable cars. Ha! The 2CV, especially an early one, is one of the most spartan automobiles ever produced, by a landslide. And it had the dimension altering power of a turtle, with a 365cc flat-twin putting out… nine horsepower. It’s definitely unimaginably slow and it was more mechanically advanced than a V8 sports coupe from 2013. Anyways, I got a little carried away there with this crazy comparison so I’ll make it simple. With an IRS set-up, the rear wheels absorb most of the stress from bumps and crevices on the road, spreading it out on the car’s sides and keeping it more planted. In a live axle, the stress is transmitted all around the booty of the car, which is an awful recipe in a vehicle built for high-speed driving. Even if the road is straight and you hit a large bump with an older Mustang, the rear end will hop, the rear tires will lose traction and you’ll probably spin. Now the real question is if the IRS made any difference. Spoiler Alert: it did.

The Mustang's prettiest angle

Chalkidiki is a region, close to Thessaloniki, Greece, composed of three peninsulas and lots of beaches. I’ve been going there every year since I was born and you can find some incredibly beautiful, paradise-like places to enjoy nature in. However, it’s not the most welcoming place for driving, especially at night. All but maybe two roads are at least 30 years old, with no lines, no barriers, no lights, almost no speed cameras (there are three in total) and it’s littered with mini churches on the side of the road. Why’s that? Because each church is placed where a person has either crashed or gone off a cliff… and died. As a co-driver, you can count the churches and then rate a Greek road from dangerous to deadly as fuck, boy. True story. At least, if you use your brain to think, you’ll be savvy enough to avoid taking any chances and slow down… or else. Also, because of, y’know, the Greek Crisis, most of the cars are at least 15 years old and they’re mostly shit, devoid of anything interesting whatsoever. This year though, when I went to visit my uncle Nick at the beach, the car gods decided to gift me one awesome experience.

It's a 5.0, yo!

As soon as I arrived, by bus, at the seaside village where Nick was staying, I stopped by his place say “Hi!”. I hadn’t seen him for two years but, as usual, the first question following “How are you” was “Did you come with the (Porsche) Macan?”. His answer was music to  my ears: “Nah, man. I only have the Mustang in Greece.”. What?! The 2015 5.0 Mustang GT… in Chalkidiki?! For the first time in my 20-year-old life, I’ll be riding around the seaside in some American muscle! Can I drive it?

Your asphalt jet is ready, sir

A couple days pass and a knock on the door at 2 p.m. woke me up from a good “night’s” sleep. Opened the door while my eyes were still half-closed, and it was Nick. “Good Morning! We’re leaving for the beach in a bit so get ready… and you’re driving the Mustang” was all he said. Five minutes later, I was sitting in the Mustang’s comfy, Recaro driver’s seat. The interior felt welcoming but obviously, the quality was lacking. Sure, it had a couple actual metal bits though most of it is filled with black or shiny plastic. Nevertheless, when you press the engine start button and wake up the 5.0lt Coyote Gen 2 V8, you couldn’t care less about the crappy plastics. The “Blablablablabla” it produces while idling is enough to put instantly a smile on your face. It’s the appetizer for the upcoming main dish. The clutch requires just a slight amount of pressure and is very easy to engage. I’m a novice driver and it was quite straightforward to find its grabbing-point. The Tremec 6-speed has zero play and a pleasantly short throw, each gear going in with a satisfying “clack”. I engage first and the Mustang is already moving without a sweat. I could’ve started off in third and it wouldn’t have stalled. That’s how much torque this car has. We began exiting the village through a tight, normally two-lane road, filled with parked cars and people casually walking around. Keeping the Mustang’s long nose away from all the hazards was a challenge, to say the least. You can’t see where it ends because of its swoop right in the end. Thankfully, this short-lived hassle was followed by a large, two-lane blacktop leading towards the beach. Time to test out the Mustang’s open road prowess.

This booty is stable

We’re cruising at around 40-50 kph in fourth, with the windows down, in by far the coolest ride in the region, with a sick V8 burbling away. Right from the get-go, the Mustang is an effortless car to drive. The torque makes it difficult to stall and reassures you that you’ll have the power, at any time, to avoid a sticky situation. You can drive around like a granny in fifth, even sixth gear and only burn 10l/100 km, more or less the same as a similarly potent, downsized turbo engine from its German competitors. Don’t worry, we all know us petrolheads would never see these figures, except maybe in highway driving. With such a spinetingling song, if I owned this Mustang, I’d ONLY want to change gear at redline. Good thing we’re in Greece and cops are plagued with this sort of periodic dementia (a.k.a. laziness/I-know-better-ness) where they forget to enforce basic traffic laws on the road e.g. putting an end to people who, very often, cross when it’s a red light (in their car, of course). As a result, everybody’s traveling at whatever speed they fancy. Perfect!

See! It's not THAT cheap looking!

Finally, the moment I’d been waiting for had arrived: it was time to floor it in the 5.0. The number of instances I’ve dreamt about being behind the wheel of a bitchin’, V8 ride was to become a reality. All the thousands of hours I’ve spent watching reviews on Youtube could barely scratch the surface of the explosion of emotions of the actual experience I won’t lie that I was a tiny bit scared. The last fastest car I’d driven was a 30-year-old BMW 325i with 170 hp, when new, 360.000 km and that almost kicked its ass out a couple of times. Nevertheless, that happened when I was close to redline while cornering. It warned me “If you cross this line, you’re entering a whole new world you don’t want to explore right now”.  On the other hand, the Mustang, even with traction control on, is still 2,5 times more powerful than the Bimmer. Torque comes-in early in the rev band in a non-linear manner. It demands respect and doesn’t respond kindly to harsh inputs. You gotta be “a smooth operatah, man”. So, with all these thoughts bumping into each other in my head, I downshifted into third and, progressively, gave it the beans.   The Coyote V8 went from being a sleepy kitty cat to a tiger on the hunt without a second to spare. In a blink, everything around me went blurry. I was pushed back on my seat, and the only clear thing I could see was the car and road ahead. “Warp Speed Engaged!” and the revs are climbing at a very quick rate. After the 5k rpm mark, the Mustang is pulling even harder, the same way a Honda VTEC engine would.  In more or less three seconds, we had gone from 40 to 100 kph in third. The result? I couldn’t stop giggling. It’s one of those paradoxical giggles resulting from your subconscious thinking “That’s scary!” and “That’s awesome!” at the same instant. The power of a V8’s eargasmic sound at full chat is that anything bothering you will either shatter into a million pieces or is placed under the rug for a little bit. After that, whenever I got a bit of safe space, I’d floor it just to sip once more from the cocktail of instant acceleration and deliciously aggressive exhaust noise. During those instances of high stress, on the straights or around the curves, the Mustang always felt planted and stiff, making you comfortable traveling at much higher speeds than you're allowed to. 

Recaro seats: excellent for trips and spirited driving

The "Shaker" subwoofer intensifies the aural pleasure

Unfortunately, like anything in this world, the Mustang is far from perfect. The steering is one click from being classified as “Safe only for simulation racing games”. You have zero feedback whatsoever of where the wheels are pointing. The only way to really know is by looking at your altering surroundings. I understand that Ford didn’t really care for steering feedback for the sake of usability. Nevertheless, it’s at the same level as a Peugeot 208. That’s not a sports car, in case you haven’t ever heard of it. Then, we have the brakes. They work very well and bring the Mustang to a screeching halt in no time. Though, brake pedal feel and placement was quite uncomfortable. The max travel is half the distance of the clutch and accelerator pedal. You’re barely pressing it and you’re slowing down much more that you’d like. As a result, the brakes are very touchy and difficult to modulate. I found it disorienting and unpleasant. The last niggle of the Mustang is the cockpit. Everything is well arranged and easy to reach. Nevertheless, I found it very claustrophobic with its fat pillars. This what happens when you combine retro styling with safety regulations.

The "anti-crap-stepping
-Mustang-logo"

In conclusion, for 50.000 Euros, the 5.0 Mustang GT is a bargain. There’s no need spending 10, 20 or even 40 grand more for a BMW M4, a Mercedes C63 or Porsche 911. Interior quality and infotainment system aside, the Ford is just as capable as any of its competitors. It has supportive, comfy seats, can fit four, average-sized adults and their luggage, a boomin’ sound system (especially with the “Shaker” subwoofer), air-con, lots of electric nannies to keep you and your wife out of trouble, the anti-crap-stepping-mustang-logo and a sensational, naturally aspirated V8 to wake you up in the morning. Stop buying 911s for your middle-aged wives who don’t care about anything except for the badge, that “It’s nice” and who’ll treat it like a Fiat 500. Get them a Mustang for half the price, twice the practicality and just as much fun. Or buy it for yourself and use the extra cash to modify it to bits. V8s for everyone!

Many thanks to my uncle Nick letting me try out my first, American, V8 and properly fast car. I'm still giggling!