Sutton CS800 Mustang 2019 UK first drive

A regular Ford Mustang is a relaxed, amiable, gently burbling companion, even in 5.0-litre V8 form. This CS800, from British importer and tuner Sutton Bespoke, takes such a regular Mustang and introduces the noise and aggression of a slasher movie to it.

We’ve driven Sutton’s Mustangs before, but this one builds on the latest-generation Mustang that was recently facelifted. You can pick and choose from the bits you like and, cleverly, Sutton even offers a configurator to make life as easy as when choosing any other new car. Our test car had a lot of options fitted to it.

The most important is a large Whipple supercharger that's mounted high in the engine’s vee and necessitates a taller bonnet; combined with throttle bodies and high flow injectors, the headline number is ‘up to 825hp’, which we’ll call a round 800bhp for these purposes to match the CS800 name. A few here and there won’t matter.

There is a full active exhaust with Bluetooth control (you can make it automatically go quiet near your house or workplace, for example), lots of carbon fibre, some re-trimming inside and a suspension drop that employs bigger wheels but still uses Ford’s adaptive Magneride dampers.

The short of it is that you can pop into Sutton’s with your own Mustang and hand over a few quid for a modest number of bits. Or you can spend six figures on a brand new car with all the whistles (also giving you access to finance, which people tend to use). As tested, this bright orange car is £105,670.

What you get is a ferociously fast car that revs to 7500rpm but, in wintry conditions, is not one you can take to that part of the rev band very often. Doesn’t much matter – below that figure, even well below that figure, the supercharger screams away, the ‘zorst bangs out some aggressive noises and the CS800 makes the kind of effortless progress that can only come with an excess of power like this.

In the right place, if you want, it’ll spin up the rear wheels for the odd giggle – the traction control’s quite liberal. Sutton has fitted a short throw gearshift which is wonderfully snappy and precise. Heavier than usual, but no worse for it.

The steering’s weighty by the standards of a lot of modern cars, and the ride pretty focused, but not harsh. It’s less of a grand tourer than the standard Mustang, a bit more of a sports car, but only to an extent – it’s still a big car. well, it’s a muscle car, so of course it is. And while the handling has that lovely front-engine, rear drive balance about it, that’s the thing to remember – you’re moving lots of angry hardware. I rather liked that about it.