What is it?
This is the facelifted version of the sixth-generation Ford Mustang, driven here for the first time on British roads following its international launch to the press in March.
You’ll have clocked the lowered profile of a bonnet that now sports a brace of meshed vents, the more piercing headlights and perhaps the new ‘aero curtains’ in the front bumper. Their job is to guide the airflow neatly across the front wheels, and you’ll now find them on everything from the Lotus Exige 410 Sport to the new Audi A6.
The Mustang's front splitter is now bigger, too, because the one thing the Ford Mustang always lacked was a square jaw, and there are quad-exhaust tips for the big V8 model.
It’s a bit angrier, then, which is what people have wanted since the car arrived on the scene in 2015. For further evidence that those who buy this famous machine have no aversion to the limelight, consider that a third of early orders are in the Fury Orange paint job seen on our test car. And while we’re talking statistics, four in every five cars is expected to be a Fastback, which is no surprise, given that the convertible loses the classic silhouette.
There’s also expected to be a fifty-fifty split between manual and automatic transmissions, and so the biggest change to this car is the addition of Ford’s new 10-speed auto ’box. Replacing the wholly unsatisfactory six-speeder, it’s still a torque converter but uses an integrated turbine clutch to save weight and improve the packaging.
The new ratios occupy a similar spread to the old ones, though, meaning smaller steps and quicker, smoother shifts, and those shifts are instigated by new direct-acting solenoids. That means this transmission can skip from, say, sixth to second in a single motion.
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Wow - Price Increase
I'm typing this on 8 April 2019 less than 12 months after the article was written. Cost of Mustang at 25 May 2018 is from £31,910. Ford's website niw shows the price is from £37,685.WOW!
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