For over fifty years now, we have soaked up every form of Ford Mustang, from the early fire-breathers and neat little six-cylinders, to the big early 1970s brawlers, the Mustang II that kept the name just barely off of life support, the Foxes, the SN-95, the New Edge, the Terminator, and about forty thousand other names, models, engines, and personalities. A Mustang is like a pizza…even when it’s bad, it is still pretty good. But just like our food, Europeans really don’t get it. Sure, they have similar flavors and interests, but there’s a bit too much America in it for most.
The S550 Mustang is the first to be actually imported to the U.K. Prior to, they were grey-market imports…you’d see them, but they were sourced from somewhere else and brought in. Unlike last Mustangs, where it was naturally assumed that you were just being crude or were buying into the American thing deeply, the new Mustang has lost the punchlines that Europeans had ready: the solid axle was ditched for an independent rear suspension, all of the engines are good (yes, even the V6), and it fits on the roads over there. Sure, it’s big for a car over there, but does it really, truly work? Chris Harris takes on a 5.0 GT to give it a shot. It’s surprising to see how dismissive he is about the 2.3L turbo four, considering that Ford was actually betting on it to be a good selling point. But whatever…the question remains: how does the Mustang do not just on a track, but on a soaked country road somewhere in Wales that looks like rally-car territory?
