Grand Palomino Auto

What we like:

Iconic styling

Line Lock is mighty fun until your tyres go bald

Ecoboost 2.3 delivers well

What we dislike:

Dull steering

Tiny rear seats

Cheap interior

We like that Ford has kept its iconic styling alive with their pony car, which carries off its long front end and short rear styling well. Squint a little, and you can catch the “swish” of the horse’s tail penned into the flared rear fender.

A middle-of-life facelift keeps the car’s styling fresh. The Mustang also receives an LED headlamp assembly with DRLs, while its rear end also gets nip and tuck at the lower section of the bumper. A set of Pirelli P Zero 255/40 R19 tyres front and rear on ten-spoke alloys fill the wheel arches well.

While cars like the Audi A5 or BMW 4 Series present themselves in business suits, prim and proper, offering you a small spoonful of foie gras; the Mustang on the other hand, comes to you in a pair of greased Levis jeans and a tee-shirt, and then proceeds on to shove a cheeseburger in your face.

Ford has also done away with their analogue instrument cluster, and in-place fitted in a 12” coloured LCD display; which we must admit the Americans have done a good job of how the visuals light up in different drive modes. The dash however is filled with buckets-worth of plastic, and while the bits and bobs are well-assembled, it does feel rather cheap. And since the Mustang is built for a LHD-first market, the handbrake lever is in an awkward position, and is quite cumbersome to activate.

As the car’s settings are displayed on the new instrument cluster, the 8” infotainment unit only deals with audio and air conditioning, and offers Apple CarPlay and Android Auto connectivity.

In keeping with its sporty theme, the Singapore spec car receives a pair of Recaro front bucket seats to keep you in place. As with many coupes, the rear seats are for a +2 affair.

Under the hood, its 2.3 litre four-cylinder turbocharged Ecoboost engine gets a bump in power, with 7hp more and an additional 15Nm of twist; and is now rated at 313hp and 447Nm.

Ford has also replaced its 6-speed automatic for an all-new 10-speed unit.

For those who have great aural expectations, they may be disappointed that the 2.3 litre does not have a soundtrack even half of that of their vulgar V8 engine. Speaking about their V8 (which can be specially ordered), Ford has also long ditched their cross-plane crank in favour of a flat plane crank for reasons of better high-end performance and easier packaging.

Back to the 2.3 and noise (of lack of) aside, the engine feels refined. The Mustang hits the benchmark 100km/h a more-than-respectable 5.5, and goes on to do a top speed of 233km/h. In delivery of its drive, there is a tiny bit of lag to deal with, when starting off from a standstill, however that Ecoboost does spin up willingly, with torque peaking at 3,000rpm, and peak power comes in at 5,400prm.

Ride quality over the Mustang’s slightly stiff springs is quite decent, although there is a bit of road noise which intrudes into the cabin, especially when going through rough road patches. Overall insulation however is impressive, with hardly any issues with buffeting from wind.

Flick the Mustang into a tight bend, and the Pirelli P Zero tyres bite well, and the included limited slip differential ensures that the rear wheels behave. This is where the Mustang impresses, since they have with this 6th generation Mustang included an Independent Integral Rear Link suspension, instead of the controversial ancient rear-live axle of the previous car. It is however not as sharp as a 4 Series BMW, but still… pretty good.

And then there is the added function of ‘Line Lock’ which allows you to lock the front wheels, so that you can honestly warm your rear wheels up before your daily commute to work. *grin*

As a coupe, the Mustang is an easy daily driver to live with (if you are willing to look past some of its imperfections), and it has come quite a why in terms of refinement.

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