Ford Mustangs are in my blood. As a kid, my brother and I played in my aunt’s old 1965 coupe, a faded light blue model that sat moldering in my grandparents’ driveway for years. In high school, I toured my first car assembly plant, Ford’s famous River Rouge facility where, you guessed it, the 1983 Mustang was being produced. As a college student, my roommate frequently loaned me the keys to his Canyon Red 1986 Mustang GT, in which I practiced the tail-out left-hand drift with reckless abandon. As an adult, one of the first cars I ever professionally reviewed was a white 1996 Mustang GT convertible, and I spent several days driving all over Arizona with the top down, reveling in the fact that I was getting paid to goof off in someone else’s car.During the past decade I’ve been fortunate enough to drive a variety of Mustangs from a restored 1966 to the current Shelby GT500, two of the most memorable being the 2001 race-ready SVT Cobra R and a twin-turbo 1997 Cobra in which Kenny Brown himself taught me to race in the rain at Indiana’s Putnam Park track. Driving a Mustang always puts a smile on my face. Hell, just sitting in the driver’s seat of a Mustang always puts a smile on my face. If I wasn’t already married to the idea of Miata ownership, a Mustang would probably be sitting in my driveway right now.
Despite this broad experience with Mustangs, never before had I given a six-cylinder version a try. Walking up to our test car, a 2008 Ford Mustang Convertible, that familiar grin appeared on my face. The car looks good with the Pony package’s faux Torq Thrust wheels, lower bodyside stripe, and dressed up grille with inset fog lights. I slipped in behind the wheel to face the Mustang’s retro-design gauge cluster and dual cowl dashboard, sitting in a very comfortable and supportive driver’s seat upholstered in leather and equipped with a seat heater. It was too cold to put the top down, but that didn’t matter to me. It just felt good to get into a Mustang again.
Then I fired the 210-horsepower, 4.0-liter V-6 engine and shifted the automatic transmission into drive. Yeah. An automatic. With a V-6 engine. And a convertible top. I was driving the ultimate chick Mustang. You can guess where this is headed. Unrefined and loud, with a grainy yesteryear power delivery, this V-6 isn’t good for much of anything except a punch of low-end torque that’s expected in a car like this. Considering that most Mustangs are sold with this powertrain combination, and almost all Mustangs offered through rental agencies to people splurging on stylish vacation transportation are equipped this way, it surprises me that the Mustang has managed to preserve its iconic status. You’d think such an important car would get a decent motor under the hood.
Otherwise, this Mustang Convertible drove exactly like the last GT drop top I laid my hands on. The brakes are decent and offer good pedal modulation, the steering is quick if not terribly communicative, the tires grip better than expected, and the live axle rear suspension produces a rough, bouncy ride quality. Hit a bump and the whole structure shakes like overcooked pasta. Forward visibility includes a substantial section of the hood’s real estate, bulging across the lower quarter of the view to the front. Everything about the Mustang is old school, from design and image to performance and handling, and that’s what makes the car fun. But the reality is that a Honda Accord V-6 could easily embarrass a Mustang V-6 on any road under any conditions.
Similarly, the Mustang’s interior transports you back in time. It’s comfortable and, though it makes a few usability concessions in the name of design, is simple. However, the hard plastics could use softening even if only in appearance, and those spots where occupants come into contact with the cabin should actually be soft. The upper door panels are very unfriendly to elbows and the spots on the door panel and center console where my legs braced during enthusiastic driving were painfully unforgiving.
Today’s Mustang has proven itself in our initial quality, vehicle appeal and vehicle dependability customer surveys, and according to the NHTSA is a crashworthy car to boot. The current iteration is about to get some stiff competition from Chevrolet, Dodge, and Hyundai in the form of the Camaro, Challenger and Genesis Coupe, and though it’s just four years old the time has come to transfer some of the Mustang’s historical design cues to a more modern version of the pony car. One that won’t be embarrassed by a full-size family sedan in anything but a straight line.
By – Christian Wardlaw
