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First Test: 2010 Ford Mustang GT
Pony Up: The Blue Oval Gives a Compelling Reason to Buy American, Rolls to 60 in 4.9 Sec.
Twenty-one hundred rpm. That's about the perfect engine speed at which to launch the new 2010 Ford Mustang GT -- at least one equipped with the optional $1495 Track Package, which includes a shorter 3.73 rear axle, a significantly racier ratio compared with the standard 3.31 or even the available 3.55.
Spark the gas, and the 315-horsepower, 4.6-liter V-8's 24 valves grumblingly sigh to life. A "Good Morning," it seems from Ford's significantly revamped racehorse.
Notch the Tremec 3650 five-speed manual into first gear, drop the clutch just right at 2100, and the rear 255/40 Pirelli PZero summer tires (also part of the Track Pack, along with 19-inch alloys) twitter for a couple beats and then spin in virtual silence until 40 mph, when a forceful one-two shift snaps another chirp from the mitt-size contact patches.
In only 4.9 seconds, the Mustang GT is moving at a speed of 60 mph. Compared with last year's Bullitt, a car that donated its more potent powertrain and rear axle to the 2010 GT, that time represents a 0.1-second improvement, in other words, the quickest sprint Motor Trend has ever coaxed out of a stock Mustang GT. Less than nine ticks later, at 13.5 seconds, the GT eclipses the quarter mile at a speed of 104.2 mph, or 0.2 second quicker and 1.5 mph faster than the no-longer-so-bullet Bullitt. The landscape, ostensibly, is blurring out of focus.
Motor Trend - First Test: 2010 Ford Mustang GT
M
Pony Up: The Blue Oval Gives a Compelling Reason to Buy American, Rolls to 60 in 4.9 Sec.
Twenty-one hundred rpm. That's about the perfect engine speed at which to launch the new 2010 Ford Mustang GT -- at least one equipped with the optional $1495 Track Package, which includes a shorter 3.73 rear axle, a significantly racier ratio compared with the standard 3.31 or even the available 3.55.
Spark the gas, and the 315-horsepower, 4.6-liter V-8's 24 valves grumblingly sigh to life. A "Good Morning," it seems from Ford's significantly revamped racehorse.
Notch the Tremec 3650 five-speed manual into first gear, drop the clutch just right at 2100, and the rear 255/40 Pirelli PZero summer tires (also part of the Track Pack, along with 19-inch alloys) twitter for a couple beats and then spin in virtual silence until 40 mph, when a forceful one-two shift snaps another chirp from the mitt-size contact patches.
In only 4.9 seconds, the Mustang GT is moving at a speed of 60 mph. Compared with last year's Bullitt, a car that donated its more potent powertrain and rear axle to the 2010 GT, that time represents a 0.1-second improvement, in other words, the quickest sprint Motor Trend has ever coaxed out of a stock Mustang GT. Less than nine ticks later, at 13.5 seconds, the GT eclipses the quarter mile at a speed of 104.2 mph, or 0.2 second quicker and 1.5 mph faster than the no-longer-so-bullet Bullitt. The landscape, ostensibly, is blurring out of focus.
Motor Trend - First Test: 2010 Ford Mustang GT
M
