The 2024 Ford Mustang GT Is The Fast, Agile V8 Coupe You’ve Always Wanted

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“Where are your friends tonight?” It’s a question posed by great American poet James Murphy over keys and drums, a wistful piece of party nostalgia filled with good times and introspection. It’s a damn good question, too. See, we all create our own nostalgia, but mine is interlaced with V8 pony cars and intoxicated off gratuitous wheelspin, the jousting of youth frozen in memories. To me, it doesn’t really matter how luxurious the new 2024 Ford Mustang GT is, or how much tech is in the cabin, partly because I’ve already covered that in my Mustang Ecoboost First Drive, and partly because it’s more about emotion. After all, this could be the last V8-powered Mustang GT ever, so it better improve on its predecessor and tug at our heartstrings all the same. So, does it?

[Full Disclosure: Ford flew me out to Los Angeles and put me up in a nice hotel to drive the 2024 Ford Mustang GT. Yes, this was the exact same trip as the Ecoboost, but it’s coming a day later because embargoes are just like that sometime. No Nerds Rope on this leg of the event, though, but other food instead.]

We Go Back To Your House

2024 Ford Mustang GT

First, a little self-indulgence on why the 2024 Ford Mustang GT is so significant for me. My childhood best friend is a guy named Amrit. He’s a heavy vehicle apprentice, plays rhythm guitar in a metalcore band, and owns a Terminator-swapped Mercury Marauder boosted to the moon. However, long before he could light up rear tires from 30 mph or play dueling guitars, he and I would play with Hot Wheels cars in primary school until his dad would pick him up in a bright yellow five-liter SN95 Mustang. Sure, it’s not a massively quick car by today’s standards, but it had presence rumbling through the school run line, a shark amid minivans. Several years after selling the SN95, he bought a 1999 Mustang GT, and that was the first car I learned to wrench on. It would’ve been little more than a decade old at the time, but we dropped the tank to do a fuel pump, changed the fluids, and swapped wheels in a tight subdivision garage. For the first time in my life, I was doing more than just holding a flashlight.

Oh, and once that fuel pump was swapped, boy did this car ever go. See, keeping things perfectly stock is a little boring and the previous owner went HAM on the upgrades. I’m talking a Steeda short shifter, subframe connectors, a triangulated tubular strut tower brace, Eibach springs, aftermarket dampers, aftermarket anti-roll bars, a cold air intake and stainless piping, an aftermarket plenum, shorty headers, and a partridge in a freaking pear tree. Stiff, swift, and well-damped, this rock-solid Mustang was a world away from the sensible Toyotas my family had. Keep in mind, the brand new Mustang GT of the time still rocked a 315-horsepower three-valve mod motor, so lightly breathed-on two-valve thrust was still widely considered quick. Even just sitting in the garage after school, shifting the five-speed gearbox felt special, a notchy connection to an unbridled machine. In that moment, I was hooked — the Mustang bug had bitten me in full force. Even at a young age, it’s one thing to love a car because you’ve seen it in the magazines, but it’s another to experience it.

And So It Starts

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It’s hard to believe that what feels like a short time later, we’re running out of the automotive drugs we’ve grown so accustomed to. Naturally-aspirated response is in short order, as is the gracious presence of the manual gearbox. It doesn’t feel that long ago that you could buy a Lexus or an Infiniti or a BMW with six atmospherically-filled cylinders and a row-your-own option guaranteed for grins. Now everything is multi-speed this and turbocharged that, three-act plays long on morals while short on drama and charisma, assuming there’s a theater at all. The Chevrolet Camaro and Dodge Challenger are on their last legs, so it’s a miracle we’re getting a new Mustang at all, let alone one with a fire-breathing V8.

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So, aside from the presence of a V8, what makes the 2024 Ford Mustang GT special compared to the Ecoboost? Well, let’s get the big one out of the way: It comes standard with a six-speed manual gearbox. Yes, to row your own gears, you’re looking at a starting price of $44,090 including a $1,595 freight charge ($50,695 in Canada). Not a fan of the dual separate infotainment and gauge cluster screens? Step on up to the GT Premium for $48,610 ($56,595 in Canada). Either way, the excellent and comprehensive Performance Package is a $4,995 add-on ($6,500 in Canada), the valved exhaust costs $1,225 ($1,495 in Canada) and unlocks six extra horsepower, and magnetorheological dampers are a $1,795 extra ($2,500 in Canada). If you must choose the ten-speed automatic, expect to pay an extra $1,595 ($1,750 in Canada), and the only V8 drop-top — the GT Premium Convertible — starts at $54,110 ($62,395 in Canada). Not cheap, but not silly money for a 480-horsepower manual coupe either.

2024 Ford Mustang GT

With pricing out of the way, let’s talk styling. Everything up front save for the fenders and headlamps is unique to the GT model, and all these styling tweaks serve actual functions. Larger grilles in the front bumper direct more air to various heat exchangers, while vents in the hood extract air from the engine compartment, lowering underhood heat and pressure. The GT trim also gets different wheel options from the Ecoboost, standard four-piston front calipers, and GT-specific badges.

2024 Ford Mustang GT

Back to that performance package for a second — what makes it worth $4,995? Well, in addition to tweaked electric power steering, stability control, and ABS calibration, you get a K-brace, a strut tower brace, six-piston Brembo front calipers, four-piston Brembo rear calipers, staggered 19×9-inch and 19×9.5-inch wheels wrapped in Pirelli PZ4 tires, new front springs, new rear dampers, an electronic drift brake, a 3.73:1 axle ratio with a Torsen differential (3.55:1 on automatics), special chassis tuning, front tow hooks, and a glossy black grille. That’s a lot of stuff for the money, especially if you’ve ever priced out a big brake kit.

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Mind you, go-fast goodies aren’t the only option on the new Mustang. During the launch, Ford made great efforts to promote the new infotainment system using claims that Gen Z is used to customizing things through software, a sign that somebody is being paid a lot of money to get things wrong. See, when we customize our cars through software, we’re usually talking about a remap, either to support physical modifications or to simply unlock a little extra power. Hardware is still the key here, and car enthusiasts around my age are generally more interested in wheels, tires, and suspension than they are in ambient lighting or gauge cluster animations. After all, if you’re looking down often in a performance car, you’re doing it wrong. So, is the new 2024 Ford Mustang GT a digital car for a digital age? No. Not really. Instead, it fixes everything I didn’t like about the last Mustang, from the steering to the clutch pedal to the sound. Let’s start with that last one.

You Switch The Engine On

2024 Ford Mustang GT

Set controls for the heart of the sun, and the fourth-generation Coyote five-liter V8 delivers beautiful naturally aspirated linearity that’s absent in most modern performance cars. Best of all, it no longer sounds like Job For A Cowboy played through a tin can. Depress the clutch pedal, tap the starter switch, and the quad-cam V8 erupts in a slow-breathing Budweiser-and-barroom-brawls rumble, the pulse of every Main Street from Chattanooga to Calabasas. Slide the shifter into first, tear away, and you’ll notice the sound change rapidly. With the raspiness toned down, this 7,500 rpm tenor produces a rageous, focused howl at full pace, scaring birds off power lines and snapping nearby necks. Surging towards redline makes you feel like a child inching higher and higher on a swing set. We all wanted to believe we could loop over the bar, just like you’ll want to believe that the fourth-gen Coyote’s top end is as limitless as Olive Garden breadsticks.

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When it comes time to grab another gear, you’ll likely be satisfied. The previous-generation S550 Mustang GT suffered from a weird, almost compound bow-like clutch pedal whose return spring would catapult your foot toward the bite point. In the S650 Mustang GT, this has been reworked to feel all natural. Likewise, repositioning the Getrag MT-82 manual transmission has led to a brilliant shifter that feels slick and positive, gliding through gates like Swayze on the floor.

You’re Taking 45 Turns Just As Fast As You Can

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The unique steering calibration, revised suspension, GT Performance-specific wheel package, and the extra weight of a V8 up front give leagues more front end tactility than in the Ecoboost. In the heaviest steering setting, you can just barely feel when the front end is approaching its limit, and the available magnetorheological dampers in full Viagra mode are perfectly stiff yet well-damped. Pointing the six-speed Mustang GT down the same ridiculously tight canyon road I drove in the Ecoboost was like shooting fish in a barrel, if the barrel was a shot glass and the gun came from a Warthog. No wonder I saw 12.6 mpg, even if the manual Performance Package car’s official combined rating of 17 mpg (10.2 L/100km) isn’t bad for a five-liter performance car. The automatic scores a tad better at 18 mpg (9.8 L/100km) combined, but when the days of manual gearboxes are numbered, would you really want it?

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Thanks to the digital instrument cluster, hooning the new 2024 Ford Mustang GT presents you with all manner of data. Intake air temperature, oil temperature, oil pressure, all the vital signs you’ll really care about. Despite not being a track-focused model, even while hustling on a 100-degree day, the car stayed cool — mostly. A sensor in the differential told me the axle temperature was north of 240 degrees, which is on the upper end of safe. No wonder the Dark Horse is getting a diff cooler. Still, it’s nice to know components are getting hot before things go wrong, especially given how most modern performance cars wall you out from some metrics that matter.

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When it comes time to slow your roll, the Performance Package’s six-piston front Brembos and semi-metallic pads offer immediate sabretooth bite, like dropping a 20-ton anchor through the tarmac. If the sheer thrust of the naturally-aspirated V8 is enough to get you into trouble, the Performance Package brakes and suspension tuning should be enough to get you out of it.

2024 Ford Mustang GT

Somewhere around 5,000 rpm at corner exit as you smoothly feed the steering straight while opening the throttle, you hit escape velocity from reality. The rent, the bills, the family stress, none of it really matters in that moment. You forget about life’s worries and revel in the sheer cohesiveness of the car, wheel and pedals interconnected like a 486-horsepower marionette. The unbelievable ease at which you can duck out from the world in the Mustang GT is a fabulous thing. It’s not like a Supra in that you need to be going stupid fast to have fun. The 2024 Ford Mustang GT will still give you joyous, satisfying sensations at the local speed limit without sacrificing refinement, a feeling that you rarely get in say, a BMW M240i.

I Wouldn’t Trade One Stupid Decision

2024 Ford Mustang GT Interior

Gripes? Sure, I have a few. The Mustang’s custom drive mode doesn’t let you choose from an extensive a la carte menu of settings but instead allows a restrictive selection of minor alterations to existing drive modes. Boo. I want heavyweight steering with comfy dampers, a combination that’s currently impossible. However, the Mustang team claimed that the necessary interface work “isn’t done yet” and seemed accepting of the idea of pushing out a full unlock in an over-the-air update. Might I suggest the driving mode name Custom Unleashed?

In addition to mode-based frustration, the optional Recaro seats are well-bolstered yet completely devoid of upper back support and therefore less comfortable than getting hit by a flying brick. This wouldn’t be bad if the standard seats had good lateral support, but I found the limits of those bolsters sooner than the limits of the 220-treadwear Pirellis. Oh, and the default gauge cluster layout in sport mode is borderline unusable. Gauges should be circular, thank you very much. Still, if that’s all I can complain about, that’s not bad.

This Could Be The Last Time

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Even taking minor quibbles into account, the 2024 Ford Mustang GT is the best Mustang GT yet. Effortlessly quick, incredibly easy to live with, and completely devoid of truly serious vices. The rough edges of America’s pony car have been polished off, much like the personal growth we undergo as we age. After all, my childhood best friend whose dad had all the cool Mustangs? He still has his Fords, but he also got into BMWs. The new Mustang GT isn’t about borrowed ‘80s nostalgia or chest-thumping frat bro testosterone, it’s about growing up while staying true to who you are — the definition of a mature product. From the Fox Body cluster theme to the ‘60s-influenced grille, it feels secure with itself, its past, and its present.

Where Are Your Friends Tonight?

2024 Ford Mustang GT

The Mustang Ecoboost is a car you can learn to love. The Mustang GT is a car you were born to love. It’s your favorite record played through the latest megawatt hi-fi, a scintillating performance of passion and technical expertise. Every piano note, every cymbal, every vocal inflection is exactly how you remember, just clearer than it’s ever been before, like looking into the waters of Banff for the first time. It brings the highest highs and lowest lows, a mesmerizing drive and a deep lump in your stomach that comes from knowing this is likely the last generation of Mustang as we know it. As I pulled off to collect my thoughts at the end of the canyon, I combed through the pricing to learn that my ideal Mustang stickers for $60,095 Canadian. Could I possibly, maybe just comb through the couch cushions and scrape up enough to put in an order? It would be recklessly irresponsible and potentially catastrophic from a financial standpoint, but who wouldn’t want to throw a party at the end of the world? I don’t know where my friends will be tomorrow, but tonight, they’re in my heart, dancing and laughing and imbibing old-fashioned horsepower until the sun comes up. Thanks, Mustang GT. For everything you’ve always been, and the glorious sports coupe you’ve become. Long may you run.

(Photo credits: Thomas Hundal)

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92 thoughts on “The 2024 Ford Mustang GT Is The Fast, Agile V8 Coupe You’ve Always Wanted

  1. thank you, loved the last paragraph..
    It’s your favorite record played through the latest megawatt hi-fi, a scintillating performance of passion and technical expertise. Every piano note, every cymbal, every vocal inflection is exactly how you remember, just clearer than it’s ever been before”
    Listened to the remastered LP of Sgt Pepper and it was exactly like this..
    I imagine the new Mustang to be a sort of avatar of every Mustang made, only better. The Mustang always looked a little exotic to my immigrant eyes, always wanted one.
    maybe I should just bankrupt myself..

  2. Umm, regarding the instrument panel, looks like to me that the dash designer panicked and just ordered two tablets from Alibaba and hot glued them to the dash?

    WTF!?

  3. I have had several mustangs and will never buy any Ford again if it can be avoided.

    While my own preferences and opinions are my own, there is no such thing as a good car that has the heater core buried in the dash. That’s not planned obsolescence, but it is planned.

      1. It’s on the outside of the firewall on the Lotus Elise. Similar effort to get the thing out, but it involves disassembling the entire exterior front of the car instead of the interior.

    1. Other than maybe the gen-1 Volvo XC90 (which has the heater core brilliantly concealed inside the center console, replacing it is less than a 2-hour job!) I can’t think of a single car that I’ve seen need or get heater core work in the last 30-ish years not have it in the dahs somewhere. Unless it’s a Mitsubishi-based Mopar (Avenger, Sebring, 200, etc.) I really haven’t seen that many heater core failures in that time, either. Cars are all about ease and cost of assembly, repair is generally an afterthought. And something as rarely needed as a heater core’s location (again, except for those Mopars) is a foolish reason to dismiss a vehicle.

  4. I’m glad the new mustang exists!

    Giving this a new chassis code and calling it a new model seems like a real stretch. It’s just another update to the ’15 S550. The S550 was and is a good, maybe great, car… not sure why Ford is trying to pull a “new Z” move. Instead of (once again) slightly more horsepower out of the coyote, I would’ve liked to have seen slightly more MPGs. The ever-climbing price has got to price-out lots of would-be customers. The drift brake is silly, but I don’t think anybody can say it isn’t a fun addition. The screens on the interior are polarizing (see what I did there), but I get why they did that. The new front look is super generic.

    I think the car is very good overall, and I think Ford is (in general) headed in the right direction with the electric F-150 and keeping the manual V8 mustang and whatnot… but this just could’ve been done better.

    1. I’m not a fan of the styling, but I will give Ford credit for finding more power despite more stringent emissions regs. It’s pretty astonishing they’re offering nearly 100 hp/l in a $45k car in 2023, not to mention it’s a 7500 RPM V8.

      We all swoon over a Cayman GT4 making 103 hp/l at well over $100k, Ford is over here offering more power and 97 hp/l at $45k. This thing makes the new Z or Supra motor look like a joke.

      It’s too heavy, too big, and has questionable styling…but I think you could level those accusations at basically all of it’s competitors. It’s only 100 lbs heavier than an M2!

      1. But it didn’t need more power. I guess to keep bringing the dude-bros back and buying more, they maybe have to. I don’t swoon over high dollar Porsches… especially ones without a true manual. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

    2. For sports coupes/convertibles, power sells. MPGs don’t, otherwise the CR-Z would have been the sales champ in the 2- and 3-door world and still in production.

  5. I don’t think of a terrible seat as a minor problem—it’s literally the thing you interact with most and can severely restrict the time you can stand to drive the car and if I’m picking a car I can’t stand to be in for more than short drives, I’m going Morgan Trike at that price. The OEMs are getting away with screwing this fundamentally important feature far too often. Seats in cars in general are god awful nowadays. I just got out of a Corolla hybrid sedan loaner and the seat was terrible in completely unnecessary ways. WTF does a hybrid POS that will be bought by the kind of people who have such low expectations for joy in life and with very limited handling capabilities need bottom seat bolsters? I’m 32″ waist, so I’m not some giant dude and those damn bolsters press into my thighs. Almost no cars need these, especially with today’s giant consoles and bunker-thick doors encroaching enough on driver space that nobody’s going anywhere on anything but a track with the stickiest tires. My GR pulls over 1g lateral according to the dash and I hacked the f out of those uncomfortable, stupid bolster foam, leaving only enough for the upholstery to hold its shape, gaining a more comfortable driving experience at the cost of nothing. Another thing is modern foams are often way too damn hard for any drive over 2 hours and why isn’t lumbar support standard on everything or is sometimes horrendously implemented by morons who think the lumbar region is 6 inches higher than it is? My GR didn’t have lumbar, either, though a $15 blood pressure cuff stuck in front of the springs made for a nice adjustable setup for cheap and now the seat is pretty good. I haven’t driven a Lincoln Continental, but I’ve been told by multiple people that it’s actually not that comfortable because of the seats. WTF else is that car for?! My shitbox early ’80s Subarus had seats that weighed about 15 pounds, had great adjustable lumbar support (such incredible luxury tech!), a proper fairly flat lower cushion that didn’t pretend the driver was going for a Nurburgring record, seat cushion/spring combos that took much longer to tire from, and came in f’n velour which will hold one in the seat better than damn bolsters, anyway! You know the recent vehicles I’ve been in that tend to have decent seats? Trucks. I don’t doubt that’s another reason they sell so well.

    1. I also have this complaint with car manufacturers lately. I’ve noticed they do everything to cut costs of the car (in some of the worst ways possible; seats as you mentioned) yet there is never a lower price. Things get slightly worse, while price goes up. At least give me a comfy seat for when I’m done getting f*cked.
      Every day that goes by, and every vehicle that comes out that was advertised as X price only to be higher Y price when released, kills the passion I used to have for cars. Sad, really.
      Now who let me out of my retirement home unattended?

  6. Mustang meant best bang for your buck for most of its existence. I’ve had three, from 351 Cleveland to 5.0 and they are a visceral experience, a throw back, very analog. The “glass cockpit” is SO out of place here. For those that say get over it, the IPAD dash is the way, I say SPOF. “Single Point Of Failure” should be sought out, and mitigated in all forms of engineering design. See “Why bridges collapse” PBS.org. The glass cockpit started in 60’s military aircraft, and transitioned to commercial aviation in the 70’s. As aircraft operation depends on glass cockpit systems, flight crews must be trained to deal with failures. The Airbus has seen fifty incidents where several flight displays were lost. Due to the possibility of a blackout, glass cockpit aircraft also have an stand by system that includes (at a minimum) an AH, ALT and Airspeed. It is electrically separate from the main instruments and can run for several hours on a backup battery.

    1. Yeah, hate the “throw a screen on the dash” stupidest thing I’ve ever seen…
      “The way of the future” Talk about sheep…if someone told them to jump off a bridge, they would

  7. I cannot get past how the 2024 Mustang looks, I’m disappointed in it from nose to tail and it’s sad to think this one may be the last.

    1. Agreed. The back is a little interesting to me, but the front and the interior look like huge fails. The front reminds me of.. maybe a camaro or a police car? The interior is just a mess with those screens. And then there’s the drift brake gimmick (that I didn’t really read anything about in this piece?) instead of the rumored AWD I was hoping for.

    2. The part that bothers me most is the pedestrian safety compliance hood that both it and the VW Golf/GTI have. Looks like a caveman’s forehead/brow bone when photographed head on

    3. Meh, it looks better than the last few camaro facelifts, the 400Z, or the beaver-faced BMWs. Not a huge bar to clear but it’s still over it.

  8. Awesome article. I immediately turned on Sound of Silver to soundtrack the read.

    Never thought I’d get an LCD Soundsystem themed review of a Mustang GT, but here we are.

  9. They should have just fixed a few minor things in the interior (along with whatever else you said was an improvement) and left the styling alone.

  10. I drove a ton of these when I was working at the proving grounds and totally agree with this article. The Ecoboost is a great car, plenty fast, handles well, sounds decent. I’d be perfectly happy with one, until I drove the V8. I think the Coyote is one of the best sounding V8s out there, and once you feel that ocean wave of torque at pretty much any speed and any gear, nothing else will do.

  11. Omg the marketing/pandering around this and the Nissan Z rollouts makes me barf.

    They are both just moderate refreshes of the older car. Before the SUV imposed age of car austerity we would have laughed at how little they tried to improve these cars.

    Thanks to the symbiotic relationship between reviewers and manufacturers we will get gushers of “thank god for Ford” nonsense when they deserve a kick in the nuts for pricing a cheaply built car developed 8 years ago for 45k.

  12. I don’t care for the S650 design, it reeks of 71-73 Mustang retro-styling and IMO those were some of the ugliest Mustangs ever created. 67-70 was peak Mustang styling but the 2018-2023 S550 facelift is the best looking Mustang since the Fox body cars.

  13. I’m definitely not the majority here, but all the whining about digital displays is getting kinda old. My instrument cluster has like 4 different layouts, and the information can be customized within each of those layouts. You’re not going to convince me a plastic needle is better than that.

    1. Some of these systems aren’t as hard to live with as people claim either. Don’t get me wrong-the current VW stuff is nightmare fuel but my dad and I test drove an X5 with the current/much maligned iDrive software a few weeks ago and I had 0 issues with it. Hell, my 60+ year old tech-averse father figured it out in a minute or two and ordered an X5 PHEV.

    2. I think it’s not so much the digital, configurable nature of the display, but how it’s executed. It seems like an afterthought, rather than the part of the cockpit that the driver spends the most time observing. The Mustang’s physical hardware seems tacked on, and the digital interface seems poorly thought out.

      By way of contrast, the Ford GT’s dash setup has a similar 2 screen setup, but a vastly better design that enhances the feel of the car and the experience, rather than taking you out of it the way this does.

      1. Another common complaint. “I hate the tablet stuck to the dash”. Well, the tablet on the dash is close to your line of sight, easy to see, easy to reach, and doesn’t cause any glare. I’ll take an iPad glued to the dash right next to my line of sight over a screen buried halfway down the dashboard any day, because I can operate it quickly with one eye still on the road. And that’s if I even need to touch it, because there’s so much information in my instrument cluster and so many controls right where my hands are, on the steering wheel.

        1. I agree with all you’re saying. I was very much on team analog everything a couple of years ago but after getting my N and having the infotainment tablet/digital gauge cluster I honestly don’t want to go back. I have all the info I need at all times and honestly the digital cluster is easier to read on the fly than an analog one is, and as you say…the tablet has no glare, is always easy to read, and the redundant buttons (IMHO all manufacturers should go with this approach) for key functions mean I can get into whatever I need without taking my eyes of the road.

        2. I still prefer the looks of analog, but the breadth of information that digital can provide is a huge advantage, as well as the open possibilities of layout design (though the OEMs are so far disappointing in their creativity here). However, this looks like shit. The twins do it much better if a bit gimmicky with the boxer shape—the digital gauge cluster is actually f’n integrated into the design like a real car, not some amateur rendering from an electronic trade show booth and the tablet everything must have now is also decently enough integrated into the dash as to look like the interior design team knew they needed to fit one in there. Even better, is that touchscreen almost never needs to be used as steering wheel functions handle 99% of what would be used while driving.

        3. This, plus integrating the screen while keeping it line of sight could result in a big lump of plastic in the middle of the dash and/or a higher cowl. I’ll take the more open feeling cabin.

    3. I haven’t yet had the opportunity to experience a digital dashboard display in person, but I am open to the idea. The ability to customize the display and to configure it for different needs is appealing and could be very useful — putting relevant information in a convenient place while hiding less important information until it’s needed. Or even just the fun of switching up the display style to account for personal tastes.

      Don’t get me wrong, I hate touchscreens for any sort of controls, but it seems as if the “SCREENS BAD” contingent has expanded beyond that. Screens can be very useful if implemented in a good way with proper human factors considerations.

      1. I’m not a fan of Audi putting the climate controls in a separate screen (or on a screen, period). Both of mine are are bit older, so they have rotary controllers for the MMI and separate climate hard controls. This is probably the best way to do it, but truth be told I can’t tell you the last time I even touched any of that stuff. I set the auto climate to 70 when I got the car and haven’t needed to touch it since. The ventilated seat setting is persistent, it stays on and I never need to turn it off because it’s swamp-ass season year round here. While it’s nice I have buttons and knobs for that stuff, if it was on a screen it honestly wouldn’t affect me in any meaningful way. I rarely even need to use the rotary controller. I get in, Android Auto connects and Spotify starts playing with no input from me. Google Assistant sets my destination, sends texts and tells me what I need to know. I can change my drive modes with a steering wheel button. If anything, all the screens have made it so I have to physically interact with my dashboard less.

    4. This is the apple watch vs. chronograph argument. Does the apple watch do much, much more? Of course it does. Does the apple watch look better than a nice chronograph? No, it most certainly does not.

      I agree with you when it comes to your average everyday vehicle, particularly if it gets the cost down. Whether or not car companies admit it, a digital dash is WAY cheaper these days. I don’t agree when it comes to something like a Mustang though, it’s a car you buy because it looks and sounds awesome. It’s meant to make people feel good, and I want gauges that move and exist in three dimensions. I’d even pay extra for it.

    5. I am hardly on team screen, and I was slightly taken aback when I got my M240 and was confronted with the large swath of an iDrive 8 screen, but in all honesty (especially combined with the HUD) it’s great so far. I don’t like the lack of buttons for the seat heaters, but I don’t mind the climate controls being digital (it wouldn’t be my first choice, but they are easy enough to use). Everything I need is at hand and overall the user experience is quite good.
      That said the screen situation in the Tesla model 3 is merely adequate at best, and all other things being equal is a deal breaker for me. The ergonomics in the 3 are horrible, and too many things are hidden in the screen (exterior mirror adjustments, e.g., should be physical buttons). I rented one for a week to see if it was something I’d want for a car and I while I didn’t absolutely hate it, I certainly didn’t like it.

    6. As aircraft operation depends on glass cockpit systems, flight crews must be trained to deal with failures. The Airbus A320 family has seen fifty incidents where several flight displays were lost.[6]
      On 25 January 2008 United Airlines Flight 731 experienced a serious glass-cockpit blackout, losing half of the Electronic Centralised Aircraft Monitor (ECAM) displays as well as all radios, transponders, Traffic Collision Avoidance System (TCAS), and attitude indicators.[7] The pilots were able to land at Newark Airport without radio contact in good weather and daylight conditions.
      Airbus has offered an optional fix, which the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has suggested to the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) as mandatory, but the FAA has yet to make it a requirement.[8][dubious – discuss] A preliminary NTSB factsheet is available.[9] Due to the possibility of a blackout, glass cockpit aircraft also have an integrated standby instrument system that includes (at a minimum) an artificial horizonaltimeter and airspeed indicator. It is electronically separate from the main instruments and can run for several hours on a backup battery.
      In 2010, the NTSB published a study done on 8,000 general aviation light aircraft. The study found that, although aircraft equipped with glass cockpits had a lower overall accident rate, they also had a larger chance of being involved in a fatal accident.[9] The NTSB Chairman said in response to the study:[10]

      Training is clearly one of the key components to reducing the accident rate of light planes equipped with glass cockpits, and this study clearly demonstrates the life and death importance of appropriate training on these complex systems… While the technological innovations and flight management tools that glass cockpit equipped airplanes bring to the general aviation community should reduce the number of fatal accidents, we have not—unfortunately—seen that happen.

  14. Exceptionally well written article Thomas. It does a great job of conveying what an emotional experience a good car can be and the little nostalgia trips strewn about were quite charming. With that out of the way, I am really struggling to get past the price of this thing. If you’re buying one of these the performance package is mandatory, and having played around on the online configurator a bit…Ford is adept at nickel and diming you on the little stuff.

    Basically, to have one of these as I would kit it out is a low to mid 50s proposition…and that is a very difficult pill for me to swallow. The Mustang has always been meant to be a sports car for the masses, and with the new GT starting in the mid 40s now (nearly $10,000 more than an S550) it just isn’t anymore. It’s a lot of money to spend, especially considering how many significantly more practical, luxury oriented options are in that range too.

    And before someone goes BUT NSANE, MUH V8…if you can afford this you can probably afford an IS500 and its V8 that has a similar philosophy to the Coyote. Don’t get me wrong…the looks have grown on me a bit and I’m glad this still exists, but for me personally the money just isn’t adding up, particularly when the car requires you to make so many civility and practicality compromises.

    As I said in the Ecoboost article comments…I’d wait the S650 out until the discounts start rolling in, because at MSRP both of these are a solid 3-5,000 more than I think they’re worth…and I think the market will correct it eventually regardless of how many 96 month loans at 11% APR Ford Financial is willing to hand out like candy.

    1. I agree about the price….until you start looking at what everything else costs.

      An Integra Type S starts at $8k more, M240i is $5k more, etc. You get a 7500 RPM V8 that’s nearly 100 hp/l, that’s very special these days. I think the pricing is more a reflection of the times than Ford taking the piss.

      1. Is anyone really buying a base, bone stock GT though? I think you’d need to have a death wish to not option the performance package, and it adds a cool $5,000 to the price…not to mention the absurd costs of ownership these will require between the horrid gas mileage and sky high insurance. You’re going to pay a whole hell of a lot more to own one of these than you would in an M240i or Integra Type S.

        If it’s V8 or bust then I guess I get it, but the thought of paying as much or more as a luxury performance car for a goddamn Mustang doesn’t sit right with me. And you’ll feel the difference after a few years when the Ford interior is falling apart…

        1. Nah you don’t need the performance package unless you’re taking it to the track. If you’re just driving for fun on fun roads, the base model is fine. I had a base model ’15 that was great to drive, and the suspension and brakes were fine. I have a ’19 premium now, and that is also just fine.

          For what you get… the manual (MT82 woes notwithstanding), the powerful V8, the sound, the ergonomics, the decent space (interior, rear seat, and trunk), the handling.. it really is a lot of car for the money. Disclaimer: I’ve never bought a car brand-new.

          I’ve had two BMWs and hopefully I never will again. The Integra I don’t know much about.. but FWD blah, and to me it’s pretty ugly. And the IS500 doesn’t have a stick.

        2. …have you been in an M240i? The interior is only marginally better than a Mustang’s, and the powertrain isn’t even on the same planet. It’s also not much lighter, the AWD version is actually heavier than a Mustang GT.

          You can look at this both ways, but if BMW or Acura were offering something with a 500 hp 7500 RPM V8 it’d be a six figure car. Ford are making a really, REALLY awesome powertrain accessible to the masses.

    2. I preferred the Ecoboost, but no manual makes it pointless. The V8 is fine, but I don’t want that much power and, as you wrote, the price puts it against competitors I would be more interested in. I could probably get a used Cadillac CT4 V with a manual for around a GT with the good options.

      1. Which is fine, but this will smoke a CT4-V and sound cooler doing it, I also don’t think the interior is any better. Now, if you could get the CT4-V with a 6.2….

  15. A dream to some, but a nightmare to others.

    Ford should be commended for continuing to offer the Coyote naturally aspirated V8 and especially a manual transmission. But that instrument panel is a complete dumpster fire. It’s a big steaming bowl of gawd-awful.

    There’s one and only one reason Ford decided to use a couple of cheap Chinese made touch screens for the instrument panel: because it’s cheaper than analog. Each screen might be $50, $100 tops for the ‘new’ interior treatment. It certainly fulfills Jim Farley’s mission of boosting per-unit profit margins. But at the expense of turning an iconic interior of a legendary pony car into a nightmare parody of a cheap video game.

    Those who are addicted to their GameBoys and X-Boxes might love it. Like a certain friend of mine (but he’s never had good taste in anything). But it’s not a car. It’s not a driving experience. It’s now a video game.

    Maybe this is Farley’s way of making sure we won’t miss the ICE Mustang when it’s gone in a few years. In which case, mission accomplished.

    I’ve owned 6 Mustangs in my life. After seeing this, I’m keeping my 2015 GT. Analog gauges and all.

    https://mailchi.mp/467417120e8e/antique-autos-mustangs-swan-song-top-muscle-camaro-commercials

  16. Agile!?

    ROFLMAO! This thing is two tons, and takes up as much space in the road as a midsized SUV from two decades ago…

    It might corner and brake extremely well… on a skidpad on flat ground. Put this portly morass of a car on a series of inclines and see how well it does those things.

    Remember when “heavy” steel-bodied Mustangs were lighter than these “weight saving” plastic fantastics by 1,000+ lbs?

    1. Just the other day, I came across a first-gen Explorer parked right next to a current minivan, I think a Sienna.

      The Explorer was absolutely tiny in comparison! A little smaller than the size of a current compact SUV like a Bronco Sport.

      We really are in a ’70s redux period, just the size is vertical instead of horizontal this time.

      1. I hate this era for cars. Portly, oversized, fuel-hungry, tech-laden, unrepairable road hippos, made to look like they’re aerodynamic without actually being aerodynamic, destined to occupy landfill space when a cheap part breaks that costs more to fix than the vehicle is worth.

        1. Yes but in being portly, oversized, fuel-hungry road hippos made to look like they’re aerodynamic without actually being aerodynamic they are the perfect match for their obese, fast food hungry human hippo occupants wearing athleasure apparel made to look active and healthy without actually being active and healthy.

    2. One of my biggest issues with pony cars (and I’ve driven several/do find the performance per dollar ratio enticing) is the packaging. They are somehow absolutely massive but offer almost no usable space. My wife and I lived with a Camaro SS convertible on vacation for a week last summer, and while it was an absolute joy to drive it was a nightmare to live with.

      The doors were so massive and heavy we couldn’t open them fully in parking lots, the trunk opening was too small for suitcases, so we had to shove them in the back seats, the back seats are incapable of accommodating adults, it’s crazy. In a car that has a similar footprint to a damn 4Runner.

      The S550 Mustang we had for a weekend later that year was better, but it was still difficult to live with every day even for two people. It had similar issues-massive, heavy doors, the trunk opening was too small, etc…although we managed to fit an adult in the backseat at one point FWIW.

      I really struggle to understand why these cars are packaged like they are. They’re such a poor use of space and there’s no reason for them to be two ton barges. Honestly I really wish there was some sort of Charger successor and/or competitor in the works somewhere…because it’s not that hard to turn these boat platforms into muscle sedans.

      1. My 93 Camaro has a big ass hatch. Going to a tiny trunk opening you can barely fit a carry-on through is a big step backward. After driving an S5 sportback for two years I’m hooked. It’s as close as I’m gonna get to a spicy Audi wagon in the US. Tons of room back there for Home Depot trips and my 90lb Greyhound and 50lb Aussie fit back there together.

      2. I once rented a Camry on vacation, and omg it was a nightmare.
        The first thing I did was head to the local drag strip to bang off some 11 second passes, because that’s just what I expect of a car.
        I was horrified at the 16 second plus timeslips I recieved.
        I tried to take it on the road course in order to embarrass some sports cars, but this thing was pushing everywhere. It’s almost like the tires were chosen for economy instead of all out performance.
        The nightmare continued when I gazed into the cavernous back seat area. It could easily swallow up 3 large adults, but the car was only carrying my wife and I.
        Toyota could have made the footprint of this car 1/3 smaller and it would still have ample room for my wife and I.
        This was a huge miss on their part.

      3. For the amount of practicality these cars offer, they could/should be significantly smaller in dimensions and lighter. If I had control over the next gen Mustangs and Camaros, they’d take up about the same space as or even a bit less than the 80s models, BUT lose 1,200+ lbs and would be extensively aerodynamically streamlined. With today’s tech, 40+ highway MPG with a V8 under the hood is perfectly possible. Time to bring musclecars into the future.

        1. So you want a Hennessey Venom, got it.

          There are 4-cylinder hybrids that don’t even get 40mpg. While I appreciate the ambition, expecting that from a V8 is perhaps a bit much. Heck, the corvette with cylinder deactivation can only eke out about 30ish.

      4. If you want space with your pony car, that’s part of the appeal of the Dodge Charger… it’s probably the most spacious of the pony/muscle cars.

        1. I have my eye on an IS500 for my next car, but I’d like to see used ones dip into mid/low 50s first. I can make a 50k car work no problem but once you get up to 60-70 that’s when they start to land in “questionable financial decision” territory for me personally.

        2. The Charger/Challenger/300 should be spacious, since they’re on a full-size Mercedes sedan platform. You definitely feel that bulk when driving them, and not in a good way.

      5. Crash structures and chassis stiffness.

        Drive an ’80s or ’90s version of these cars and they’ll feel like driving an overcooked noodle on wheels in comparison to their modern brethren.

        Also I strongly suspect you’d much rather be in the newer version in an accident.

    3. Have you driven a 2015-2023 mustang? They handle way better than they should. It sounds like you’re comparing this curb weight to cars from decades ago.

  17. The more I see pictures of these the less I like them. Maybe I need to see one in person but these look like a generic design of a sports coupe, like Hasbro couldn’t get the Mustang license for one of their transformers and made this instead.

    Again, maybe I just need to see it in person

    1. Saw it in person and the opposite is true. The amount of very cheap looking black plastic around the front clip is not obvious in the pictures.

  18. I don’t think the looks are ever going to grow on me, but major kudos to Ford for sticking with natural aspiration, sticking with a 6 speed, leaving out electric motors, batteries, AWD, etc.

    Those who want that sort of thing are well served with options already. Those of us who don’t are grateful that at least one manufacturer is still listening.

    1. What’s even more impressive is they made more power despite tightening emissions regs.

      I’m honestly shocked at the negativity surrounding this car. So many people came to the defense of the Integra Type S despite it being hilariously over priced, yet here we have a near-500 HP high revving V8 with RWD and a manual…and everyone shits on it.

      My feeling is that if this were an Acura, or hell a Nissan, it’d get universal praise.

  19. This article convinces me I want a Mustang. A Fox-platform Mustang, with the 5.0 and a five-speed manual. Preferably, and doable for roughly the same money, a well cared-for Cobra.

    No screens. Analog gauges. The driver sets the “drive mode” in his/her own head. Hoon-able without having to reset any controls.

    1. As an owner of a Fox body, the engine in the new Mustang would blow your mind so heavily you’d forget a Fox body even exists.

      Take the Ford, and Mustang, names out of this for a second. Let’s imagine say….BMW were launching a new car with a 500 hp V8 that revs to 7600 RPM. We’d all be PUMPED, but we’d never be able to afford it.

      Well…guess what? Ford is making it affordable.

  20. Focusing on the pics of the silver convertible on the road, I finally figured out what’s seemed odd to me (aside from the Camaro lines) about the front end – the GT headlamps seem a discordant mix of the current squinty take on ’60s model headlamps AND a more squared off Fox body sealed beam look.

    Maybe it’s just me, and certainly real life may be different, but it seems a weird combination of styles.

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