2010 Ford Mustang GT Driving Impressions

Mountain-Do

We gathered all three players together in the lightly traveled, serpentine hill country east of San Diego. Armed with a full battery of track numbers, courtesy of an instrumented test conducted just three hours earlier in Detroit and beamed to us via BlackBerry and iPhone by technical director Frank Markus, our comparo team -- editor-in-chief Angus MacKenzie, senior editor Ed Loh, and yours truly -- strapped in, kicked the spurs into our pony trio, and galloped into the twisties. Immediately, the subjective impressions -- good and bad -- began flowing into our neural data loggers. Some comments from the logbooks:

Ford Mustang GT with Track Pack

Angus MacKenzie: The best steering in an American car. Ever. Direct, linear, good feel. Astounding turn-in response -- helped in no small way by the PZero tires. Superb pedal placement -- brake and clutch and gas pedals nicely aligned; heel-and-toe downshifts a cinch. Five-speed manual lighter, crisper shift than Tremec 6060 in the other two. Downside is there's a giant hole between fourth and and fifth. V-8 is smooth, revs nicely, pulls hard. Performance helped by weight advantage over other two; helps this 315-hp car punch above its weight.

Mustang feels very connected to the road -- telegraphs what's going on where the rubber meets the road -- at both ends. Handles better than any car with a live rear axle has a right to, though if the road surface is gnarly, you'll be chasing the rear end all the time, and therefore will be ultimately slower point to point than the Camaro. This is more like a sports car than a ponycar, and on a smooth road or track, you feel you can do almost anything in it.

Ed Loh: The biggest surprise here. I thought the Camaro would leave the Mustang in a ditch by the side of the road, but I was genuinely surprised at how capable the Mustang is. Its long and meaty third gear sends the car roaring up Sunrise Highway. Similar to the Camaro, though the downhill is where the Mustang begins to separate itself. Sharper more communicative steering (a result of that Track Pack?) gives the Mustang more confidence through corners. I felt more front-end grip and less lateral sway from the suspension -- especially under braking when approaching a corner.

Sure, the live axle might send the Ford shivering if the pavement were rougher, but I think it's important to note that we had no problems with this supposedly antiquated suspension setup. And, sure, I'd love to see how a non-Track-Pack-equipped version would handle up and down those roads. But as a guy who has long slagged the live axle, color me impressed.

Indeed, the Mustang GT left all of us astounded at what magic Ford's engineers have achieved with this seemingly antiquated architecture. "That GT turns in like a race car," was our communal opinion after our mountain romps. Only when the road surface deteriorates does the Mustang GT begin to lose its poise. But, man, the incredible bite of the front end is the stuff test drivers write poetry about. Astonishing.