Issue 155

The Mustang Adventure

14th May 2007

I think I have found my newest ecstasy. For all of you out there who think that life is all about MySpace and twofor- one at Tesco, you should get out more.

I have wanted to own one of these, in Burnt Orange, since I was 11 years old. It's the sheer wow-factor of these things, which becomes obvious when people start taking video footage of you doing doughnuts in Oxwich Bay car park on their mobile phones. This is the Shelby Ford Mustang.

The original was the GT300 series, which came out in the 1960's. It was the first time the public was exposed to the ability to play around with the extras and mods which were available, to get the best possible Mustang for performance. However, what I was driving was the new improved Mustang Shelby. Instantly you can tell from the name, as Carol Shelby only put his name on the fastest and most powerful Mustangs, that what I had under my feet was just the best.

They seem truly enormous on the inside. Me being only a modest five foot five inches tall could just see out the windscreen, and I really felt like I had been devoured by a bright yellow beast. However the size is misleading, because it is actually the same width as a Ford Mondeo estate, and fits nicely into standard British parking spaces.

Now, more about the Mustang. The one that I was driving was a fifth generation Shelby, four-litre, Premium coupe model. It was without the necessary V8 engine, but the impressive four litre is actually the smallest engine size available meaning the engine was only a V6. Most engines in the Mustangs are 4.6 litres, the difference being 300 break horse power in the 4.6 litre V8 at 5,750 rpm against 210 break in the four litre V6 at 5,300rpm. In English, that means a 4.6 litre V8 will do 0-60 in 5.1 seconds, when the 4 litre V6 will do it in around six. But still, in a rather unfair comparison, my first car, a Ford Fiesta, didn't even make 60 mph, so I'm not complaining.

When Clarkson raced a Ford Mustang around a desert track with the original Mustang, the GT300? No, a horse, in true Top Gear style, the horse came first, nailing the track in just 38 seconds, with the car in its shadow, crossing the line at 40. But as Clarkson daintily puts it "I have seen faster cows! Why don't they call it a Fresian?"

More recently Top Gear featured the old Mustang, in comparison with the newer Shelby. Richard Hammond owns the original Bullet Mustang GT390 from the 1960's, which, as it happens, was also owned by Steve McQueen. Hammond's argument is that when Mustang updated the model, they didn't accommodate the extra 200bhp, because it means, according to Ford, putting an extra 5k on the price tag.

But with the launch of the Roush Mustang, an even better, more updated Mustang, which actually has the better rear suspension and better brakes, it is clear that the performance is much better. When raced with the Shelby, it was two seconds faster, even though there is only 415 bhp against 480.

Therefore the argument is, if you are going to spend £35,000 on a Mustang Shelby, that doesn't do much else but look good and drive well in a straight line, you might as well go back to basics, and own one of the original GT300s.

This is undoubtedly the best car ever, and I need one, when I happen to have a spare 35k in the bank. It's just something you gotta do before you die.

Becky Lewis