2011 Mustang unbridles more power while reining in fuel consumption
The Ford Mustang is ubiquitous. More than 9 million have been manufactured over the last 47 years, driven by generations of owners, including my mechanic’s son, my neighbor’s daughter, even my very own mother.
FOR THE RECORD:
2011 Mustang GT: A review of the 2011 Ford Mustang GT in Thursday’s Business section understated the increases in horsepower and torque over the 2010 model. Horsepower increased by 31%, not 7%, and torque increased by 20%, not 5%. The review also said that Ford Motor Co. had surpassed General Motors Co. as the nation’s top automobile seller. GM is the nation’s top auto seller through the first five months of 2010. —
But none are quite like the 2011 version, which got a radical and somewhat unusual update for a muscle car. It simultaneously ramps up the performance and the fuel economy.
Like any redo worth the R&D money, the aluminum 5.0-liter V-8 is all new and outfitted with twin independent variable camshaft timing, allowing the car to offer a triptych of benefits. In addition to a 7% improvement in horsepower (it now cranks out 412) and a 5% gain in torque (to 390 pound-feet), the continuous overlap adjustments of intake and exhaust valves also boost fuel economy by as much as 4.5%.
To enhance those miles-per-gallon improvements, Ford engineers didn’t just look under the hood. They headed into the wind tunnel to find — and eradicate — fuel-sapping drag. Some of the biggest culprits were the tire wells, which got additional spats. The air dam just below the front bumper and the seal on the rear deck also were modified for improved aerodynamics without compromising any of the sculptural musculature that has made the Mustang one of the most beloved, and preserved, cars in history.
Bottom line: The manual-transmission GT now boasts an EPA rating of 26 mpg on the highway, a 3-mpg gain over the 2010 version.
One could argue that someone in the market for an American hot rod wouldn’t care about saving pennies at the pump. But Ford research revealed that the No. 1 reason buyers turned down this pony car in favor of perfunctory mules such as the Nissan Altima or Honda Accord was fuel economy, not the Mustang’s $32,845 base price.
The trouble with touting the Mustang as a gas miser is that the only way drivers will save fuel is by drafting a big rig. That’s because the GT is, first and foremost, a performance vehicle that unleashes a primitive need for speed. If you ride it the way I did, redlining at 7 grand and slamming the neck of my passenger into the headrest, you’ll be lucky to get the 13.6 mpg I managed whipping this wild horse through Southern California’s finest canyons.
That kind of fun is a big reason about a quarter of all Mustangs ever made are still on the road. The 2011 will probably continue that trend, outfitted as it is for the first time with a sixth gear, in both the automatic and manual transmission versions of the car. I drove both types: The automatic had enough torque to prompt heart palpitations the first time I gunned it down a drag strip, and the manual was aggressive enough that the colleague in my passenger seat felt the need to remind me that I’m the mother of a 7-year-old.
While my friend was fearing for his life, I was confident enough in the GT’s electronic power steering assist and its stabilizer-bar-enhanced, road-hugging rear suspension to push my skills. Suffice it to say that the telephone poles are still intact along Encinal Canyon Road, and I made it home, as promised, to prepare a quesadilla for my son.
Among the 2011 Mustang’s safety features are new blind-spot mirrors embedded in the upper outside corners of the power side views to help GT drivers see cars sneaking up beside them to challenge with motors gunning. More electronically evolved safety features include MyKey, a factory option that allows parents of Mustang-driving teens to control their cars’ top speed and radio volume to raise the odds of their kids returning home in one piece. Ford’s optional communication and entertainment system, known as Sync, allows drivers to gab on their phones hands-free, to access 911 automatically in an accident and to pull traffic, directions and other information from the computing cloud.
Sync costs an extra $395, but Ford said it has embedded $1,200 of other equipment upgrades in the new Mustangs and hasn’t passed them along in the purchase price, which could prove dicey for Ford in this era of highly competitive and incentivized car sales.
But Ford is on a roll, having supplanted GM as the country’s top auto seller this year. It had a 19.2% market share in March compared with 14.6% during the same period of 2009. Saying “no, thanks” to the federal bailout money seems to have inspired the automaker to get back to its groundbreaking Henry Ford basics — to play up its strengths and look toward the future, all of which are evident in the 2011 Mustang GT.
