Mustang GT500 car review - Top Gear - BBC

now this is the new Mustang we drove it a while back and we found it a bit late but the thing about the Mustang is you can always improve the breed as I shall now explain with a rather noisy history lesson [Applause] one of many great things about the Mustang is that it really introduced drivers to the whole idea Jewish buzz came out in the early 1960s and he wanted a poker standard what were the 6-cylinder engine they wanted ones like this this is the bullet muster so one Steve McQueen hurled into movie history around the streets of San Francisco [Music] the gt390 is in cartoons very very few cars live up to their height [Music] and I'm using it to make a Mustang point everything that made it good the engine the lights the stripes was extra basically if you wanted a good one yet to forget cheap and cheerful and go for the bells and whistles version and that is what's been missing so far from the new this is the Mustang gt500 and from every angle you can see it's muscle car biceps straining to burst out of the bodywork it's also festooned with menacing Cobra badges a tribute to tuning legend Carroll shoulder now Shelby only ever put his name to the fastest and most powerful Mustangs which means this thing has got to be more than just a fashion statement and it is you see this car has the supercharged v8 from the Ford GT [Applause] [Music] sixty four point nine seconds [Music] [Applause] in America the gt500 has gone down a storm the queues are out of the door and ran the block now if you wait your turn you could put one of these on your drive to Britain for 35,000 pounds sounds tempting the question is should let's start with the power that 500 horsepower it's a bit you know neat this is a rolling road it's a sort of lie detector for engines and gives the true horsepower reading generally looking forward to this [Music] what's the school really right so this gt500 actually makes 447 almost there you go that seems fair enough what I've got the machine here it has when it was brand-new 325 horsepower and I'm assured by the man is [Music] anyway back to the job in hand and speaking of disappointing multi-link geometry your weight remote reservoir dampers fully independent rear suspension please adjust some of the things that this Mustang [Music] [Applause] now what this car uses is a live action which as rear suspension goes is basically a whacking great girder with a wheel at each end because the technology is old-fashioned you can have some good old-fashioned fun but when it all goes wrong the Mustang becomes as precise and dynamic as well and are now Ford's say they didn't give the gt500 modern suspension because it would have added $5,000 to the price of each cow [Applause] ridiculous decision you can't just give a car an extra 200 brake horsepower and then leave it with prehistoric suspension what you're left with then is a car that looks great and goes fast in a straight line and that's it but don't despair if you really want to spend 30 grand on a Mustang that looks good and goes fast in a straight line [Music] by this one well not this one obviously it's been down on power [Music] that much power in a car without changing the suspension you just can't all the brakes the rest of it can't handle it anyway we must now find out how fast the Shelby goes round our track and to do that we've got to put it in the hands of our tame racing driver some say he isn't machine washable all these potted plants have called Steve all we know is he's called the Stig okay away he goes and you can see the fat wheels bobbing around struggling for grip that's the low-tech suspension for you let's see how it affects things in the corners diving into the first one now looking fairly compulsive well not too bad just breaking loose a little bit on the X in there guiding his hands she helped him to unbutton her pretty landed gloves more gushing fiction from Stig's collection there Chicago now sits on a Kaka back wheel and it gets all out of shape on the way out that is messy hammerhead now heaving forward on the brakes and is lurching over into the turns thing kicks it into a bit of a drift locking your arms round his neck just softly pressed her lips to hers into follow-through Charles to see this card it's best now which is in a straight line that's fast through the tyres two corners left oh they're wallowing about like a frisky affair just Gambon to negotiate now he Hills it in [Music] sigh same as a manaro yes which is good but as you could see wobbling about in that foot I mean it stings all over the place and that really brings me on to this okay which is the Roush Mustang now it's only got 415 brake horsepower this okay which obviously isn't as much as the Shelby but they have changed the suspension they have changed the brakes and I drove this last year in America and it was just I mean really properly brilliant car but if I'm right this is what 10,000 pounds more expensive than the Shelby well yes but it's 10 grand more car it really is in fact earlier wrong after the Stig had been out in the Shelby we gave this to him and this is this is what it looked like out there there he is coming up to where is he now that's Chicago you see look there's no modelling like the was in the Shelby what's that makes that supercharger whine and then the exhaust this is got a limited slip diff as well which the Shelby hasn't so it doesn't just spin all the power away on the inside it's such a nice car do you know what the time was god okay 415 horsepower what was this 450 or thereabout it was 128 one minute 28 so it's two seconds faster than the Shelby but it is m3 money yes but honestly I'd have one of those if I were the sort of person who looked at my sister and thought

Channel: Top Gear

Views: 7,896,997

Rating: 4.7471385 out of 5

Keywords: BBC, Top, Gear, Top Gear, Autos, Car, Vehicles, Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, James May, Motor, Review, Cars, Ford, Ford Mustang, Mustang, GT500, GT390

Id: O46E0gCF5os

Length: 9min 37sec (577 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 03 2009

Reddit Comments

[u/CuzRacecar]

"You can see the back wheels bobbing around, struggling for grip. That's the low-tech suspension for you"

As the Stig leaves in a straight line. Orly? SRA isn't good for straight line launches? I do love Top Gear, but sometimes the Brits are pretty retarded about anything that doesn't say Jaguar on it.

[u/CuzRacecar]

The one where they confused bhp with rwhp? Who advertises rwhp figures?

[u/2birds1bone]

Top Gear was leaps and bounds better then any other car show when it came to cinematography, among other things. I'll miss it, but I'm sure the new show on amazon will be amazing as well.