NEW Mustang CS850GT Review: An 859HP MANUAL Beast

if you want the ultimate fast mustang the obvious choice is the shelby gt500 powerful loud aggressive it's the benchmark when it comes to pony cars but there are a few drawbacks it's only available in america and only available in left-hand drive which for most people is a bit of a deal breaker but there might be a solution [Applause] this is the cs 850 gt from clive sutton it's the uk's answer to the gt500 it's based on the uk ford mustang which means it's right hand drive and that also means it's got a manual six-speed gearbox but unlike the uk ford mustang it's been supercharged quite a lot this thing and i can't quite believe i'm saying this makes a staggering 859 metric horsepower 859. yes this 115 000 pound beast provides almost double the power you get in the standard v8 that extra grunt comes from a custom tuned whipple supercharger intercooler and the new exhaust that helps the engine extract a phenomenal 902 newton meters of torque but what does that mean for performance the simple answer is that it's ferocious it accelerates like an absolutely mad thing but i know that what you want to know is how ferocious is it how quickly does a car with nearly 900 horsepower accelerate down the road well i want to find out too so with that allow me to conduct an experiment acceleration timer on press ok to start [Music] and send it [Applause] [Music] i mean it felt good but the number on the screen says 0 to 60 in 4.6 seconds which is significantly slower than a gt500 but did you hear that noise in fact let me indulge a little bit in that supercharged v8 just to let you hear what this thing's like when it's a full chat [Music] it's phenomenally loud and i know that on youtube it can be quite difficult to get across a sense of a car's volume and that's why i've set up a little experiment this is my yellow mustang it's actually a clive sutton a cs500 and it has a cat-back exhaust system in other words the exhaust runs from the catalytic converter back to single tips at the rear and it sounds like this [Music] not bad but it's nothing compared to the exhaust on the cs 850 gt it has long tube headers it's all new basically from the front to the back and it has two modes actually it has a loud mode and a quiet mode plus you can control it via an app on your phone let me show you how it works before i do that let me just grab a little bit of protection because yeah safety first children this is the quiet mode [Music] now let me show you loud mode [Music] that is i mean that's quite frankly illegal [Music] that in case you're interested is about as loud as standing next to a jet plane during takeoff it's borderline dangerous without ear defenders despite there being a strange loss of noise near the red line but let's switch that off for a moment and take a closer look around on the exterior the cs 850 gt is very much a mustang but has a more aggressive front end than you'll find on the standard gt it has color adjustable tri-bar leds you control using an app a new bumper lip new carbon fiber side skirts and a new rear valance for that outrageous quad exhaust inside again more changes it feels more special with a carbon fiber dashboard panel available in red blue yellow or black a really nice sutton bespoke performance steering wheel a custom shifter for the manual box custom stitching and ford racing recaro seats which have been upgraded by sutton so they feature heating cooling and electric adjustment it's a great cabin and a pretty tempting package you can buy one off the shelf from clive sutton and customize it as you wish or bring a mustang you've already bought and they'll modify it for you it all looks especially in the case of this cs850 gt like a compelling idea but what's the reality like on the road actually it's a very good idea now i know sending the best part of 900 horsepower to the rear wheels might sound like a bit of a death wish but it's surprisingly controllable obviously you can't floor it in first or second gear but once you get to third gear and you punch it it's actually delivering a phenomenal amount of traction it doesn't twitch around at all it feels really really glued down to the road i was expecting this car to be what a bit of a death trap but far from it kudos to climb sun actually it does sort of make me wonder whether it really does have 859 horsepower because the only thing that i can compare this to that i've ever driven is a ferrari 812 superfast which obviously has around 800 horsepower and when you floor that even in a straight line it lights up the rear wheels and can snap on you when you're pretty much doing nothing this thing doesn't do that i'd love to get it on a dyno to see exactly how much power it makes i'm not saying i want it to spin up and throw me into a hedge but with that kind of horsepower figure that's what i was expecting the other thing worth remembering is that the gt500 doesn't come with a manual gearbox this does and it's a lovely box at that they've given it this short shifter with a lovely action and it just makes it so much more engaging to drive in fact that might make it worth the asking price alone [Music] one of the coolest things is it's got that auto blip so when you shift down the revs rise so you don't need to heal and tow i mean you can but it makes it a lot easier for you the steering is pretty decent it's not porsche levels it's not a proper sports car this thing but i have been living with a mustang for the last what three years now and i do like the way it steers it's a little bit on the light side but there's not a lot of understeer and even though there can be oversteer on demand if that's what you want the balance is lovely [Music] i will say it doesn't steer quite as well as the gt500 this feels closer to a stock mustang than the all-singing all-dancing top dog but it's still a lot of fun to thread down the road [Music] [Applause] being completely objective the gt500 feels like the more well sorted sports car quicker in a straight line certainly from launch more nimble through bends and better calibrating while i'm being objective it sounds better too not much quieter but with a more pleasing tone but having said all that it's still hard not to be spellbound by this car [Music] it's hilarious if there was any word i could use to sum it up that is it it's a hilarious vehicle i mean the noise the acceleration it just can't fail to put a smile on your face it's good old-fashioned american muscle in fact in a lot of ways it's better than american muscle because like i said there is no american car with this unique blend of features the gt500 doesn't have the manual box it doesn't have as much power as this it's just arguably not as engaging it's just cool it's gloriously unapologetically silly and i like that [Music] [Applause] you

Channel: AutoTrader

Views: 359,706

Keywords: ford mustang, clive sutton mustang, cs850gt, cs850gt mustang, clive sutton cs850gt, cs850gt review, cs850gt 0-60, cs850gt noise, cs850gt acceleration, clive sutton review, muscle car, ultimate muscle car, mustang gt500, mustang review, supercharged mustang review, tuned mustang, modded mustang, supercharged mustang, rory reid, autotrader, 4k review, car review, cs850gt drag race

Id: WhgiYHeVtDc

Length: 10min 33sec (633 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 20 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/Triggerdamus]

859 HP sounds impressive. But I'm wondering how much does that weigh. As newer cars are starting to weigh more than those ikd school domestics, with dinosaur injection.

[u/DonutNolan]

This makes me wish Ford used the refreshed S550 for the GT500, that front end looks good!

[u/accobra62]

My 13 SHO is 800 lbs. more than a 1967 Galaxie with a 390!