One of the most pleasant surprises with the new Mustang is the interior
design job that Ford did in the 1993 makeover. It is loosely based on the
instrument panel in the original 1964 car, with two individual rounded
coves built into the instrument panel and connective tissue in between,
racy without being radical. A full complement of well-done analog instruments
greets the driver and the car is fairly narrow, so nothing is out of reach
or requires long stretches to get to.
The interior space is nice and cozy in the coupe verion, with just enough
seat track length to accommodate tall drivers, and just enough elbow room
to keep one from feeling cramped. The driving position is much, much higher
than in either the Camro or Firebird, and it's much easier to get in and
out of the Mustang.
The front bucket seats are thinly padded, and short in every dimension,
which means they aren't very comfortable for long distances, but adequate
for around-town driving. More importantly, for those who attack back roads
occasionally, there isn't much side support built into the bucket seats
and you have to brace yourself in the car to stay in place in front of
the steering wheel. Fortunately, Ford has provided a place on the left
side of the floorboard to do exactly that, with a footrest for the left
foot.
The back seat, like the back seats in almost every modern coupe, is
best left for groceries, dry cleaning, infant seats, dogs and small kids.
The split fold-down rear seatback, a new item of standard equipment, can
be very helpful for hauling large items, because the trunk is among the
smallest in the industry.
In this class of car, horsepower and acceleration at a reasonable price
are what move the sales needle, and the Mustang 4.6-liter V8 has plenty
of needle-moving potential. While the new modular V8 engine doesn't have
the loud and lumpy idle quality and ferocious intake roar of the old 5.0-liter
overhead-valve V8, it has almost exactly the same power and torque characteristics
and accelerates at almost exactly the same pace with a great deal more
smoothness and much greater rpm capability.
Where the old car was out of steam at about 5000 rpm, the new engine
will pull happily and smoothly to 6000 rpm, making the driving experience
that much more fun, even if it is a tick or so slower to 60 mph. And while
the four-speed automatic would be a better choice for those who have to
deal with commute traffic, with very little performance loss, the new Borg-Warner
T-56 five-speed manual is much more fun to drive--flexible, smooth-shifting
and strong enough to take high-rpm shifts for the life of the car.
What's underneath the swoopy Mustang is essentially what was underneath
the Mustang in 1979, with a lot of clever bracing and refinforcing to make
the car handle more crisply, steer more accurately and deal with road shocks
more effectively. But it is still a modified 1979 Mustang unitbody chassis
with relatively unsophisticated MacPherson strut suspension and a solid
rear axle. Given what they had to work with, the Mustang's engineers have
done a good job in making the car ride much more smoothly than the old
car and making it handle potholes and bumps that used to move the old car
around quite a bit.
Almost all of the raw edges and choppiness of the Mustang's suspension
behavior have been sanded smooth. The steering, too, is more direct and
more positive than previous Mustangs, helped by the quantum leap in perofrmance
tire technology.
The optional ABS brake system was excellent under all conditions, with
a lot of room in the system for manual brake modulation before the antilock
system kicked in. Were we Ford, we would make it standard equipment across
the board and raise the base price accordingly.