Test Drive: 2008 Ford Mustang GT: Mustangs Can Handle?!
So as you may already know I am a car salesman, so is my older brother. I work for Mazda-Kia and he works for Ford. In my family we have always grown up with cool cars to ride in and drive. There has never not been some really cool, fast car in the driveway and at times there have been more than one or two. My brother more so than me has always been into muscle cars. He has had a host of kick ass Corvettes, Camaros and Mustangs. About two years ago he bought a Honda Accord 5-speed to save money at the pump and after working at his new dealership for about three weeks he went ahead and purchased a brand new 2008 Ford Mustang GT straight off the truck even before it had been detailed. He called me and told me about it, and I will be honest I was like, “another Mustang? Ugh! Can’t you ever go German like me? Oh how dumb I was to pre-judge this car.
We have never been easy on our cars. I know for a fact that my brother has worn out 3rd gear in his 01 Mustang GT in a period of about 3 months or so. Chalk that up to 60% Ford and 40% Jason going hog wild. I have watched my father tear his 1967 Corvettes new assholes while shifting and doing the 100 dollar bill test. For those of you who don’t know, the 100 dollar bill test is when you put a bill up on the dashboard of the car and drive like crazy in a straight line and see if the passenger can get it. If the passenger gets it, he/she gets to keep it. So when it comes to cars, we are very brutal on them at times while we still baby them and love the hell out of them.
When I first walked up to the GT I immediately loved the color. It is called Vista Blue and I loved the car and found myself wanting one just at the site of it. The car is fully loaded, except it doesn’t have a sunroof and the Shaker 1000 stereo system. The 500 does just fine in my honest opinion. The optional fake hood scoop looks cool but seems odd knowing that it is fake, while still looking old school. The rims are hard to describe. I thought my brother was just overly excited when telling me about the car on the phone saying that he had never seen these style rims on a Mustang. I mean how many more ugly rims can you put on that car? Once again I was left to extract my size 12 shoe from my big ass mouth. The rims looked hot. They are the same 5 spokers that you see on the convertibles most of the time except with part of each spoke not being polished while the rest is polished. I will have to post up pictures to show the creativeness of the wheels.
After finding myself nodding my head quite a bit my brother tossed me the keys and simply said “let’s go to lunch.” I opened the door and sat in what I expected to be an American style leather seat. What? Comfort? Style? Plush, stitched leather is what I felt. The seats had the right amount of bolstering without making you feel like a 300 pound guy named Earl was bear hugging you in prison. I started the car to hear the nice burble of the V-8. Ooh what a sound. I hit the gas to let it rumble and man did it growl.
I finally put the car into 1st gear and proceeded to turn left out of the driveway. I floored the gas and popped the clutch going into second and the car did a nice little tail dance while barking the 235/50ZR18 BFGoodrich’s. My brother told me to travel down this one road that he knew was nice and curvy. He told me to get up to about 55 and hold the car through the turn. I got the beast up to 60 and expected to go into the turn with the tires squeeling and the rear end to come loose and start drifting like crazy. What’s this? The car is planted into the turn and it isn’t breaking loose? The limited slip differential with a 3:55 helps keep it locked down through the turns.
I have since driven the car twice and each time I have been almost speechless with how well the car handles. Under pressure it keeps its composure with the traction control on or off. You can get a smile glued on your face either way. For about $30,000 I really can’t see what’s not to like about the car. It has everything that you would expect and more. The car even has HID’s, that for a Mustang is amazing. I spent about that much on my Mazdaspeed 6 with a 6-speed, Xenons, AWD, and LSD, and the GT is faster and just as confident through any turn you put it into. It’s the best handling muscle car I’ve ever driven, outside of the newer Corvette’s of course. Still for this much money and with 300hp and 320lb-ft of torque can you go wrong? Could you find anything better at that price that still gets in the 20’s for miles per gallon?
–Josh
