By Paul Gover.
Some of the wind went out of the Ford Mustang’s sails – and sales – during 2019 but there is a stiff new breeze blowing through showrooms.
It comes from an Australian-developed Mustang flagship, called the R-Spec.
The heart of the car is a supercharged V8 engine and it gets everything to match the package, from beefed-up brakes and 19-inch alloy wheels to a special rear spoiler. It’s just the thing for people who want more from their Mustang and bragging rights over the Chevrolet Camaro that is converted to right-hand-drive for Australia by Walkinshaw Automotive in Melbourne.
The headline numbers for the R-Spec are more than 340 kiloWatts of power and a price tag that just limboes under the $100,000 bar.
But they are irrelevant if you have not ordered a car, because all 500 were pre-sold at the back end of last year.
Melbourne tuning ace Rob Herrod, who is the largest Ford Motorsport agent outside the USA, handled development of the R-Spec for Ford Australia and his company is also handling assembly of the production cars at a mini-factory set up – ironically – in part of the factory at Broadmeadows that once built the Ford Falcon.
Herrod is a perfectionist with direct access to all sort of Ford assets in the USA and, apart from the lack of an automatic gearbox, the R-Spec ticks all the right boxes.
Ford Australia has just previewed the car at Tailem Bend, a racetrack outside Adelaide, along with the mildly updated Mustang turbo and V8 models for 2020.
The latest turbo is well mannered and brisk, nicely balanced in all types of corners, and – apart from the missing V8 exhaust rumble – is probably the best pick for day-to-day inner-city driving.
The Mustang V8 makes the right noises, is quick and composed, and delivers on all the dreams of Mustang followers since the 1960s and people who are looking for a go-faster Ford to replace a Falcon.
But the R-Spec is very, very fast and special.
There is no chance to check mundane things like fuel economy and tyre rumble at the track, but they are likely to be minor points for someone spending more than $100,000 on their ’stang.
So, what’s it like?
It thunders, it gobbles any straight road, and it can really hustle through any sort of corners.
It’s always hard to assess power and torque on a track, because the limit is usually set by your own bravery, but the R-Spec is considerably quicker than a regular Mustang V8 at every point. On the straight it easily flicks the digital speedometer past 200km/h.
There is a little engine flutter and stumbling at times, which the Ford team puts down to low fuel in the tank, but otherwise the car is as fast as expected – and a bit more – with a well-rounded package that is a credit to Herrod on the engineering side and to the Ford executives who made the car happen.
Now, if they could just get an R-Spec automatic happening . . .
THE BASICS
FORD MUSTANG R-SPEC
Price: $99,800
Power: 340kW/556Nm
Position: sports coupe
Plus: serious speed, locally developed
Minus: not much
THE TICK: No doubt
