There’s a memorable episode of Alan Partridge where the eponymous radio show host becomes increasingly exasperated by a Liverpudlian named Tex (Terry) who gets his Dr Pepper from the cooler, manworships John Wayne and calls his lone pick-up truck ‘Convoy’.
For the past half a century, buying a Ford Mustang in this country has come with the same Route 66 ‘he likes American things’ whiff. Most people, I’m sure, will have filed the distant icon into the same ambivalent head space that includes baseball, bull riding and pumpkin pie.
For much of that time, Ford did little to counter the sentiment. Almost immediately, the original ‘pony’ car concept (an American descriptive fraught with peril) was reborn as the Capri – a significant success in its own right. The Mustang itself remained a million miles away, its status an apparent quirk of Hollywood, longevity and mountainous sales volumes.
The model’s limited re-emergence in recent years has hardly softened the ground, either. The previous generation, as decent as it was, hardly dispelled the notion that it remained too big, too thirsty and, yes, too unsophisticated for an Anglo-Saxon sensibility set permanently to wry. Its ‘over there’ reputation has hardly been enhanced by the repeat experience of good-naturedly climbing into one only to find the pedals mounted ‘over there’ in the passenger’s footwell.
Fixing that, of course, like staging an NFL game at Wembley, is representative of the sixth generation’s first mighty stride into wider buyer affection. The Mustang is global now, Limey – and it’s got the independent rear suspension to prove it.
Precisely what that means is the reason why, in a fog so sumptuously thick that even air traffic control has bent to its will, we’ve congregated on the eastern tip of the Peak District.
Above the blanket of ashen cloud, the day gleams bright. Ford could hardly have laid on a better setting; like a herd of bison, the Mustang is best viewed in proper Panavision, and England’s countryside doesn’t get any more cinematic than this.
Even blemished by a German plate, the cherry red GT – a cabrio is coming, too – is a large personality to fit into a small gravel car park. Think Quentin Tarantino sitting at your nan’s kitchen table.
In the US, the fastback style is the blue-collar special – a coupé cheaply born of larger saloons. In Europe, its position is naturally occupied by hot hatches, so for direct rivals you have to get a little imaginative. Having banged our heads against the desk, the BMW M235i is the contender that fell out, a dinky, darling hatchback spin-off that stashes a stonking turbo-laced straight six beneath an unassuming two-door body as though it were a tea shop waitress serving methylated spirits.
Predictably, it’s a good foot shorter than the Ford and almost half a foot slimmer – a size difference that doesn’t prevent it from being at least £2500 more expensive than the Mustang, should you choose the eight-speed auto version tested here. Despite its 322bhp, the BMW is down on power, too, giving away almost 100bhp to the Ford. That’s because this early, southpaw example comes with its last unicorn powertrain installed: a naturally aspirated big-capacity V8 popriveted to a very manual six-speed ’box.
The 5.0-litre ‘Coyote’ unit gets Ford’s Twin Independent Variable Cam Timing tech (Ti-VCT) and was originally intended to stick it to the equivalent Chevrolet Camaro and Dodge Charger in the US. In the UK, its 410bhp is easily the most power you can have for less than £40k. Getting almost as much grunt as you would in an Aston Martin V8 Vantage for way less than half the price is, unequivocally, a good reason for Thanksgiving.
However, a premeet sojourn in the M235i shows just how much car such a sum buys these days. The 2 Series may not cover the square footage like the Mustang, but from the driver’s seat, that’s like complaining that your jeans fit too well. The snugness, the smell, the nourishing thickness under finger and the workmanship of a modern BMW are all present and correct, yet pleasantly understated by the lack of scale or show. Mostly, it’s matt black plastic – and mostly, it’s about as well finished as such a material could be.
It has taken nearly four hours to get from Surrey to the Burbage Bridge – slow death on the M25, followed by a bum-numbing trudge up the M1. That’s more than enough time for the M235i to ooze big engine/little car charm all over my trainers. What a unit the N55 motor is: smooth and sonorous, delivering every ounce of the burly shove expected of a twinscroll blower yet, mechanically, hardly feeling inhibited at all by its presence, revving to 7000rpm with free-throated and blurry finesse whenever the yellow thicket of average speed cameras permits.
Twinned with the quick-witted £1685 eight-speed auto, the model’s default operating speed is an effortless sort of brisk. And thanks to the £515 adaptive M Sport suspension beneath, it requires little obvious compromise in comfort, either, riding with a reassuring, Mustang is fun and more physical; M235i feels agile and crisper business-like composure that belies the short length of its wheelbase.
Alongside the Mustang, in the sunlight, the body retracts almost to the point of stubbiness, the bodywork somehow conspiring to reduce its 18in alloy wheels to roller-skate wheels. Subjectively, however, the Ford is not vastly bigger inside. Nor does it fill out its price tag quite so well, with some of the switches – most noticeably the drive mode select toggles – perilously close to the standard expected of a half-decent bread maker.
The prevalent theme, though, is unmistakable: the doublebarrelled dashboard, the dominant centre stack and prominent vents, the upright, overbearing stance of the thing – as if its Mustang lineage alone were strong enough to pull at a baby boomer’s heart strings from 50 paces.
That notion hardens like animal fat in the arteries upon driving. Although its evolutionary improvements are notable, they’re ultimately as game changing as a slightly more upward gait in a Neanderthal’s stride. It remains a bearable, big-skinned and bulldozing thing, entirely idiosyncratic and roguishly charming. Compared with the M235i, you sit high, and if you remain still, you’ll still feel the very gentle jostle of the big lump turning. That probably wouldn’t feel right in the BMW, but the faraway tingle of oscillation is utterly becoming in Ford’s throwback.
Even in a wide open space as expansive as moorland, there’s still a tendency to tease the Mustang about as though it were an irascible shire horse. Partly this is a product of its size, its tendency to pitch and dive heightening an appreciation of that. Partly it is indicative of the low-speed ride, which, on roads repeatedly subjected to weather much worse than visible moisture, has the jiggly consistency of a cheap mattress. Mercifully, mostly thanks to the new integral link beavering away more consistently and cleverly at the back and a fat wedge of extra rigidity all over, there’s no longer the flagrant rise and fall of apparently unchecked suspension travel.
So although the Mustang isn’t exactly smooth, it doesn’t seem unrefined or rudimentary. Certainly, it cannot ape the dexterity of the M235i, but at speed the Ford has a way of distancing itself from the road surface – both physically, in the sense that the ground clearance seems adequate to see you to the other side of a football field, and philosophically, as if paying too much mind to your own contentment would be unmanly and pointless.
Quite probably, this latter effect has less to do with the new springs and dampers and much more to do with the palpitating aftershock of physical connection to the quad-cam motor through the gearlever and pedals. This analogue coupling of limb and crankshaft is an association lost on the auto-wand BMW, which piles its short ratios unnaturally close together in a disappointing manual mode – although, frankly, anything short of a three-pedal Aston Martin falters against the working memory of Ford’s ebullient V8.
Happily – essentially, even – the V8 is everything you could want it to be: quick to rev, casually bountiful low down and throatily gung-ho near its own 7000rpm limit. Compared with BMW’s blown straight six or even Audi’s comparable naturally aspirated eight-pot, the Ford unit has many more rougher edges, yet this often feels like the bristly gristle of character rather than a functional deficiency.
0 komentar:
Post a Comment