The Ford Mustang 5.0 GT keeps V8 brawn alive

On that point, the weakest link of the Mustang has to be that 10-speed. It never bothered me at the launch event, testing the car on the wide open plains of the Western Cape. Those Brembo anchors, the Torsen limited-slip rear differential and adaptive dampers working harmoniously as we kept good pace through the sweeps.

In the real world of stop-go traffic and town driving, one wonders whether 10 ratios are necessary. It often feels like a continuously variable transmission rather than a decisive, torque converter automatic.

Shifting manually worked better, but that also revealed unresponsive tendencies, with a delay between the action of tipping the upshift paddle and having the vehicle dispatch the shift.

Under hard acceleration, the move between second and third seemed to have a “rubber band” type of effect: snapping into the latter gear, upsetting the rear of the car in a way that might catch the driver off guard.

As a jockey gets acquainted with a steed, the uninitiated Mustang driver will need to explore the performance competencies of the vehicle carefully at first, before unleashing all 328kW/540Nm at whim. Fuel consumption is what you would expect. On the open road, driven sensibly, it is possible to achieve about 10l/100km.