When I visited North Carolina in 2004, I decided that I was going to rent a car so that I could get around more easily.  I looked at various options, and one was to have Mustang - so I decided that I would bite the bullet and have my first USA drive in an icon of motoring.  When I first saw the car I was very surprised by how big and wide it was.  In the UK we're used to smaller vehicles than this!  You do see a few Mustangs driving around, but in general the size of this car would not suit our narrow roads.

 

 

A little bit of research told me that this particular model had a 3.8 litre V6 engine that developed about 195 BHP and 205 lb-ft of torque.  So, it's a lazy engine rather than a high-rev screamer.  The car had a four-speed automatic that made it very easy to drive.  One thing that did surprise me is that the maximum power is quoted as being at 5,500 RPM, and yet the gearbox, under full throttle, always changed up at 5,200 RPM.  Anyway, the car was very comfortable to drive, and even though this was the "base" model, it seemed to have plenty of low-rev torque, quite enough to drive up steep mountain roads in a high gear.

 

 

Over here in Europe, American cars are always thought of as having very soft suspension - perfect for the freeway but not so good when driving on twistier roads.  I found the handling of the Mustang very good indeed while climbing mountain roads - plenty of grip and not much body roll.  Since the car spent a lot of its time going up and down the mountains, the average fuel consumption of 20 MPG was not much to shout about.  Bearing in mind the price of fuel in the USA though, it's probably not so bad.

 

One thing that did disappoint me a bit was the feeling of quality - or rather the lack of it - inside the car.  For a car with comparatively few miles on the clock, there seemed to be far too many rattles and squeaks from the dashboard.  I have to say, though, that this did not diminish the pleasure I got from driving the car.  It looks fantastic, is a motoring icon, and I did feel a bit special cruising around in it.  It was totally cool to see that other Mustang owners acknowledge each other when they pass each other, though I don't suppose that too many of them realised that they were acknowledging a Limey in a rental car!