Newest Mustang GT piles on the horsepower

A menu of Mark Glover’s AutoGlo reviews of the latest motor vehicle models also can be seen on The Sacramento Bee’s website at www.sacbee.com/news/business/article4005306.html

This review first appeared in the May 2018 edition of the Northern & Central California Cruisin’ News published out of Folsom, California – mg

Sacramento, California – The horsepower curve keeps going up.  Mustang and Camaro and Challenger can’t get enough of it … 300, 400, 500. Where does it end?

Some of these top-tier Mustang/Camaro/Challenger models have more horsepower than some purpose-built racing cars.

And it’s comparatively affordable horsepower among the three competitors.

Take the recently tested 2018 Ford Mustang GT Premium coupe, which wore a starting price of $39,095.  My tester was loaded up with extras that pushed the bottom line to nearly $47,000, but still, the prospect of getting a 5-liter V-8 with 460 horsepower and 420 foot-pounds of torque for less than 40-grand is not a bad deal.

My Mustang GT tester arrived wearing gleaming “Kona Blue” paint, covering skin that was all intimidation and menace.

Starting it up produced a deep, toe-rattling rumble from under the hood. If the neighbors aren’t already awake when you start up this GT in the morning, they will be by the time you pull out of the driveway.

The 460 horses are delivered with brute force.  Nothing subtle here.  When you want to blast past a freeway straggler in this GT, you get the full-on rumble and roar, and you’re rudely pushed deep into your cockpit seat as the gauges light up.

I’ll admit: It’s addicting.

My ride was equipped with a 10-speed automatic that functioned seamlessly through all those choices.

I should note that, for all the power the GT has, fuel mileage is pretty fair at 16 miles per gallon in the city and 25 mpg on the highway.

The GT is so sleek and racy in appearance that you typically draw a crowd when it’s parked in a public space.  You get the same satisfied stares and envious words that I’m sure Porsche and Ferrari owners get all the time … but for a much higher price.

Feel good?  Yeah, it does.

For 2018, Ford dressed up this Mustang with LED lighting, more safety/driver-assist technology and an enhanced performance-loaded suspension.  Love the quad-tip exhausts, by the way.

My tester had an option package that included 19-inch polished aluminum wheels and a top-notch audio system.  I didn’t mind those perks, either.

One note of caution: The GT is billed as a four-passenger model, but stuffing two adults into those back seats, in my view, might get you indicted for administering cruel and unusual punishment.

The Mustang and I go way back, so there’s an emotional jolt every time I step into one.  I learned to drive in a 1965 Pony Car and won my first driving license in a 1967 Mustang.

Back then, I didn’t dream that you could someday walk into a dealership and drive out a couple hours later in a vehicle with more horsepower than a vintage stock car racer.

Am I complaining?  Not a chance.