Ford Mustang Mach 1 v GT track test and performance review

Hey guys, Atko here and we're back at Queensland Raceway, our test track. Today we're going to do a bit of a different one, we've got two cars from the same family. We've got the Ford Mustang Mk1 and the Ford Mustang GT. Now the Mk1 is definitely more track focused, better suspension, gearbox, a little bit more power, same tyres. Now we're going to see if the $20,000 price difference between these two makes a big difference on the track or not. I'm excited to find out, so let's get out there. Alright, firstly the GT, my initial impressions, let's look at the seat, it's got a bit of movement there, it's a little bit lazy, it's something that would be comfortable on a long road trip but you can see there I'm sliding around quite a lot, so I would like a little bit more lateral support on the track and I'm not not really getting that. Steering wheel is actually really nice, no complaints at all, really good size and yeah, really happy with that. So I've got the instrument set up on track mode and you can see the big rev indicator across the top and also the shift lights which are really cool. I'd actually light them to be a little bit brighter almost, I'm just not quite having them catch my attention, I'm having to look down a little bit so that just just takes your focus away from the track. So being a six-speed manual I've got a heel tow but it's actually got a rev match function. I think a lot of people enjoy that because heel towing is quite an art and if it's not quite working properly it can be a real hassle. For me I'm still heel towing but I'm also using the rev match at the same time and I think it's helping me quite a bit there. All right, let's pick up the pace a bit and see what the engine response is like. As you can imagine with a five litre V8, 339 kilowatts, 556 newton metres, so plenty of potential there. It revs out pretty well, it just feels a little bit lazy like maybe at the top end but the bottom end is super drivable, actually more drivable than I thought. I can really manage the throttle there nicely. Just the top end I'd like probably a little bit more but it's far from slow and and sounds amazing that V8. I'd say some of that engine feeling is coming a little bit from the gear ratios and the transmission. I think those middle gears are spaced quite far apart but it's not like you feel like you're ever in the wrong gear, it's such a wide power band that it's still useful the whole time and you don't feel like you're missing out but it does maybe reduce that impact performance that you expect that shock. All right, handling wise, as you can imagine it's a little bit lazy, it's a sort of muscle car obviously and you get a fair bit of movement but the impressive part is that it doesn't actually fall over in the middle of the corner so the support's there from the suspension, so great support and it took me a little bit of time to really trust it but it actually just hangs in there and you can really add steering in the middle of the corner, that's super impressive, better than I expected for sure. The brakes actually feel really good, I'm surprised, I've had no fade at all and for a pretty heavy car, over 1700 kilos, it stops well, nice and stable, it's a big car and I can really trust it into the corner, it just took me a little while to get the feeling of where the limit was, so try the differential out as well. Interesting, it's not locking maybe as much as I would have hoped, so I felt like there was still a little bit of slip on the inside, I could drift it a little but there was just a bit of change of locking, so locking, unlocking and not completely catching the slip, so I feel like maybe it's not locking quite enough and not consistently enough and I'd be interested to see if the Mach 1 with the different LSD solves that problem because it just doesn't inspire full confidence when it's not consistent like that. So the tyres are the Michelin Pilot Sport 4S which is a, I think a really good compromise street track tyre, I'm actually amazed at how gentle this car is on tyres for being a big heavy V8, I really feel like they've stayed nice and consistent, haven't dropped away barely at all and I've got great grip and I've got a real trust in the rear end as well, it's not really getting away from me, it's not as scary as I thought but you can still light it up if you want. So the actual balance is much more neutral than I expected as well, I can chuck it in there and yeah I lost the rear there but I had balance all the way to that point and that's for me just messing around, being too hard on the throttle but I had balance, I had trust, I can really commit into here and the front a little bit of understeer but it doesn't go to complete understeer and I like that about a car, that you can push it to a point but it doesn't give way. Alright now time to get serious and the important thing, the lap time the GT does, I've put everything in racetrack mode, traction control off and I feel like that's the quickest setup, it's going to be tough for it to beat the Mach 1 but I'm going to give it a crack. Alright guys now we're in the Mach 1, things that stand out, the gear shift is a little bit different, different gear knob and it feels like a bit sharper throw as well. The seat's different but still for me personally, not enough support, I want a little bit more side support, it's probably my size and stature but I've even found when I go into the corners fast, my elbow can fit between the side bolster and my body, now that's not a problem for everyone but for me on a track, I would like a little bit more support. On the road I think that'd be a pretty comfortable touring sports seat. Pedals feel very similar as well, no problem with the heel-toe and I actually feel like with the slightly different engine, I can pop the revs a little bit quicker and that helps with those downshifts. So the engine and transmission is when we start to see some real differences and even if the power number's the same, we've got basically six kilowatts difference, the feel of the top end of the engine in the Mach 1 is amazing, it's so much sharper and more reactive as well and part of that comes back to the transmission, we've got a different gearbox, different six-speed with the Rimac in this one versus the Getrag in the other one and the gear ratios are much tighter, so basically the performance of the engine feels a lot stronger when you get on the throttle. Now there is a negative to that on the track is that it's adding an extra gear in a couple of spots so that does hurt it a little bit but overall I feel like as a package together this just feels more suited to a track, more responsive, more reactive and a lot more than the six kilowatts that's on the paper. Now brakes, I can't say there's a huge difference but just a lot more stable in this car, just more planted, you feel the movement in the GT where in the Mach 1 you don't see it squirming around as much, it's just straight planted and more short-footed under braking. One interesting thing is that the tyres, although they're exactly the same tyre, just in this car it just seems to be putting a bit more energy into the tyre and the tyre drop-off just seems that little bit higher so that's the only thing that I'd say is hurting this car but in terms of outright grip then this car has it over the GT for sure. Alright time to talk about handling and this is where there's a huge difference between the two cars and I didn't expect it. The support in this car is so much better, so much more controlled, more dialed, I'm just supported here in the corner, I can add the throttle, doesn't fall over, the corner speed I'm carrying is much higher. Also notice when I come up to the kerb here the reaction is not as bad, the rebound control is tighter, it stiffens the car across the axles and it's just much more planted on the road and I really didn't expect that bigger difference, I thought they'd be quite similar and it's like almost like two completely different cars, this is a huge step up in handling and suspension, this does have the MagnaRide which you can option on the GT but I think it's more than that, I think the way they've done the geometry changes, the suspension, the spring rates as a whole package this just completely transforms the car on the track and I think even more than the engine and the gearbox, the chassis is going to make the difference in the Mach 1. The diff's an interesting one, like at normal speeds and like nice smooth application it feels actually really good and not aggressive at all, really smooth and much more controlled than I expected. The only negative is that when you start to be a bit more aggressive and start to throw it around a bit more I can just feel that slip again from the inside rear wheel and I want that little bit more connection when it's it's slipping across the axle and try and hold it a little bit more consistently. Now balance wise when you're really pushing I've noticed this does has a slight tendency to understeer on the slower speed corners but that in the high speed corners is where you get the support so for sure the GT wins a little bit just in the mid corner of some of these slow corners you can add a little bit more steering without the understeer but the Mach 1 is by by no means bad in that area just just a slight difference between the two cars. Alright it's time to get serious guys I've got everything in track mode, suspension, race mode with the MagneRide I feel like it's going to do a pretty quick time it feels like a good package so let's see what lap time the Mach 1 can do So there you go guys I think there were two big surprises in there for me first I didn't expect either car to be so good on the track they really performed exceptionally and were great fun to drive out there the second I thought they'd be really similar really close I had expectations of the same thing for both cars and the Mach 1 exceeded them and blew them out of the water that is a completely different package to the GT and that really surprised me. Now the lap times 59.99 for the GT it's a crack the minute just and a pretty respectable time quicker than the Stinger up there with the Audi RS Q3 so a quick time but then 58.4 for the Mach 1 so that is a an impressive time on the leaderboard just behind the A45 and when you think about it it's only a second of the M550i which is double the price now we came into this thinking is 20 grand difference enough or too much and for me for 1.5 seconds a lap time 20 grand is cheap especially in racing terms so that is impressive and you think for another second you've got to double the price of the M550i so really impressive from both cars the balance and the handling was beyond what I expected the engine was excellent and the overall package was really a joy to drive on the track. Hope you guys enjoyed the video if you did give us a thumbs up and don't forget to subscribe to the Car Expert channel something different with two cars from the same family but a fun test nevertheless and let us know what else you want to see on track and we'll see you guys again soon.