More Power And 10 Speeds Headline Next Year's Ford Mustang Upgrades

Ford has upgraded the Mustang again, and this time there’s more power and more transmission ratios than you can shake a (gear) stick at.

The new European Mustang’s 5.0-litre V8 has been tweaked up to 444bhp; a 28bhp jump from its first state of tune. It can be linked, if you like, to a new 10-speed automatic gearbox that Ford says is more fuel-efficient and cleverer, with ‘real-time adaptive shift-scheduling’ that aims to always select the right gear for the conditions. These are similar changes to what we’ve seen on the North American one.

That gearbox is optional for both the V8 and the 2.3-litre 286bhp four-cylinder EcoBoost turbo. Matthias Tonn, the Mustang’s chief engineer, says the transmission lets the engines deliver peak muscle while shifting and minimises any drop in momentum for each cog swap. They say this will definitely beat the old one in a drag race. Shifting is, of course, semi-manually controlled with paddles behind the steering wheel.

If manual gear-whisking is more your thing, the six-speeder remains the standard choice. It’s now stronger, though, with a twin-disc clutch and dual-mass flywheel that together permit faster shifts, Ford says. Line Lock, otherwise known as burnout mode, is still standard for those times when you just need to warm your tyres a little before your launch.

Elsewhere there’s a new, optional MagneRide Damping System that uses a magnetorheological setup similar to that seen in expensive Audis, among others. It can almost instantly make the suspension firmer or softer, as required. As part of that there are two new drive modes: the self-explanatory Drag Strip and ‘My Mode’ for user-customisable setups.

We admit we had a chuckle at one new feature on the 2018 model year Mustang: Good Neighbour Mode. An active valve in the exhaust can shut the engines’ bark right down, making it much quieter for escaping the suburbs in the early hours of the morning without waking everyone else up and attracting the sort of attention you don’t really want.

After the Mustang’s Euro NCAP debacle and Ford’s resulting headache, the new one will be fitted with pre-collision assist with sensors to detect pedestrians. Adaptive cruise control can be fitted, with a distance alert feature and a lane-keeping aid that works to keep the car central in its lane. An ‘improved’ crash safety score is on the way, we’re told.

As you’d expect, there’s Bluetooth, voice control, sat-nav, climate control and more to play with via the central touchscreen. You can even programme the digital gauges, which change according to the drive mode, to display in one of seven colour choices. The V8 is probably still the thing to focus on, though…