Aussie role in new Ford Mustang

August 17, 2013 by Alastair Sloane

Ford Mustang

Ford’s decision to build right-hand-drive Mustangs almost certainly means that Ford Australia’s designers and engineers will be involved in the development of the 51^st-year model.

Why? Because Mustang’s traditional live rear axle will be dropped for the new model in favour of an independent suspension, something that Ford Australia and its fully owned go-fast arm Ford Performance Vehicles has specialised in with rear-drive Falcon-based models like the FPV GT.

Also, Ford Australia has pushed for more of a global role for the supercharged 5.0-litre Coyote V8 that FPV developed with its former partner, British-based Prodrive.

But Falcon is no more after next year and FPV needs a long-term project. That’s where the 2015 Mustang comes in.

FPV would not only help with the sports coupe’s development, its supercharged 335kW/570Nm Coyote V8 would end up under the standard Mustang bonnet as the premium global engine, thereby helping to shore up FPV’s future.

A smaller four-cylinder Ecoboost engine – now optional in the Falcon range – is likely to be available globally in the Mustang.

The current standard US Mustang comes with either a 227kW 3.7-litre V6 or 331kW 5-litre V8 engine.

The flagship Ford Shelby GT500 Mustang runs a 5.8-litre supercharged V8 delivering 494kW at 6500rpm and 845Nm at 4000rpm to the rear wheels via a six-speed Tremec manual gearbox.

Around 530Nm is available from 1000rpm and 760Nm from between 2200-5800rpm.

If you are in a position to shell out upwards of NZ$600,000 for the 60^thanniversary Porsche 911 S/T or optional Porsche 911 S/T Heritage, you’ll no doubt want the signature titanium watch that goes with it. That’s how Porsche figures it anyway. Or, if you want the watch you’ll need to get the car. Both the car and the watch are limited to 1963 units, the year the original 911 model broke cover. The watch – Chronograph 1 911 S/T and Chronograph 1 911 S/T Heritage – and the car carry matching edition numbers. The watch is priced at $US13,500, or around $NZ22,200. The car, says Porsche NZ, starts at $NZ608,000. A “strictly limited number” will go into production for NZ early next year.

Eight European Union countries are pushing to weaken new EU emissions limits for cars, saying they are overly ambitious and unrealistic for carmakers to hit. The eight countries – France, Italy, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia – said in a joint paper that parts of the proposed Euro 7 regulation, including curbs on exhaust pipe emissions, should be scrapped entirely. They said the limits would force carmakers to invest in improving exhaust emissions performance, money which would be better spent on developing zero-emission vehicles. Taken together, the countries would have enough votes to block the proposal.

A go-anywhere EV concept for the US military uses an onboard 12kW diesel generator to top up the batteries on the move. The all-wheel-drive has 800-volt technology and a 200kWh battery pack to power three electric motors, two in the rear and one up front. Claimed output is 745kW/15,590Nm, or 1000hp and 11,500 ft-lb of torque. The four-seater was developed by the defence division of General Motors and is based on the platform of the Hummer SUV. It rides on Fox performance shock absorbers and 37-inch tyres and comes with “exceptional” approach and departure angles for off-road mobility. Maximum range using the generator to keep things ticking over is said to be around 500km.

The outside temperature in Midland, Texas, was 40.5C when staff at the local office of the US National Weather Service set out to show the cabin of a closed car can literally get baking hot in summer. They mixed up a batch of chocolate chip cookies and laid them on the car’s dashboard – the surface of which showed a temperature of 87.7C. A little over four hours later the cookies were ready to eat. “Even though ours weren’t golden brown, we can confirm that they are done and delicious,” the staff wrote on Facebook.