Mustang 0 to 60 Times Throughout History
Car and Driver recently put together a slideshow outlining the 0 to 60 times of various Mustangs, and using that one simple metric, it’s interesting to see how our favorite pony car’s performance has improved over time — when it stagnated, and even when it occasionally faltered before rising (or would it be sinking in this case?) triumphantly.
From its inauspicious beginnings in 1964, the midyear release shared an overwhelming number of components with the lowly Falcon, which makes its 8.2 second 0-60 time (when equipped with the K-code 289 V8) all the more impressive for its day. While not initially intended to be a weapon in the muscle car wars, by the end of the decade, the Mustang was a serious contender, especially with the 351-powered Mach 1 taking a mere 5.4 seconds to reach 60 miles per hour. It would take almost a quarter of a century for Ford to see numbers like that again, thanks to SVT’s Cobra lineup in the 1990s.
With the 1970s came the fuel crisis and the downsized Mustang II. While emissions strangled the once-proud 302 down to barely 140 horsepower — taking just under nine second to reach 60 — things got a whole lot worse with the early Fox cars, whose 4.2-liter V8s could only muster an utterly pathetic 10.8 second time. By the mid-1980s, things were looking up again as the reinvigorated 5.0 HO bested the original 1964.5’s time by a tenth of a second.
Fast-forwarding to 2013, the GT500 — possibly the fastest car to ever feature a solid rear axle — snapped off an eye-watering 3.5-second 0-60 time. That’s supercar territory. Even more impressive is the current EcoBoost, whose 5.2 seconds handily beats even the best V8 cars from two decades ago, while the current GT is better than ever at 4.5 seconds.
It’s amazing to see how far the Mustang has come. To think that this represents just one facet of performance really makes us wonder how different Mustangs would compare in other categories.
Chime in with your thoughts on the forum. >>
Via [Car and Driver]
