Goodbye
The Mustang Mach-E is perfectly fine until you stop to think about it.
I’ve just been reading back over my previous long-term test reports on the Mustang before writing this final one and I’m now even more confused than I was when I first took delivery as to what it actually is.
So here’s the most expensive (I think) series-production car Ford has ever offered for sale in the UK, priced perilously close to the equivalent Porsche (the Taycan being the best EV on sale, in my opinion); bearing the name of the definitive muscle car but sold as an SUV and with that breed’s disadvantages of mass and aerodynamics (factors critical to an EV particularly), but with the profile and practicality of a hatchback and thus few of an SUV’s advantages. It’s as quick to 60mph as a supercar but has the same v-max as a 1.0-litre Fiesta.
How about bundling all the Mach-E’s fine qualities into something like a Mondeo estate?
If proof were needed that the old car-model typologies have dissolved entirely, the Ford Mustang Mach-E GT is it. What exactly have I been driving for the past six months? And do people really care about definitions any more?
As something to come out to on the drive every morning, it was pretty good. Other reviewers differ but I found it a lot of fun to drive, despite its mass and not just for its dragstrip acceleration. It was palpably wellmade: almost on a par with that Porsche and in terms of perceived quality better than the £125,000 BMW iX M60 which preceded it, and whose doors and switchgear felt flimsier than the Ford’s. The cabin materials – especially the technical fabrics – were restrained and well-chosen, though some might like a little more luxury or design exuberance in an expensive, supposedly sporting range-topper. The Sync infotainment system worked intuitively and paired seamlessly and wirelessly with an iPhone, which is all many of us really care about anyway and which some other car makers inexplicably and unforgivably have failed to master.
It took the kids to school tailpipe-emissions-free, all of us from Sussex to Yorkshire to see family on a single charge, and me to assignments or the airport reliably: nothing at all went wrong in those six months.
And if that kind of family or business motoring is all you need, the Mustang will serve you well, though the 480bhp hot-rod GT might not be your personal sweet-spot. Having access to other vehicles – chiefly an old van – I was never fru
