Best Muscle Cars
Why Is The Ford Mustang So Tail Happy?
By Mark Weisseg
In the year 2017 I want to throw out some thoughts on the current Mustang. The internet and YouTube are full of videos of the Ford Mustang crashing. Not just crashing into grocery carts or another car but crashing hard into almost everything. The question remains. Why the Mustang?
Go check some web sites and you will see videos of the Mustang leaving car shows or events and then crashing. Now to be clear the videos generally show the driver doing a burnout, start to weave, and then crashing into something. The car has taken out bushes, other signs, other cars, and much more.
Sometimes it’s very serious and other times it’s a harmless crash. But why the Mustang? It cannot be a right wing conspiracy I guess because the videos are coming in from all over the world. Is it that there are too many Mustangs? Too many bad drivers? Too many bad roads? Occasionally I will see a Challenger or a Camaro spin out and crash but the majority of the time it’s a Mustang. It’s a hard pill to swallow as I own two Mustangs.
One has about four hundred horsepower and the other is about seven hundred and twenty five horsepower. Now, I am not a expert driver or a certified racing expert but I will tell you this. My seven hundred plus has traction control as a feature. I have that feature engaged all the time. I did enough reading on the subject and decided it was the best thing to do. Now, I can tell you the following from my own experience.
The rear end of my Mustang is Squirrley as best as I can describe. I know that is not the technical name for it but the back end seems a bit lost. If I accelerate hard to go through the gears that back end is loose. I need to be extra careful or I know it will come around on me. I have P Zero tires on the back so I thought maybe that was the issue. So, I asked a friend who has the same car but has the standard 662 horsepower with Goodyear Tires. Same issue. Hmmm. So, it’s not just me.
In a straight line the car is a rocket on wheels. However, I must be aware of all things all the time. Why? I can feel that back end starting to get away from me. So, it’s not just me. I understand many of the drivers we see on videos may be inexperienced and have too many ponies under the hood. Hence, they lose control. But why not the Hellcat or the Camaro? Certainly videos exist of those drivers losing control and spinning out but why so many Mustangs? Understanding that there are more Mustangs than the competition on the road so the numbers would be higher.
However, there must be more to this than I understand. You see I am not an engineer or a accomplished road racer. I am a regular guy who has been driving a lot of cars for a lot of years. I love my Mustang and hope to buy a GT350 at some point. I am merely suggesting something is wrong here. There are just too many people who have the same issue. Sure chalk most of the issue up to inexperience or just stupidity but there seems to be more to the problem. I know the Ford haters love this kind of talk and thrive on the misfortunes of others. But, this is serious stuff. We all have seen the videos of a weaving Mustang taking out people, bushes, other cars, and other hazards.
The videos were funny to start with as we all laughed at the poor driver wrecking his prized car. But when you start running over bystanders the joke is not funny anymore. So what’s the problem? What can we do? Is anyone in the car industry looking into this? Or, is the industry just chalking it up to poor driving? I don’t know the answers but I watch closely. Just today on dry roads I got on the gas pedal after leaving a parking lot. First and second gear went well but when I hit third and accelerated the back end got loose and I had to let up to correct it. This is not the first time it has happened but I got to thinking about it more today and decided to write about it. How about some critical thinking and concerning thoughts. This is serious and I hope we as a group can find out what the missing link is here.
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