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To be frank, I'm a S550 fan ('17 v6, '19 gt, '19 eb, '21 eb, '22 eb coastal, shopping for yellow/orange Mach 1) and Gen6 Camaro. But when the dealer has almost 200 cars on the lot, and says go pick one to drive for an hour or so and let me know what you think, I swallowed hard and said, Why TF not...
So I picked the only (of 2) manuals that were not boxed in 3 cars deep and were on the immediate lot as opposed to a couple blocks away. My choice was the Mag Gray 300A 6MT - Zero options whatsoever.
First BIG problem is price. $44k MSRP vs my '19 GT/PP1 300A which was 40.4K MSRP. Or for apples to apples - 44K vs 36K. That's a 22% upcharge!
Yeah yeah, I know 3% annual inflation compounded, yada yada. It's still ridiculous. Whatever happened to Mustangs being CHEAP? Moving on.
I am excited to report that the 300A got the Recaro seat-pan upgrade! I had the joy of reaching between my legs for the ratchet bar, pulling myself up on the steering wheel and then priming the fire extinguisher, er seat tilt lever so my ass was no longer sitting on the floor. Do mind my '19 300A has 8-way power from the factory and not even the 100A eco of yore had manual seat-pans if my memory serves. This is progress I suppose.
Alright ergos sorted, let's consider the entire reason this Gen7 exists - tablet dash. In another thread I asked if anyone had experienced washout in pathological lighting situations. I was lucky enough to get the car positioned with heavy sunset backlighting and also some vicious glare off another vehicle, and the display was still VERY readable. Can't say that about the 6G gauge cluster.
But the placement of the ipods is no great shakes and since the steering wheel shrouds the corners and top, Ford should have just bit the bullet and lopped off 1.5" from the height and wrapped the resulting rectangle with the 'Mustang hump' generations of owners have grown accustomed to and cried out in terror when the 7G was revealed without that essential design element.
2 screens vs the single "continuous" you might ask? No question, 2 screens. The single looks like complete ass with its ACRES of non-functioning black "screen". In case you're wondering, I contrasted the "premium" config in the showroom after the fact.
So let's look at the gauges themselves.
clearly I need to work on my phone camera skills. I had the phone pressed against my nose and trying to exactly represent what my eyes were seeing.
I missed, but hopefully the point holds. The top 1/5 or so of the screen provides nothing anyway, and the corners sticking out past the wheel is just gouache.
I sit tall in the seat and it seems to me it's bloody obvious that the driver screen should at minimum be able to slide up or down, and also provide a degree of tilt to compensate for the placement of the steering wheel vis a vis seatback and eye placement. But hey.
I found the panel legible but the markings to be WAY too small and 'cute' instead of sized dynamically for context. Take the RPM graph for 'Sport' mode. Why are the hocky sticks pushed so far to the outside when there is whole inches to the inside? Why are the digits (esp speedo) so freaking small? Did no one think that maybe the RPM digit should 'grow' to say 2x or 3x when transitioning into the next band? ie. 2800-3200 the '3' would be much larger than the digits 2 and 4? Or the speedo should maybe scale from 0-70 as the max as then 'compress' the section below say 30 and add up to 100, and keep shrinking the lower band the higher you go? And reversing it on decel? Pilot displays have done this for AGES even in desktop simulators. Dodge has the same bone-headed speedo guage which renders it all but useless.
This is first principles, Ford, in human factors.
Oh, and the track mode sideways graph was just cringe.
The base trim had the capacity for 8 My-Modes. Ignoring the artificial limitations imposed by selecting eg. 'Sport' which locks you out of most other settings, it was nice of Ford to gift the base-trim buyers the ability to choose colors, and tailor a few things. I didn't play with it for long at all so there may be plenty of good stuff to discover. Or not...
The 'infotainment' screen needs to be shrunk at least 3 inches in width and shortened another inch or more. The giant realestate is completely wasted - very low information content per in^2. I'll bet the UI was designed on a 9" panel and then some useless wanker said Tesla has 12" tablets we gotta do 12" too and left the UI team out in the cold.
Enough about the "tech" everyone loves to hate. How does it drive?
QUIET! I don't know how many pounds of sound-deadening Ford put in but wow, hello Lexus-wannabe. But do Mustang buyers want a car this quiet? Isn't that counter to the whole POINT? I didn't mess around with the radio except to tune to 94.7 but the radio sounded pretty good. Better than my EB Premium and it's 9 speakers. Here too the distinct lack of road noise probably plays a big factor.
Ford still can't do suspension to save their life. Guys, you SUCK at your jobs, why don't you just sign an OEM agreement with Bilstein and make the world a better place? Or at least buy the FP Track dampers from the S550 and use that as your base suspension? It's embarrassing to be in Detroit's "last standing" sports sedan that isn't a corvette and you deliver such laughable garbage. Or have your UK team do suspension from now on. They know what bendy 2-lane roads look like and how a car should behave.
The shifter seemed to be buttoned down much more so than what shipped before 2020 which reqiured the Steeda locator bracket to fix. Clutch was a little higher than I like and the engagement zone a bit narrow but I didnt once stall or have problems using it.
The steering wheel is clearly thicker and it seemed also higher ratio. I'd have to spend more time with it to see if I really prefer it over the hard-surface and smaller grip dia of the S550. The steering effort in Sport mode was ENTIRELY too weak. I didn't even bother with the others. And as other professional reviewers have noted, you might as well be twisting a x-box/logitec gaming wheel. How do you get something this vital, this central to the experience, so wrong?
The engine was a welcome and willing partner to rev. It didn't have quite the lethargic and agricultural thrashing that is more obvious in the S550 generation - which a tune is needed to remedy. Sport mode was annoying as was expected.
That said, the rear differential ratios (3.55) is a CRIME against man and nature! EVERY, yes EVERY 6MT car is blessed with a $1000 fine from the EPA in the guise of gas-guzzler penalty. There was never a need to reach for 4th gear at less than 55mph. And if you let the revs go all the way down to 2000 in 3rd gear, you'd quickly reach for 2nd as it couldn't get out of it's own way. I realize my GT has 3.73 gears, my SCAT has 3.73. But the Eco I jumped out of has 3.31 but this GT was grossly too tall. If you're goanna whack 6MT buyers with a fine, at least have the decency for a reach-around - aka put 3.73 gears in there across the board!
In the interests of wrapping this up, (my laptop is about out of batt and the charger is at the office), I flogged the car for an hour down tiwsty 2-lane (Clifton VA) for 35 miles bombing thru curves with ADVANTRAC off, of course. There were a few moments of concern but generally speaking the car did well enough considering the perennial STUPID that is Ford on wheel and tire choices.
I think the motor has promise, the trans is good enough. The suspension is a zero and the Diff absolutely must be replaced with 3.73.
Ford just needs to take a good, hard look at pricing 'cause the MSRP when combined with the interest rates (and no, they are never going back down) will kill this thing in the cradle.
Would I buy one? Unlikely. The cosmetics and the "tech" are a big fat zero. Maybe if I put a life-size card-board cutout of an S550 next to it every time I parked it. You know like those spring-loaded panels used for tents and windshield shades. Just car-body sized.
So I picked the only (of 2) manuals that were not boxed in 3 cars deep and were on the immediate lot as opposed to a couple blocks away. My choice was the Mag Gray 300A 6MT - Zero options whatsoever.
First BIG problem is price. $44k MSRP vs my '19 GT/PP1 300A which was 40.4K MSRP. Or for apples to apples - 44K vs 36K. That's a 22% upcharge!
Yeah yeah, I know 3% annual inflation compounded, yada yada. It's still ridiculous. Whatever happened to Mustangs being CHEAP? Moving on.
I am excited to report that the 300A got the Recaro seat-pan upgrade! I had the joy of reaching between my legs for the ratchet bar, pulling myself up on the steering wheel and then priming the fire extinguisher, er seat tilt lever so my ass was no longer sitting on the floor. Do mind my '19 300A has 8-way power from the factory and not even the 100A eco of yore had manual seat-pans if my memory serves. This is progress I suppose.
Alright ergos sorted, let's consider the entire reason this Gen7 exists - tablet dash. In another thread I asked if anyone had experienced washout in pathological lighting situations. I was lucky enough to get the car positioned with heavy sunset backlighting and also some vicious glare off another vehicle, and the display was still VERY readable. Can't say that about the 6G gauge cluster.
But the placement of the ipods is no great shakes and since the steering wheel shrouds the corners and top, Ford should have just bit the bullet and lopped off 1.5" from the height and wrapped the resulting rectangle with the 'Mustang hump' generations of owners have grown accustomed to and cried out in terror when the 7G was revealed without that essential design element.
2 screens vs the single "continuous" you might ask? No question, 2 screens. The single looks like complete ass with its ACRES of non-functioning black "screen". In case you're wondering, I contrasted the "premium" config in the showroom after the fact.
So let's look at the gauges themselves.
clearly I need to work on my phone camera skills. I had the phone pressed against my nose and trying to exactly represent what my eyes were seeing.
I missed, but hopefully the point holds. The top 1/5 or so of the screen provides nothing anyway, and the corners sticking out past the wheel is just gouache.
I sit tall in the seat and it seems to me it's bloody obvious that the driver screen should at minimum be able to slide up or down, and also provide a degree of tilt to compensate for the placement of the steering wheel vis a vis seatback and eye placement. But hey.
I found the panel legible but the markings to be WAY too small and 'cute' instead of sized dynamically for context. Take the RPM graph for 'Sport' mode. Why are the hocky sticks pushed so far to the outside when there is whole inches to the inside? Why are the digits (esp speedo) so freaking small? Did no one think that maybe the RPM digit should 'grow' to say 2x or 3x when transitioning into the next band? ie. 2800-3200 the '3' would be much larger than the digits 2 and 4? Or the speedo should maybe scale from 0-70 as the max as then 'compress' the section below say 30 and add up to 100, and keep shrinking the lower band the higher you go? And reversing it on decel? Pilot displays have done this for AGES even in desktop simulators. Dodge has the same bone-headed speedo guage which renders it all but useless.
This is first principles, Ford, in human factors.
Oh, and the track mode sideways graph was just cringe.
The base trim had the capacity for 8 My-Modes. Ignoring the artificial limitations imposed by selecting eg. 'Sport' which locks you out of most other settings, it was nice of Ford to gift the base-trim buyers the ability to choose colors, and tailor a few things. I didn't play with it for long at all so there may be plenty of good stuff to discover. Or not...
The 'infotainment' screen needs to be shrunk at least 3 inches in width and shortened another inch or more. The giant realestate is completely wasted - very low information content per in^2. I'll bet the UI was designed on a 9" panel and then some useless wanker said Tesla has 12" tablets we gotta do 12" too and left the UI team out in the cold.
Enough about the "tech" everyone loves to hate. How does it drive?
QUIET! I don't know how many pounds of sound-deadening Ford put in but wow, hello Lexus-wannabe. But do Mustang buyers want a car this quiet? Isn't that counter to the whole POINT? I didn't mess around with the radio except to tune to 94.7 but the radio sounded pretty good. Better than my EB Premium and it's 9 speakers. Here too the distinct lack of road noise probably plays a big factor.
Ford still can't do suspension to save their life. Guys, you SUCK at your jobs, why don't you just sign an OEM agreement with Bilstein and make the world a better place? Or at least buy the FP Track dampers from the S550 and use that as your base suspension? It's embarrassing to be in Detroit's "last standing" sports sedan that isn't a corvette and you deliver such laughable garbage. Or have your UK team do suspension from now on. They know what bendy 2-lane roads look like and how a car should behave.
The shifter seemed to be buttoned down much more so than what shipped before 2020 which reqiured the Steeda locator bracket to fix. Clutch was a little higher than I like and the engagement zone a bit narrow but I didnt once stall or have problems using it.
The steering wheel is clearly thicker and it seemed also higher ratio. I'd have to spend more time with it to see if I really prefer it over the hard-surface and smaller grip dia of the S550. The steering effort in Sport mode was ENTIRELY too weak. I didn't even bother with the others. And as other professional reviewers have noted, you might as well be twisting a x-box/logitec gaming wheel. How do you get something this vital, this central to the experience, so wrong?
The engine was a welcome and willing partner to rev. It didn't have quite the lethargic and agricultural thrashing that is more obvious in the S550 generation - which a tune is needed to remedy. Sport mode was annoying as was expected.
That said, the rear differential ratios (3.55) is a CRIME against man and nature! EVERY, yes EVERY 6MT car is blessed with a $1000 fine from the EPA in the guise of gas-guzzler penalty. There was never a need to reach for 4th gear at less than 55mph. And if you let the revs go all the way down to 2000 in 3rd gear, you'd quickly reach for 2nd as it couldn't get out of it's own way. I realize my GT has 3.73 gears, my SCAT has 3.73. But the Eco I jumped out of has 3.31 but this GT was grossly too tall. If you're goanna whack 6MT buyers with a fine, at least have the decency for a reach-around - aka put 3.73 gears in there across the board!
In the interests of wrapping this up, (my laptop is about out of batt and the charger is at the office), I flogged the car for an hour down tiwsty 2-lane (Clifton VA) for 35 miles bombing thru curves with ADVANTRAC off, of course. There were a few moments of concern but generally speaking the car did well enough considering the perennial STUPID that is Ford on wheel and tire choices.
I think the motor has promise, the trans is good enough. The suspension is a zero and the Diff absolutely must be replaced with 3.73.
Ford just needs to take a good, hard look at pricing 'cause the MSRP when combined with the interest rates (and no, they are never going back down) will kill this thing in the cradle.
Would I buy one? Unlikely. The cosmetics and the "tech" are a big fat zero. Maybe if I put a life-size card-board cutout of an S550 next to it every time I parked it. You know like those spring-loaded panels used for tents and windshield shades. Just car-body sized.
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