CALL OF THE WILD

DENIED THE GT500, FORD AUSTRALIA COULDN’T RESIST BUILDING A 500kW SUPER ’STANG OF ITS OWN

- LOUIS CORDONY

HAVE BEEN DRIVING this Ford Mustang for a while and I’m sick of waiting. This next straight I’m going to give it the berries, every single one of them. But, fully aware that the standard Mustang beneath me is having to deal with about 50 per cent more power than was first intended by its American engineers, I toe the throttle the way you’d ease into a cold pool.

Its exhaust bellows as supercharged air feeds eight hungry cylinders. Then I throw it into third, hit the loud pedal hard, and the tarmac before me starts disappearing. Fast.

At 3000rpm there’s a noticeable layer of extra shove. At 4000rpm the surge keeps building. It’s not stopping at 5000rpm. Six thousand? You’re surfing what feels like a tidal wave, but there’s still another 1500rpm to go. Seven thousand? I glance over at photographer Nathan Jacobs in the passenger seat. His face says it all. This thing is something else.

But there's also something familiar about this Mustang. It is a boosted, Australian-built, limited-edition R-Spec. Just like the FPV F6 Typhoon version that debuted in 2007, and the FPV Boss 335 GT that continued the legacy in 2012. The only thing that has changed here, of course, is the vehicle’s country of origin – and manufacturer partner.

Ford Australia, together with tuning house Herrod Performance, has created the Mustang it always wanted to since Dearborn denied us the Shelby Mustang GT350, and tricky ADRs smothered earlier attempts to rectify this. The GT350 was a flat-plane-crank 392kW track monster that could have been a local hero – if only Ford America had decided to build them in right-hand drive.