Still Climbing

The 2015 Mustang shows off its handling prowess on the famed hill climb

By Steve Turner
Photos courtesy of Ford Motor Company and the Goodwood Festival of Speed

Now that the Mustang is becoming an international commodity, we will get to see it run at all sorts of venues worldwide. In case it slipped past you in all the excitement about the debut of the 2015 Focus ST at the Goodwood Festival of Speed in the UK, the 2015 Mustang appeared there too.

When it was announced that the new Mustang would make a run up the storied hill climb at Goodwood, we thought we might get a first glimpse at the GT’s Boss-beating performance capabilities. Alas, it turns out that both timed runs and exhibition runs are allowed on the climb. Naturally, Ford opted to play its cards close and send the car on an exhibition run with stunt driver Paul Swift behind the wheel.

If you aren’t familiar with this event, the hill climb is a 1.6-mile course, framed by trees and walls, which runs through the picturesque Goodwood Estate. It is the event at the UK’s premier celebration of internal combustion and speed. Over 300 cars ran up the course—which rises by 300 feet—during the event. To date, the quickest run up the hill was made by Nick Heidfeld in the McLaren MP4-13 in 1999. He made the trip in a blistering 41.6 seconds.

If you want a little primer on how to make it up the hill, check out this overview:

http://youtu.be/P5-k9uWBoFw

Now, we don’t expect the 2015 Mustang to set the record running up the hill, but we were certainly intrigued to see how it would perform; particularly versus times set by the outgoing Mustang. We would guess that a production S550 would make a timed run at next year’s FOS. For now, however, we just have to enjoy the sights and sounds of the exhibition run via this video from Ford:

The 2015 Mustang certainly looks great ascending the hill. We liked watching it so much, that we also tracked down this capture from the television coverage, which gives you another viewpoint on the car’s run:

With any luck, we’ll all know how the 2015 Mustang performs in the near future, but for now this was a nice little teaser. When asked how he liked the Mustang after his run, Paul replied: “Would love one… just awesome!”

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