Is 2025 Ford Mustang GT Manual V8 the LAST TRUE MUSTANG

The 2025 Ford Mustang GT doesn’t just roll up — it rattles fillings. Still the king of the sports-car paddock, this seventh-generation Pony dominates Australia’s Sports cae sales charts, outselling the BRZ, GR86, and MX-5 combined. Built on Ford’s 20-year-old D2C platform (Gen 7’s been wearing it well since 2023), the GT Fastback Manual is what you buy when your blood type is 98RON. Yes, the Mustang gulps the good stuff like a Brit at an all-inclusive on the Costa del Sol.

The Dark Horse special edition sold out, perhaps a sign that punters see blood in the water.

Under that long, sexy bonnet lurks the fourth-gen (slightly reworked) 5.0-litre Coyote V8, belting out 345 kW and 550 Nm through a six-speed manual with rev-matching. Because real drivers — and gay boys with backbone — still shift for themselves. The EcoBoost? Please. That’s for people who queue at cafés for oat milk and fear the smell of burnt rubber.

Yes, the NEVES tax slapped on big-emission brutes adds $5,000 to the sticker, and 310 g/km will make the planet weep, but darling, when this thing fires up, so will you. It’s a 345 kW hooligan in a dinner suit: all curves, charisma, and questionable life choices. Carmakers can offset the CO₂ by flogging more EVs, but that strategy is fraught with swampy disdain.

The body’s smoother and tauter, with tri-bar LEDs, bonnet vents, and a quad active-valve exhaust that can whisper, growl, or absolutely scream your name. Four exhaust modes go from “suburban polite” to “Saturday-night feral” — and let’s be honest, you’ll never touch the polite one. Although after hours in the (Recaro) saddle, the V8 gets old — really old. You long for Zen time, or at least as Zen as it can be in a Mustang.

Specifications HERE:mustang-my25-spec-sheet

Above: This Week’s VIDEO Review – 2025 Ford Mustang GT Manual V8 REVIEW Is this the LAST TRUE MUSTANG?

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ABOVE: Gen 7 Mustang

The LED welcome show is pure theatre: pony puddle lamps and animated light sequences that sparkle with the sincerity of far-off galaxies.

Inside, the drama continues. Ford’s gone full digital with a 12.4-inch driver cluster that can morph into retro glory, and a 13.2-inch SYNC 4 touchscreen running wireless CarPlay, Android Auto, and a 12-speaker Bang & Olufsen setup that bump-and-grind through your commute. There’s still that touch of bogan in us all. The steering-wheel pony badge is as flat as last night’s champers, and the seats — heated, cooled, and power-adjustable — still demand a manual lever for the backrest. Character-building, right?

Metal pedals, ambient lighting, and a drift brake round out the interior, daring you to ruin tyres and reputations in equal measure. Tick MagneRide suspension and it’ll glide like Grace Kelly one minute, carve corners like Oscar Piastri the next. Steering is beautifully weighted, with Normal, Comfort, and Sport modes via electric power assist.

The drift brake looks like your average brake lever but is really just a big electric switch. Drift mode turns it into a decent imitation of a cable brake sans motor.

Driving

Mustang’s still got it after six decades. While some pony cars didn’t deserve the moniker, Ford can see the writing on the wall — and what may be the last V8 Mustang pumps adrenalin into your ticker through a big mainline pipe.

Fire it up and the Coyote snarls like a dog that’s spotted a postie. Cylinder deactivation tries to behave — official fuel use is 13.6 L/100 km (officially optimistic) — but nobody buys a Mustang to save petrol. You buy it to make tunnels tremble.

Brembos (390 mm front, 355 mm rear) haul it up fast, while the limited-slip diff keeps both rears busy. It’s pure rear-wheel joy — 1,800 kg of old-school grunt with just enough modern smarts to keep you out of the news. Keep in mind our test car had a few options ticked: Recaros, Brembos, blacked-out bits, and other odds and sods — all at a price. See the video for more.

Safety gear is all there: AEB, blind-spot monitor, lane-keep assist, adaptive cruise, and reverse brake assist — though the lane nanny got stroppy even when my hands were exactly where they should be. Naughty Pony.

Full lane-centring is reserved for the 10-speed auto, though God only knows why.

At 4.8 m long, 2.1 m wide, and 1.4 m high, it’s impossible to miss — or ignore. Six drive modes (Normal, Sport, Slippery, Racetrack, Drag, Custom) and launch control that’ll roast tyres faster than a Ramsay BBQ.

This Mustang is everything it should be: loud, gorgeous, dramatic, and occasionally ridiculous — like your best mate after three tequilas. But can it last? Unlikely.

The world is shifting away from internal combustion, whether the luddites like it or not. EV adoption might’ve been faster if fossil fuels weren’t so lucrative for their very greedy gatekeepers. Car lovers will cling like limpets to the dying embers of the dinosaur age, but history is clear — we thrived for millennia without oil and have only worshipped it for the last hundred years. It made some people obscenely rich, and they’re not about to surrender it — even if it kills us all.

Something has to give, and Gen Alpha isn’t happy. The future buyers will decide who gets left behind.

Full review and video ABOVE.

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