Yes, the Mustang is a great choice for a first car. Your first car should be within your budget, fast but not too fast, and comfortable to begin to create loving memories with.
It must also be well-equipped, reliable, and safe.
The Mustang meets all these requirements as well as being an attractive and fun car to look at and to drive.
A mustang is an excellent first car due to the reasons listed below;
Why Is A Mustang A Good First Car?
Handles perfectly: You’ll absolutely love the way your car feels when you take it around curves and bends.
The steering is just perfect, not too heavy or too light.
You will feel in full control of this car.
Budget-friendly: The Mustang is affordable and within reach for anyone looking for a first car.
As per the title, a Mustang ranges from about $18k to over $48k, with the 2020 EcoBoost Fastback going for $27,865.
This is really affordable, especially when compared to the price of similar models.
The Mustang is and has always offered real value in terms of what you get for the price paid.
Size: The size of a Mustang is just perfect for new drivers as the compact design is ideal for urban driving and will serve your needs admirably.
The smoothness of the ride: A mustang offers you a smooth ride, handling greatly even when driven on bumpy roads.
Cabin noise: Everyone finds the cabin noise of the Mustang acceptable.
It isn’t so loud that you need to raise your voice significantly when you speak or when you’re on the highway.
You can hold a conversation at a normal tone while driving your mustang.
Braking system: The brake pedal of the Mustang is located in a way that feels intuitive and comfortable to brake easily.
You can drive freely, comfortable with the car’s ability to stop quickly with a minimum braking distance.
In addition to this, the emergency brake of the Mustang is placed in a position that is easy to access.
Ease of acceleration: The Mustang smoothly accelerate from a stopped position, quick enough to enable easy merges on the highway.
With its gas paddle located in a place that feels comfortable and intuitive to everyone, even the newest of drivers.
Maintenance and parts: A key element that makes Mustang great for new drivers is the availability and cost of spare parts.
Mustang spare parts are neither scarce nor expensive.
This availability and cheap cost help in keeping insurance rates down as vehicles that are expensive to repair are also expensive to insure.
Great Safety Technologies: Despite Mustang’s reputation for being big powerful vehicles, it actually is among the safest performance vehicles on the market.
An overall safety report rating from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration shows that the Mustang provides superior driver coverage and protection.
Additionally, parents will welcome Ford’s MyKey system, which lets them set a speed limit when a particular key is used.
Several helpful driving aids are also available which makes the Mustang a safe ride.
Apart from the features listed above, there are other features, normally optional but available on the Mustang which increases the quality of your car ride, ensuring your first car is really memorable:
Sound system: The Mustang sound system has got you covered in anything 21st century.
With good quality speakers, easy to adjust the treble and bass, you will enjoy the overall sound when using the system.
Navigation system: You can opt to have your car equipped with a built-in navigation system.
Backup camera: Backup cameras enable you to check for people or objects who may be behind your vehicle before you back up. You should however not consider them a replacement for the need to turn or use your side mirrors.
Bluetooth capability.
There is a Mustang for practically everyone due to its versatility in model selection alone.
You can get the Mustang Convertible if you like to drive with the top down or go for the Mustang GT if you are looking for power on a budget.
There’s the V-6 Mustang which offers you great looks without you needing to pay more insurance to own a V-8.
You should know the difference between the V8 and V12 engine at least though…
The list is endless.
WHY ARE MUSTANGS SO CHEAP?
This would be broken down into two topics:
- Why new Mustangs are relatively cheap to other cars
- Why used Mustangs are cheaper than other vehicles of the same year, engines, and specs.
Why are New Mustangs Cheap?
Ford Mustang debuted in 1965 and was specifically manufactured to cater to a younger market hence the relatively cheap price.
With proper planning, Ford Mustang sold a huge 22,000 cars the very first day it became available.
Ford planned to sell 100,000 cars the first year, however, they quickly found out they miscalculated hugely as purchases promptly surpassed that number a few months in and kept going.
By the end of the year, Ford had sold over 680,000 Mustangs.
They got it right with their pricing, with their targeted market, and with the car itself as people promptly fell in love with the sports car, as soon as it was released.
Ford has had no reason to change their pricing structure or target market; hence, they are still sticking with producing Mustangs the younger generation can afford.
This brings us to our next point, why used Mustangs are cheap.
Why are Used Mustangs Cheap?
The reason is simple; Costs and demand.
A lot of people purchase mustangs, there are more Mustangs sold annually than Camaros or Challengers.
In 2015 when the Mustang was offered, Ford expected sales to be in the range of 1000 units yearly.
However, they had orders above 4500 within the first 4 weeks. That would reason there are a whole lot of used ones.
If the market is swamped with a particular car brand, then the cost will drop.
Which is a good thing for you!
HOW MANY MILES UNTIL A MUSTANG DIES?
No one knows yet. There are tons of 1964-1967 first-generation Mustangs with over 300,000 miles still being used today and they are already more than 5 decades old.
What really determines the overall life of cars is the type of individual who owns it and how they care for it.
As long as you maintain your Mustang, regularly changing the oil and servicing them, taking care to keep them off salted roads in the winter as well as replace old and worn out parts when required, your Mustang could last forever.
When properly maintained, cleaned, and driven with no collisions, most Mustangs will surpass 200,000 miles easily over a 10–20-year timeframe.
More than 10 million Mustangs have been made to date, and a surprisingly high number are still being used.
As much as 65 percent of Mustangs made are still on the road today!
DO MUSTANGS HANDLE WELL?
Ford Motor Company for the past 50 years has consistently improved upon its Mustang, with improvements being performed all the time.
With a dedication to its consumers’ wants and desires, this has allowed the Ford Mustang to remain as popular as it is.
Among the muscle cars of today, the Mustang is difficult to beat when it comes to handling.
A popular saying amongst gearheads is “A Bad Handling Mustang is the Driver”.
If you factor in the Mustang price, the Ford Mustang handles considerably well.
Although it can be improved upon with mods, for the broad majority of drivers out there – especially newly licensed drivers – the Mustang has higher limits and perfect handling than they’ll require!
How much handling is required to drive to school, work, or cruise on the weekend?
The beauty of the Mustang is the fact that you can mod anything to handle.
A simple handling package (struts, springs, rear control arms x3, and Panhard rod, bump-steer, front bushing inserts, and extended ball joints) will require around $2,500, and will absolutely improve the car in terms of handling, making it perform equivalent to a Porsche or BMW that costs hundreds or thousands of dollars more.
However, even unmodded, the Mustang is respectable in the handling department, modifying it makes it a track terror.
WHY DOES FORD GET A BAD REP?
Ford didn’t earn a place as one of America’s best-selling cars because they manufacture bad vehicles.
The fact is that Ford has been making cars for decades and so for each rare hiccup, comes years of amazing cars.
Ford’s reputation took an enormous hit during the late 70s & early 80s from three incidents, two vehicles, and the Firestone tire fiasco. Although Ford has cleaned up their act, and have made some magnificent vehicles, their reputation is taking quite a while to improve, however, the Ford love has been especially strong for the last few years.
The two vehicles in particular were The Ford Pinto and The Bronco II.
While some cars have a bad reputation of being poorly constructed, breaking down, being underpowered, etc.
Ford’s Pinto had the reputation of being engulfed in fire when rear-ended.
This alone wouldn’t have affected Ford so badly, however, it was discovered that Ford knew about this issue, but carried out a cost analysis and decided that paying for the lawsuits was cheaper than paying for the redesign.
They judged profits as more valuable than the lives of their customers.
This made the public see Ford as untrustworthy and downright evil.
The second hit in Ford’s reputation was as a result of a design flaw in the suspension of the Bronco II.
It had a frightening reputation for rolling over and, killing people.
Again, the issue with this was that Ford knew about this design flaw before it was released to their customers – it was well documented by the engineers – they however were not willing to spend the money and time required to redesign it.
They even canceled vigorous testing because the safety tests were considered too dangerous for professional test drivers.
They went ahead and released it, ignoring the fact that it was unsafe.
As a result, greed and corporate pressure forced the Ford company to make another poor decision.
Lastly, was the Firestone tire fiasco where hundreds of people died because of tire separation.
Although Ford wasn’t necessarily at fault here, the fact that it was on their cars, so recently after the Bronco II and Pinto, really cemented Ford’s negative reputation.
These sorts of events are detrimental to a company’s reputation, and Ford has taken a while to recover from them.
One would argue that if Ford weren’t also known to produce remarkably good vehicles, these incidents would have ended them altogether.
Ford makes some exceptional vehicles now and is recognized as one of the more reliable automakers in the industry, so their reputation is recovering very well.
With that said, its reputation still has a long way to recover from its former glory.
