If there is one car that could be called

America's Sweetheart, it would be the Ford Mustang, now in its 33rd year

on the market. Born in the crazy cultural upheaval of the mid-'60s, it

has survived Vietnam, two gas crunches, the war on emissions and the safety

blitz to carry on as this country's favorite pony car.

Extensively redesigned in 1993, the Mustang has only two direct competitors,

the Chevy Camaro and Pontiac Firebird. There simply aren't any other rear-wheel

drive V8-powered sporty coupes out there in the same price class as the

three Americans that make up the pony car class. Indirectly, of course,

it competes with a host of smaller sport coupes.

Like the two General Motors entries, the Mustang comes in both V6 and

V8 versions, in coupe and convertible body styles, with a super-performance

model--in this case, the Cobra--on the top of the heap. The Mustang offers

a pretty good 3.8-liter V6 with 150 horsepower and 215 pound-feet of torque

as its basic engine, although the GM V6 engines have more muscle.

The GT is equipped with a 4.6-liter single overhead cam V8, rated at

215 hp and 285 lb.-ft. of torque, while the Cobra gets a twin cam 32-valve

version of the V8 capable of producing 305 hp.

The Cobra is available only with a five-speed manual transmission. The

other Mustangs offer the option of a four-speed automatic.

Our test car was the high-volume GT V8 with a manual transmission, a

car that starts out a mere $18,525, including Ford's $525 destination and

delivery charge, making it one of the performance bargains of the year.

The V6 versions that don't say 4.6 GT on the front fenders are substantially

less than that (from $15,880), and the Cobra, with its power, tire and

suspension upgrades, makes no apologies for a base price of $24,510.

The Mustang is a small car, barely 15 feet long, with a wheelbase just

over 100 inches. While this factor makes it easy to maneuver and easy to

park, for the performance-minded buyer it also means the Mustang is a sporty

platform, relatively light, quick to change direction and stable while

doing so.

This is an old platform, and given a short and narrow package to work

with, Ford's designers have a done a good job of masking the car's size

with generous sweeps of front sheetmetal and really good design on the

sides and rear end. It's short, but it manages not to look stumpy or abbreivated.

There are several neat touches on the 1997 Mustang. Our test car had

the standard passive anti-theft system (PATS), in which the key and the

car communicate electronically every time the car is started, and it had

the optional perimeter anti-theft system ($145), which protects it from

unauthorized entry through doors, windows, hood or trunk. Yet another option

was the remote keyless entry system ($270), which controls the door locks,

interior lamps, decklid and a panic alarm from the keyfob, an idea which

is rapidly becoming industry-wide.

One touch we could have done without was the optional ($195) rear spoiler.

Not that we didn't like the aesthetics, you understand; we just think they

should have thrown it into the GT package as standard equipment.

One of the most pleasant surprises with the new Mustang is the interior

design job that Ford did in the 1993 makeover. It is loosely based on the

instrument panel in the original 1964 car, with two individual rounded

coves built into the instrument panel and connective tissue in between,

racy without being radical. A full complement of well-done analog instruments

greets the driver and the car is fairly narrow, so nothing is out of reach

or requires long stretches to get to.

The interior space is nice and cozy in the coupe verion, with just enough

seat track length to accommodate tall drivers, and just enough elbow room

to keep one from feeling cramped. The driving position is much, much higher

than in either the Camro or Firebird, and it's much easier to get in and

out of the Mustang.

The front bucket seats are thinly padded, and short in every dimension,

which means they aren't very comfortable for long distances, but adequate

for around-town driving. More importantly, for those who attack back roads

occasionally, there isn't much side support built into the bucket seats

and you have to brace yourself in the car to stay in place in front of

the steering wheel. Fortunately, Ford has provided a place on the left

side of the floorboard to do exactly that, with a footrest for the left

foot.

The back seat, like the back seats in almost every modern coupe, is

best left for groceries, dry cleaning, infant seats, dogs and small kids.

The split fold-down rear seatback, a new item of standard equipment, can

be very helpful for hauling large items, because the trunk is among the

smallest in the industry.

In this class of car, horsepower and acceleration at a reasonable price

are what move the sales needle, and the Mustang 4.6-liter V8 has plenty

of needle-moving potential. While the new modular V8 engine doesn't have

the loud and lumpy idle quality and ferocious intake roar of the old 5.0-liter

overhead-valve V8, it has almost exactly the same power and torque characteristics

and accelerates at almost exactly the same pace with a great deal more

smoothness and much greater rpm capability.

Where the old car was out of steam at about 5000 rpm, the new engine

will pull happily and smoothly to 6000 rpm, making the driving experience

that much more fun, even if it is a tick or so slower to 60 mph. And while

the four-speed automatic would be a better choice for those who have to

deal with commute traffic, with very little performance loss, the new Borg-Warner

T-56 five-speed manual is much more fun to drive--flexible, smooth-shifting

and strong enough to take high-rpm shifts for the life of the car.

What's underneath the swoopy Mustang is essentially what was underneath

the Mustang in 1979, with a lot of clever bracing and refinforcing to make

the car handle more crisply, steer more accurately and deal with road shocks

more effectively. But it is still a modified 1979 Mustang unitbody chassis

with relatively unsophisticated MacPherson strut suspension and a solid

rear axle. Given what they had to work with, the Mustang's engineers have

done a good job in making the car ride much more smoothly than the old

car and making it handle potholes and bumps that used to move the old car

around quite a bit.

Almost all of the raw edges and choppiness of the Mustang's suspension

behavior have been sanded smooth. The steering, too, is more direct and

more positive than previous Mustangs, helped by the quantum leap in perofrmance

tire technology.

The optional ABS brake system was excellent under all conditions, with

a lot of room in the system for manual brake modulation before the antilock

system kicked in. Were we Ford, we would make it standard equipment across

the board and raise the base price accordingly.

The Mustang GT is one of those cars that speaks to you from its spot

in the driveway, begging to go out for a Sunday drive. It has the power,

the suspension, the steering and the tires to make those kinds of three-hour

adventures really fun. And, reasonably well equipped at $21,140, a Mustang

GT like our test car represents one of the great performance car bargains

on the market today.

While it isn't as brutally quick as either the Camaro or the Firebird,

with the 70-hp advantage, the Mustang GT gets better mileage, is not as

noisy, rides smoother, provides better ergonomics and, in our opinion,

holds its own in construction quality. It is also less expensive than either

of the V8-powered GM pony cars. And that's why, after all these years,

the Mustang is still America's favorite.