Tracking a just-purchased, 20-year-old Mustang. What could go wrong?

Less than 24 hours after fetching our Mustang GT from South Florida, we took it to the Florida International Rally & Motorsport Park for some baseline runs–after the usual preflight inspection, of course.

[How to properly tech a used car for the track]

What would the VBox data say about our latest project? Promises ahead or did we buy a lemon?

Our 2006 Mustang’s track performance was both surprising and unsurprising. Sure, there were some awful aspects–this is a 20-year-old used car, after all–but despite a layer of crust and the decay of time permeating its being, the Mustang still managed to lay down some pretty reasonable data traces that gave us hope for the future.

Even while shod with some 540-treadwear rubber and the third-cheapest brake pads on Amazon, the Mustang managed a respectable time of 1:24.70, putting it in the same league as modern compact performance cars–not the real edgy stuff, like the Golf R or Civic R, but definitely in GTI and BRZ/86 territory. Considering the Mustang’s age, condition and tires, we’re not going to complain at all.

[2024 Subaru BRZ tS track test and review]

To show how the Mustang was making its speed, we stacked it up against a more modern car that posts a similar lap on our leaderboard. The newest Subaru WRX tS laid down a 1:23.88, making it less than a second faster than the Mustang. And this is with the Subaru wearing far superior tires and, especially, far superior brakes.

So, what does the data say the Mustang is doing well? Accelerating, for one.

While the 4.6-liter V8 is not the most powerful engine ever fit into the S197 chassis, it easily hangs with the 270-plus-horsepower turbocharged Subaru. The Mustang’s red trace even shows slightly steeper acceleration curves in spots, like the run from the FIRM’s Turn 4 to Turn 5, right around the 2000-foot mark.

This is more than just V8 torque, as the Mustang shows some willingness to rev here as it outpulls the Subaru’s green trace from 70 to north of 90 mph.

That combination of torque and power gives the Ford V8 some nice flexibility, and we can see that in the lack of needing to shift. While the WRX routinely needs to shift gears to keep its smaller, four-cylinder engine on boost and on the cam, the Mustang runs the majority of the FIRM in third gear, dropping to second only for the Turn 7 hairpin around 4500 feet.

The Mustang also only requires fourth gear once: coming down the final straight around the 7000-foot mark.

That flexibility will make it super easy to drive on track, although it won’t give the car any sort of advantage since it’ll only be competing against other Mustangs.

The braking is pretty lackluster, with the Mustang peaking around 0.75g of longitudinal braking acceleration; the Subaru routinely exceeds 1g thanks to its big ol’ Brembos.

A lot of this was simply a confidence thing–we didn’t want to stress completely unknown brakes–but the brakes did indeed kind of suck, so we’re glad we didn’t push too hard in that regard just yet.

Even a set of proper track pads and good fluid would help. The current fluid looked a lot like store-brand Dr. Pepper, and not a good store, either, but the kind with a very loud Coinstar machine right up front and an aisle with nothing but doll heads and Latvian cat food.

The biggest surprise was some of the cornering performance, however. Even on tires totally not suited for track use, the Mustang held its own against the far more modern and sophisticated WRX through many of the FIRM’s twisty bits.

In the long, sweeping Turn 8, the Subaru’s superior tires gave it a slight edge, but in many of the shorter, more squared-off corners, the Ford was every bit as grippy as the Subaru, with both cars flirting with later acceleration approaching the high-0.9g range.

This bodes extremely well for a car with crap tires and a worn-out suspension. If the only place to go is up, then we’re already starting on a pretty high rung of the ladder.

So, this seems like it’s going to be fun. On track, the Mustang was shockingly composed, despite its obvious state of disrepair–like, we found lose bolts securing the driver’s seat.

Even just getting it back to a solid starting point will yield some impressive gains. With the performance-oriented goodies and stickier Goodyear rubber from the Club Spec Mustang kit, we won’t be surprised to see this thing crack the 1:20 barrier at the FIRM. That indeed would put it in very good company.