1995 Ford Mustang - Mustang Stampede - Muscle Cars

Why do wild horses rampage across Southwestern plains? Mustangs run because that's just what they do. They don't think about it, they just feel the wind grab their ears or see a movement, and bolt. Stampedes are their natural state of excitement. For over 30 years, the normal state of excitement for the Ford Mustang has been to run. From the moment a driver grabs the wheel, his first urge is to drive fast. It's what V-8 Mustangs are built to do.

Making Ford Mustangs go faster has become an industry and art in and of itself. In the '80s, a great cult of 5.0-liter believers arose demanding more and more performance from their ponycars. Today, warehouses across the country are stocked with enough Mustang go-fast, stop-quick, and turn-brisk components to overwhelm Asia Minor, and companies in the market aggressively hunt customers in cutthroat rivalry. Everything from rudimentary five-dollar gizmos promising implausible performance gains to full-on, $50,000-plus, 500-horsepower Mustangs are available.

Keeping the cult and its surrounding aftermarket support network happy was among Ford's considerations when redesigning the Mustang for '94. As such, most of the morsels developed for the '79-93 Mustangs are easily digested by the current version. The current car looks different in every way, but underneath it's cozily familiar, and the engine still announces "5.0" atop its intake. Techniques and tweaks cultivated over 15 years have, generally, ported over directly.

Motor Trend invited a select contingent of prominent Mustang speed-parts builders and tuners to test their wares on the newest pony. In addition to our standard array of acceleration, braking, and handling trials, we took the six cars to Southern California's Willow Springs Raceway for timed laps of the tight 1.3-mile road course. In addition, all the test subjects voyaged to K&N Engineering in Riverside, California, where each car was tested on K&N's high-tech computerized Dynojet chassis dynamometer to determine true drive-wheel power. To establish the Mustang baseline, we also tested a factory-stock '95 GT five-speed coupe and have included its performance on the comparison charts.

All we asked of our participants is that their Mustangs be at least 49-state emissions legal, run on unleaded pump fuel, and be created using parts accessible to most Motor Trend readers. We wound up with a field ranging from Oliver North conservative to Oliver Stone over-the-top; from slightly revised, to maniacally overpowered. Some versions are available as turnkey cars, others require assembly.

With a small investment, your Mustang can be more limber and gymnastic. Expend a bigger lump of currency, and you can virtually revoke at least two of the laws of thermodynamics. The following pages reveal six of the hottest players in the 5.0-liter Mustang arena.

Baer Racing Mustang GTBaer Racing sells brakes. Its drivers have raced Mustangs, and its limited catalog includes a few Mustang go-faster products, but the company lives or dies by its Baer Claw braking systems (available for dozens of popular makes of cars).

The brakes on this Mustang are epic; Baer's top-of-the-line Pro-Race front discs are 13.5 inches in diameter, 1.25 inches wide, and are slotted, cross-drilled, and clamped with Alcon four-piston calipers wearing carbon-metallic 80 pads. Out back, the discs measure 13.0 inches and have an integral parking-brake mechanism. Completing the system, Baer converts the master cylinder, runs braided stainless-steel lines, and retains the factory anti-lock system. On intimidating looks alone, these manly brakes may merit the $3495 pricetag. And although the 60-0-mph braking distance was impressively short (109 feet), it's in unrelenting racetrack-type abuse where all that disc area sheds heat furiously to produce consistent repeat braking.