What's all this then?

This is a Ford Mustang with a quieter exhaust.

That sounds a touch pointless.

Hear us out. Have you ever been caught by our neighbours or spouses, trying to make a quiet 3am exit to catch an early flight from the airport, for example, only for your car to start up with a blare and a bark of exhaust noise? In a V8 Mustang, it's Fun at lunchtime, relationship-ending in the early hours.

Yep. Been there.

Well, Ford has a solution. The new Mustang will come with a 'Good Neighbour Mode' for the exhaust, developed by Ford engineer Steve von Foerster, whose loud 'Stang actually caused his neighbours to call the police and complain about the constant noise.

"I love the sound of the V8 engine, but it can be loud," said von Foerster, a former engineer who leads Ford's user experience team in product development in the US. "You can't annoy people like that in your neighbourhood. So I thought 'There has to be a way to give people more control over the engine's sound'."

According to a recent poll in the US by Ranker.com, loud engine revving ranks among the most annoying noises neighbours make, alongside other common nuisances including power tools, barking dogs and band practice. Only early-morning lawn mowing is more despised.

The updated Mustang now comes with a simple command, in the menu in the instrument cluster, that quietens the exhaust between set times, say between 11pm and 8am. That will pull the exhaust note down from Track Mode's 82-decibel level. "Sounds upwards of 80 decibels can start to irritate people; some of the most annoying sounds imaginable, such as a coffee grinder, or lawnmower, have decibel levels in the high eighties," said Matt Flis, Ford exhaust development engineer. "With Quiet Start activated the decibel level of the new Mustang GT drops by about 10 decibels, to a much more comfortable 72 decibels."

Sounds like another good reason to buy a Mustang.

As if you needed another one...

Neil Briscoe - 5 Oct 2017