Road Reality » Bristol

1,000 Laps of Mustang: The Results Are In!

John Suit — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 14:00:29 +0000

Way back in March, I reported that Ford was challenging itself to a race in its new Mustang. But not with a bunch of them, only one. The race wasn’t even against time, it was against fuel mileage. With EPA-certified 19/31 city/highway gas mileage for the 2011 Mustang V6, Ford wanted to really show consumers that it wasn’t just hype. So they set off for Bristol Speedway in Tennessee for the event.

The V6-engined Mustang which was run averaged 48.5 mpg, and travelled 1,457 laps around the 1/2-mile track. With “fuel efficient driving techniques by Ford engineers,” the Mustang managed almost 500 more laps than the goal of 1,000. That works out to 776.5 miles on a single tank of gas, over 17 hours and 40 minutes.

Congratulations to the Ford team, and if you own a 2011 V6 Mustang, I’d love to hear from you about your experience so far!

Gallery:

by John Suit

Source: Ford

Ford challenges itself to 1,000 lap race in new V6 Mustang

John Suit — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 14:00:28 +0000

If you’re the first car company to create a 300+ horsepower car that still gets 30+ mpg on the highway, what do you do? If you’re Ford, you take that car to Bristol Motor Speedway, in Tennessee. Then, you get your test drivers to line up and take turns driving the V6 Mustang around the 1/2-mile track until it runs out of gas. The goal: 1,000 laps or more before running out of fuel. By my calculations, the Mustang’s 16 gallon tank x 31 mpg = 496 miles. They’ll lose a bit every time they switch drivers, but if they keep the speeds down, they could eke out a bit more, so I’m going to guess that they will make their goal of 500 miles in 1,000 laps, and go 1,001 laps before running out of gas. The challenge is set for June 23rd, but in the mean time, you can go to Mustang1000LapChallenge.com to put in your best guess, for a chance to win a 2011 V6 Mustang.

by John Suit

Source: Ford