Horse Play

Loosening the reins on our new V8 long-termer

I’m a hypocrite. I admit it. Having spent my column last month ranting that the manual gearbox isn’t the be-all and end-all of driving enjoyment, I’m now going to share how much I’ve enjoyed having three pedals to play with in the Mustang. One of the great joys of a manual is that each requires its own rhythm and I’m finally learning this one’s.

Achieving a good shift is easybut a great one, a friction-less meshing of cogs, takes a little more finesse. The key appears to be avoiding sudden movements with the pedals; don’t lift the throttle or dip the clutch too quickly and vice versa. And don’t overlap the motions. Fail to adhere to these rules and there will be a little clunk from the driveline as it expresses its annoyance with your impatience, but slow the movements down and you can select the next gear with an oily smoothness. Or you can just turn the rev-match function on, but I turned it off with two minutes of picking up the car and haven’t re-activated it since. Feels like cheating.