Reviews
Gallery 1
That sounds ****ing mental.” I’m surprised to see the lone Telstra worker sitting at the end of this long and twisting mountain road, but he’s not surprised to see me. The Roush RS3 has been announcing its approach for quite some time, belting out its bent-eight aria, but then this supercharged Ford Mustang has plenty to yell about.The RS3 is the latest and greatest creation from iconic American tuner Roush Performance, put together and sold by Roush’s authorised Australian agent Mustang Motorsport in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs. The $59,660 kit effectively doubles the price of a standard Mustang GT, but the addition of an Eaton TVS R2650 supercharger lifts outputs to a healthy 560kW at 7000rpm and 908Nm at 4600rpm.Keeping the resultant temperatures under control is an extra supercharger intercooler, extra radiator, larger primary radiator, transmission cooler and differential cooler. It all works. Not once during our test does the RS3 show any sign of heat-related stress.
As such, applying power quickly alters this steady state into oversteer and it doesn’t really matter how fast the corner is, the option is always there. Exits of slower corners need a gently, gently approach and though the roads today are thankfully warm and dry, patches of runoff illustrate what an adventure the RS3 would be in the wet.It’s raw and extremely exciting, held back only by, again, the gearbox. In this case the Mustang’s 10R80 is like the regular kid that’s parachuted into the genius class at school; in isolation they’re fine but all of a sudden everything’s happening a lot quicker and the thought process can struggle to keep up.
