On one lovely morning, Steve von Foerster, former head of vehicle engineering at Ford Motors, left his home behind the wheel of his delightful Shelby Mustang GT350. A neighbor didn’t think his Shelby was so delightful. Angered by the roar of Steve’s V-8, the neighbor called 911 to complain. And so began his concept of a quiet start and quiet mode that converts a raw muscle car into a polite neighbour with good manners.

When you’re lucky enough to own a 460-horsepower V8 like the 2018 Ford Mustang, you have special problems. Like how to sneak back home after a late dinner on a Saturday night. Or how to leave the house at 6 am on a Sunday morning for a drive down the Sea to Sky in your Mustang GT without angering the neighbours.

Steve sympathizes and has solved your special problems. He’s the head of Ford’s user experience team for new products, where Quiet mode was developed. And his department is on to something. Ranker.com recently polled readers and found that a loud engine is one of the most annoying noises that neighbours can make. It’s right up there with barking dogs, garage rock bands, and lawn mowers.

The new 2018 Ford Mustang GT gets new styling, some upgrades and two quiet settings as part of the Active Exhaust System – all to keep you on the neighbourhood potluck guest lists.

The new 2018 Mustang GT Active Exhaust System’s neighbour-friendly additions will be Quiet Start and Quiet Exhaust. Both can be programmed to work during certain times. The first lets drivers start up the Mustang GT quietly, and the other keeps the GT’s rumble down until the coast is clear. 

Ford’s GT models normally offer an Active Exhaust System with a Normal, Sport and Track mode. All three modes have their own unique sound level. According to Ford, the starting-level Normal mode throws out a loud 82 decibels. As you can imagine, the Mustang GT can be excitingly audible in Sport and Track mode. After all, isn’t this one of the main points of what makes the GT so attractive? 

But Matt Flis, Ford’s exhaust development engineer, found that neighbours start to get cranky when noises approach 80 decibels. His team has tuned the Quiet mode option to lower the 5.0-litre V8’s running growl down to 72 decibels, just below the neighbour-calling-911 mode.

The second quiet functionality of Quiet Start allows a Mustang GT owner to program a schedule via the trip computer’s menu for engine starts in Quiet mode. For example, all starts between the programmed 7 am and 9 am or after 10 pm will be quiet. Ford has named this the “Good Neighbour Mode”.

An MSRP for the 2018 Ford Mustang GT has not been announced yet. The updated exhaust system will premiere on the 2018 Ford Mustang GT but is likely to also be included with the Shelby GT350. We will keep you posted with any arrival updates. Or you can sign up for updates to be one of the first to test drive the latest 2018 Ford Mustang GT in any exhaust mode you’d like.