Ford Mustang occupies a special place in car history as part of the American contribution to sports cars and muscle cars. As anyone who’s ever owned or considered buying a sports car, like the Mustang, knows they are known more for power and performance, with safety and reliability taking a backseat. 

Ideally, sports cars should be powerful, fun to drive, reliable, and safe. However, the latest 2022 Mustang earned the unfortunate rating from Consumer Reports as the worst in that category for all sports car models. 

How Ford Mustang competitors ranked with Consumer Reports

In the Consumer Reports sports car category, competitors ranked higher. The 2022 Dodge Challenger, for example, received an overall score of 63. The Challenger had some dings against predicted reliability, which was 3/5, and things like road noise and ride. 

Another one of the American muscle cars, the 2022 Chevrolet Camaro, was not far off from the Challenger and earned a score of 62. Its predicted reliability was 2/5, and comfort and fuel economy weren’t rated that great.

Finally, the 2022 Chevrolet Corvette scored 57 with predicted reliability of 1/5. Other than that and some marks for fuel economy, the Corvette was solid in performance ratings and things like owner satisfaction and the road test.

What the Mustang was rated

Trailing at the bottom and among its competitors, the 2022 Ford Mustang ranked lowest with an overall score of 47. It ranked so low because of a range of factors, a significant detractor being its incredibly low predicted reliability rating of 1/5.

Based on Consumer Reports’ ratings and testing, the Mustang has also been declining over the past several years as far as overall reliability verdict. Those low scores also impact the predicted outlook for the current model year. 

Besides a poor outlook for reliability, the Mustang also didn’t have good marks for fuel economy, Consumer Reports notes. In the tests, the Mustang had an overall fuel rating of 19 MPG for its sizeable 16-gallon fuel tank. 

As far as other categories in which the Mustang suffered, it also had the lowest rating for rear-seat comfort with 1/5 and was not great with trunk and cargo area space. Ride and comfort weren’t that great, either, with both having 3/5 scores.

However, the Mustang did have almost perfect performance ratings, getting 5/5 in all categories except for emergency handling, which still garnered 4/5. It made sense that the Mustang did well in these categories considering its expanded lineup includes 5.0-liter V8s and the likes of the Mach 1 and Shelby, which bring both nostalgia and performance, Ford reports.

The top-rated sports car on Consumer Reports

In the sports car category, the highest-rated vehicle was the 2022 Mazda MX-5 Miata, with a score of 85. The Miata surpassed even the 2022 Porsche 718 Boxster, likely because the Boxster had negative marks against predicted reliability, fuel economy, and smog rating.

What made the Miata shine in the ratings were the highest predicted reliability and owner satisfaction. It also had outstanding fuel economy with a Consumer Reports tested 34 MPG with its small 11.9-gallon fuel tank. The Miata was nearly perfect as far as its performance categories, except for acceleration, which came in at 4/5 and, naturally, the Boxster beat. 

With a price tag ranging from $26,830 to $35,050, the Miata is also affordable and a good bang for your buck on top of being predicted to be reliable with good gas mileage.