800-horsepower Mustang on the way

[iTsLiKeAnEgG]

Originally Posted by vmaxnc

Oh please. At the local cruise-ins I could walk on the roofs of modern GT's and not touch pavement all night. They're not special, they're cheap (relatively), they let pretty much anyone try a 1/4 mile a few times, and the aftermarket supports them. In an average week of running around town I get half a dozen Flowmastered GTs wanting to run at a stoplight.

When I bought my GTO the joke was that Ford built more blue GTs in a day than the entire production run of my Midnight Blue Metallic (Vesper's Blue in the land of Aus). Over 60K GTs were built in '05, and nearly 80K in '06. That's as far as I got. I'd say that rules them out of the special category.

Agreed, I see multiple GT's every day I'm out. They are as common as Honda Civics on certain days.

[NJGOAT]

Originally Posted by PDD

I used to believe as you do until I started open tracking and the amount of abuse you put on a drag car cannot be compared to Road racing.
WOT for 10-13 seconds in drag racing is nothing compared to WOT to the rev limiter 10-15 times per lap depending on the length of the road course. Of course you are on track for almost two hours a day and that adds up to a lot of shifts, hard braking and a whole lot of rpms out of your engine.
I have run hundreds of laps on the best road courses in the East and there are frequent blown engines especially on the long tracks like WGI not to mention the all to frequent encounters with the walls.

I will admit that in drag racing the starting line can be pretty violent especially with manual trans starts but with so many running automatics these days the starts are pretty calm, provided you keep the front wheels on the ground.

I think all kinds of racing is pretty rough on engines and drive trains I just think road racing is a little rougher.

I would agree with your assessment. Having done drag racing, auto-x and road courses I would rank them in that exact same order (least to most) in terms of wear and tear on the car.

While the potential to damage something exists in any kind of racing, the only real chance of breakage at the drag strip is at launch or radically missing a shift on a manual up track. Even then, most stock cars on stock tires aren't going to be blowing anything up on normal launches. Add in some sticky drag tires, or someone who doesn't know what they are doing (clutch drop at 6k ) and the risk of damage goes up.

On the Auto-x or road course, you are using every system of the car and pushing it to it's limits. It's not uncommon to burn through a set of brakes and tires in a weekend if you are doing anything more than just going out for a drive. Also running the car at WOT and through the first 4 gears for say 12 seconds isn't nearly as punishing as running for 1:30+ on a road course across the RPM range with constant down and up shifting.

Throw in the much higher chance of losing control on a road course and doing major body damage or worse and it's even more of a slam dunk for drag racing.

[frankgn87]

Originally Posted by LeavingMA

I've driven an 03' GT and I believe it was an 07 GT. The 03 was a piece of junk and quite ugly looking in my opinion...nothing special. The 07 was a lot better to me and looks better. Putting a Shelby with the Mustang though is like putting the modified Ruff Porsches in with the stock Porches though.

In all honesty the reason you see them everywhere is because they are affordable and have a faithful following. Both great things to have. I think Ford has done a great job with them over the past 5 years or so. For me I just prefer other cars.

fair enough