Jeremiah 29:11

You are right on my mistake. I had actually just copied exactly what was sent to me in the price report and obviously it was wrong see:
44L 4-Speed Automatic Transmission
* Includes Transmission, 5 Speed Electronically Controlled Automatic. Not available with 5-Speed Manual Transmission.

Actually, I went back and looked at the sales sheet and we started at a base price of $24,188.00 + options = $27, 914.00 then you add the $720.00 desination charges plus TTL and Warranty
and you get the $32k price I previously mentioned.

I actually think we did rather well on this deal. I challenge anybody to do any better on a simliar deal.

Jeremiah 29:11

I am really enjoying this discussion on the comparisons.

1 Bad Mirada

in reply to RLSH700 (i dont like having mile-long quote boxes)

A few things in reply to your points, all of which are valid...well, none of our points are really "valid", as the cars that we are comparing arent released yet..but anyway.

it has been "officially announced" that the GT500 will be 500hp. While i am also aware that many places have gotten the 6.1L hemi to dyno to the mid 460 range, that is on a crank dyno, devoid of external loads. but say that a charger srt8 with the 6.1L will dyno to 467 bhp., that means that it is still about 33 hp less than the GT500. the next thing to consider is the past ford blower motors. the blown 4.6L in the terminators are rated at 390hp, but ANY terminator owner will tell you that the 390hp is under rated, much like the 6.1L, so what is to say that ford hasnt done the same thing with the 5.4L blower motor? you say that i cant use the 4.6L SC motor, but i think that its fair to point out that it is under rated. Ill talk to a few cobra owners i know and find out exactly how much.

next, while a blwn application of the 5.4 is newer, and the Ford GT is having all sorts of problems, the 5.4L itself is not a new engine. as for the supercharged mustang problems, i am not aware of any problems with the engine itself...and even if there are, it is a different engine. and while i am well aware that the mustang is by no means known for its reliability, ive seen vipers come into the shop with the front frame section pulled apart from hard launches...i do agree that the supercharged engine is 'stretched" more, but the bottom line is that there are PRETTY good odds that the GT500 is the better buy, as there has been alot of R&D gone into it, and they have used these parts on current stangs and refined things...the challenger is a whole new shot in the dark, and the only basis for comparison is the charger/300c. therefore, they have no business charging the same price as the GT500.

one last, minor thing to consider is the sort of "goodwill" of the mustang name. people will pay more for a car with over 40 years of performance history...that same account does not work for the challenger which is made, literally, out of parts of other cars, and doesnt have the following.

and this 60,000 price tag idea is ridiculous...for only 10 grand more, you can get a new Z06, and if anyone here can honestly compare the new Z06 to the challenger, you obviously have not done any research about the Z06.

Jeremiah 29:11

Certainly, I agree you cannot compare the GT500 to the Corvette Z06, however one of the recent magazines compares the GT500
to a standard Corvette. While the Corvette did win the comparison I was amazed the GT500 at around 3800 lbs and the Corvette
at around 3200 the Mustang was 112 mph and the Corvette was 111 in the 1/4 mile. The Corvette certainly won in the handling category
and certainly alot of it was due the extra 150 lbs in the front end of the Mustang. The Corvette was also better balanced front/back than
the GT500.

Now comparing it to the Z06 is a whole other story.

1 Bad Mirada

aside from saleen and maybe panoz, i dont know if there has been a production car like the Z06...its got equal power and less weight than the viper...

for chess players, this is GMs "check"...now its DCX's move...ford really isnt playing along since the best that they could do it the 200,000 dollar GT, and its had alot of problems...

RLSH700

I just saw the 500hp & 480 ft-lbs of tq rating, so I apologize for that mistake.

When I said you can't compare the 4.6L supercharged to the 5.4 supercharged model, I was refering to the reliability, not the power. If you did use the 4.6L supercharged model for an example of being proven in terms of quality, you would have to include the 5.7L model as well to be an indicator of the 6.1L's reliability.

I have trouble swallowing these numbers though. Take a look at the 2000 Cobra R. In some tests it beats the new GT500, other ones the GT500 wins marginally. I know the new GT500 weighs more and has a 3.31 rear-end instead of a 3.55 like the Cobra R has. The Cobra R was not supercharged and they are still comparable. A 115 hp & 95 ft-lbs of tq should get rid of that issue completely but it doesn't. What gives?

I will agree on most of the other points.

1 Bad Mirada

the performance reviews that i have seen on the GT500 have not been very good, and thats very odd. the ETs and such seem to be more comparable to that of the base model C6 than to the Z06...and that has alot of the mustang guys up in arms.

either something isnt right with that car (which shouldnt be the case as theyve been pissing around not releasing it for a while now) or everyone is fibbing on the numbers...i do know that the track times that ive seen have had incredible mph for the ETs that they are running, which leads me to believe that traction is a supreme issue.

update...one of the guys at MF is a professional drag racer, and he got to take a new GT500 out this past weekend...mind you, he drives a procharged Saleen mustang, and a 4 second top fuel car.

he gave it fairly poor ratings in everything, and said that it felt like a bigger, heavier terminator.

RLSH700

I just read the Motor Trend article that had the same numbers but they gave it a rather generous review. Car and Driver found that the Charger SRT-8 went through their track faster than the GT500. Shelby should be ashamed of himself that he can't blow the doors off of the car the SVT team did over 7 years earlier while having a 115 hp & 95 advantage over that car. The GT500 is actually slower than the Cobra R in Motor Trends test since the Cobra R did 0-60 in 4.4 sec instead of the GT500's 4.5 sec.

One thing a friend told me was that the Mustang has a problem with getting proper traction. Maybe this is true. This GT500 needs to go on a diet because it weighs close to 4000 pounds though it only weighs 300-400 more than the 2000 Cobra R. I won't be suprised if the Challenger can match that with 425 hp since I have seen reviews of the heavier Charger and 300C getting times of 4.7-4.8 secs, and they have automatics. Manuals seem to cut off at least .2 secs off, plus this is supposed to weigh less, so I think they might be roughly equal.

1 Bad Mirada

true, the new GT500 is a pig, and i dont know why they did that. one of the most intense efforts with the new Z06 was weight reduction, and that WR is WHY the Z06 is such a monster. it weighs 3130lbs...thats insanity!! the guy who i know who got to drive one and did a review has had alot of mustangs, so i feel that it is a pretty good chance that he knows what he is talking about, and i think that this car is REALLY going to hurt some owners feelings. all of the old rich guys who wanted a GT500 back in the day are going to run out and drop 50-60 grand to start, to get a car that is SLOWER than a terminator, and slower than a cobra R. look at the big three and their "flagship performance cars":

viper coupe-500hp/525tq 3410lbs
lbs per hp 6.82
lbs per tq 6.50

gt500 hardtop-500hp/480tq 3920lbs
lbs per hp 7.84
lbs per tq 8.17

z06 hardtop-505hp/475tq 3130lbs
lbs per hp 6.20
lbs per tq 6.59

2004 cobra hardtop-390hp/390tq 3664lbs
lbs per hp 9.34
lbs per tq 9.34

My 1983 Dodge-466hp, 3692 (come on..its funny )
lbs per hp 7.92


based on those numbers along, the GT500 would be a complete dissappointment to me if i were a ford guy. while im sure that traction is an issue, ANY car with that much power, intended for street use, is going to have traction problems...the terminators have hellish traction problems, but the GT500 is just too damn heavy.

RLSH700

Is the fact that the new GT500 is so fat the only reason why it is so slow in comparison to what it should be? I understand it slows things down some but this much doesn't make sense. I would think 115 hp and 95 ft-lbs of torque could overcome this.