[CaseCom]

LA Times has a great piece by Dan Neil on the Ford GT:

http://www.latimes.com/classified/au...autos-highway1

For those who don't want to register, here's an excerpt:

The GT � a 3,300-pound mid-engine exotic powered by 550 supercharged horses � is ferociously, cosmically, I-see-God fast. The car recently hit 205 miles per hour at Italy's Nardo test track. It is also, by a fair stretch, the quickest street car I've ever driven. In January, Car and Driver magazine � whose test procedures are the best in the business � recorded a 0-60 mph time of 3.3 seconds, more than a half-second quicker than the Italian bottle rockets Ferrari 360 Modena or a Lamborghini Gallardo. The GT turns an 11.6-second quarter-mile.

The launch sequence goes like this: Raise the revs to about 4,000 rpm, slot the shifter into first gear and slip your left foot off the clutch pedal. The foot-wide rear tires squall briefly and then hook up. The carbon-fiber seat mule kicks you in the backside. The supercharger trills like a teakettle. One second or so later, the landscape goes all spin-art and you start looking like Keir Dullea at the end of "2001: A Space Odyssey." Cue "Thus Spake Zarathustra."

Because of the way the car is geared, you will cross the 60-mph threshold well before you need to shift to second. By the time you start stretching in fourth gear (about 150 mph), the car's aerodynamic underbody is producing several hundred pounds of ground-hugging down-force that actually causes the car to settle an inch-and-a-half on its suspension. The old race cars � which were the first to exceed 200 mph at Le Mans � didn't have ground effects devices and were legendarily unstable on the Mulsannes straight. The new GT tracks like a Japanese bullet train.

Please keep your hands and feet inside the ride.

Almost makes me want to go buy one ... then I realize I don't have a spare $150K lying around.

[Zimphire]

Yeah Ford did a good job on this one.

Just wait for a European to come in and tell us all how much it sucks because it's made in the US.

[Link]

Originally posted by Zimphire:
Yeah Ford did a good job on this one.

Just wait for a European to come in and tell us all how much it sucks because it's made in the US.

*wants a Gt now* oooh nice car!

[D'Espice]

Originally posted by Zimphire:
Just wait for a European to come in and tell us all how much it sucks because it's made in the US.

Here I am! Pity you'd have to come to Europe to really take that car out for a spin on a German Autobahn

Oh wait, I almost forgot, it sucks cause it's made in the US! There, how'd I do?

[badidea]

Originally posted by D'Espice:
Here I am! Pity you'd have to come to Europe to really take that car out for a spin on a German Autobahn

Oh wait, I almost forgot, it sucks cause it's made in the US! There, how'd I do?

Second that! What's so special about the 550hp anyway - we even have VW Golfs with 550hp

[moonmonkey]

Originally posted by badidea:
Second that! What's so special about the 550hp anyway - we even have VW Golfs with 550hp

Everything else is rubbish.
http://luuk.xs4all.nl/cobra-new/pass-sid.jpg

0 to 100 MPH and back down to 0 in 12 seconds.
0 to 60 in 4 seconds.
550 BHP
7 Litre Shelby V8
190 MPH

[His Dudeness]

I'll take a Bugatti Veyron, thank you very much. 16 cylinder, quad turbocharged W-16 engine.

[Powaqqatsi]

Originally posted by His Dudeness:
I'll take a Bugatti Veyron, thank you very much. 16 cylinder, quad turbocharged W-16 engine.

Too bad they don't make them yet And they'll probably drive like **** because they are huge and weigh too much.

[His Dudeness]

That's okay. I'm sure that powerplant can make it go at least 80 mph. In about 1.2 seconds.

[fromthecloud]

Originally posted by His Dudeness:
That's okay. I'm sure that powerplant can make it go at least 80 mph. In about 1.2 seconds.

Should have the performance characteristics of a locomotive. Slap a hitch on that thing and you could pull the RV.

[djohnson]

This would be the only ford I would actually want to drive... Very very nice!

[GoGoReggieXPowars]

The new GT is also a very nice looking car.

[cjrivera]

I love this car. I would also love to have the Shelby prototype that Ford came out with earlier this year.

[Agasthya]

They demoed this car at the US GP last year in September with Sir Jackie Stewart and it received an amazing reception from a very international crowd at the Speedway.

I like the car a lot. Looks fantastic and extremely well designed. People should really think about buying this car over more expensive Ferraris or other exotics.

[His Dudeness]

Originally posted by fromthecloud:
Should have the performance characteristics of a locomotive. Slap a hitch on that thing and you could pull the RV.

Well, it has more power than an F1 racer.

[His Dudeness]

Originally posted by djohnson:
This would be the only ford I would actually want to drive... Very very nice!

Seen the new Mustang for '05? Sweet.

[ASIMO]

Not thrilled about the overly retrospective design, but one cannot argue about the mechanics: quite simply amazing -- that it is a Ford. Congrats.

Kudos to yet another excellent Dan Neil piece.

[wdlove]

A very nice sleek looking car. The candy apple red is awesome.

[Link]

If there's one thing to love about the GT it's how the rear view mirror is identical to the one used in every ford I've ever seen

Which is a good thing.. because I like that mirror!!! XD

[Agasthya]

Originally posted by His Dudeness:
Well, it has more power than an F1 racer.

It isn't hard to make an engine that is more powerful than an F1 engine. However, the fact that they can extract 900+ horsepower at 19,000RPM from a 3.0 liter engine is the significant part. The low end torque on an F1 engine is absolutely amazing and I don't think there is another automotive engine in the world that compares in quality.

[Mediaman_12]

Originally posted by GoGoReggieXPowars:
[B]The new GT is also a very nice looking car.

Ford would have to have really excelled to make a mess of 'remaking' one of the best looking and most iconic racing cars ever (cough! designed in Britain in the 60's, by LOLA then bought by Ford who wanted to beat Ferrari).
When your starting point is this

It is going to be very difficult to go wrong. Although an attempt was made, it's taller so 'normal' sized people can fit in it. Also have you seen the interior!

[george68]

It's spiffy, but so much $ I don't really think of it much. I like the G35 coupes..... those are sweet.

- Rob

[splatq]

Pfft, 150k for that kind of speed?

1999 GSX1300R Hayabusa



1/4 mile: 9.97 @ 144.80
0-60: 2.56
Top speed: 190

Price(less): $10,499.00

[G4ME]

Busa Turbo or should i have said Organ Donor.

Edit: after watching, i gotta love the in town shots

[velodev]

Originally posted by D'Espice:
Here I am! Pity you'd have to come to Europe to really take that car out for a spin on a German Autobahn

Oh wait, I almost forgot, it sucks cause it's made in the US! There, how'd I do?

Montana has no daytime speed limits. Keep your Autobahn (only a small stretch is truly no speed limit and it is typically busy). The only thing the Autobahn has on US road is that they truly enforce those who don't abide by left lane = passing, right lane = touring.

[velodev]

Originally posted by His Dudeness:
Well, it has more power than an F1 racer.

I hope you are still referencing the Veyron. The GT doesn't.

[His Dudeness]

Originally posted by velodev:
I hope you are still referencing the Veyron. The GT doesn't.

I was.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally posted by velodev:
Montana has no daytime speed limits. Keep your Autobahn (only a small stretch is truly no speed limit and it is typically busy).

Not that small - and spread across Germany. What really needs to be done is to get those ****ing trucks off the Autobahn. A truck toll system was supposed to have taken care of that last fall, but the braindead corrupt morons involved in decision-making royally ****ed that up. No toll means that all trucks detour through Germany and its Autobahns on their way north or south

Nothing like tooling along a four-lane (two either way) highway at 190, only to find that some moron truck driver has pulled out (max speed on level ground: 90 km/h) to overtake another at a full 1.5 km/h faster - going uphill.

OTOH, the difference between going 130km/h and 190 km/h is effectively somewhere arond 30% higher fuel consumption for literally a mere minutes' net gain - unless you're driving long, long distances.

Originally posted by velodev:
The only thing the Autobahn has on US road is that they truly enforce those who don't abide by left lane = passing, right lane = touring.

(though it could still be enforced more)

-s*

[velodev]

Originally posted by His Dudeness:
I was.

Then I abide.

[Chemmy]

Originally posted by velodev:
Montana has no daytime speed limits.

Wrong.

[Sherwin]

Originally posted by Zimphire:
Just wait for a European to come in and tell us all how much it sucks because it's made in the US...

Out of Euro-manufactured bits?

IIRC, everything bar the engine is Euro.

Still, it's a sweet thing. Now, if only you could get it with the steering wheel on the correct side...

[CaseCom]

Originally posted by Chemmy:
Wrong.

Montana has "urban areas"?

[Chemmy]

Originally posted by Sherwin:
Still, it's a sweet thing.

If I was dropping $150,000 on a car, I wouldn't want it to say Ford on the front. Plus, something like an Ariel Atom would get you around a track faster.

I'd take a 360 Modena over a GT anyday.

[Fyre4ce]

Originally posted by Agasthya:
It isn't hard to make an engine that is more powerful than an F1 engine. However, the fact that they can extract 900+ horsepower at 19,000RPM from a 3.0 liter engine is the significant part. The low end torque on an F1 engine is absolutely amazing and I don't think there is another automotive engine in the world that compares in quality.

How do you know anything about the low-end torque from an F1 engine?

[Link]

Originally posted by Chemmy:
If I was dropping $150,000 on a car, I wouldn't want it to say Ford on the front. Plus, something like an Ariel Atom would get you around a track faster.

I'd take a 360 Modena over a GT anyday.

The Ariel atom sounds all too sweet untl you read the last detail on the profile page:

"Atom 2 power is from the new 2.0 Honda iVTEC engine now regarded as the best 4 cylinder production engine in the world. Featured in the Honda Civic and Civic Type R..."

So basically you're buying a ricer car?

Dude you can make any engine go 200mph if you put it on a gokart frame.

[ambush]

A good car.

Drove it in PGR2

[Chemmy]

Originally posted by Link:
So basically you're buying a ricer car?

The Atom is faster around a road course than pretty much anything. Murcielago, Gallardo, Koenigsegg, Enzo, all of them bow down to the Atom on a road course.

On Top Gear's road course the Enzo, Koenigsegg and their ilk run between 1:30 and 1:40. The Atom ran their course in 1:00 flat.

Call it a ricer car if you want. but knocking a car because it has a Honda engine is only demonstrating your lack of knowledge.

[Sherwin]

Originally posted by Chemmy:
If I was dropping $150,000 on a car, I wouldn't want it to say Ford on the front. Plus, something like an Ariel Atom would get you around a track faster.

But who gives a baboon's about getting around a track faster anyways? You'd pick up way more chicks in the GT40 than in an Atom.

[ambush]

Originally posted by Sherwin:
But who gives a baboon's about getting around a track faster anyways? You'd pick up way more chicks in the GT40 than in an Atom.

tru dat

[rambo47]

Originally posted by splatq:
Pfft, 150k for that kind of speed?

1999 GSX1300R Hayabusa



1/4 mile: 9.97 @ 144.80
0-60: 2.56
Top speed: 190

Price(less): $10,499.00

If you're talking outright scary speed, this is it. Accept no substitutes.

[Chemmy]

Originally posted by Sherwin:
But who gives a baboon's about getting around a track faster anyways? You'd pick up way more chicks in the GT40 than in an Atom.

And you'd pick up way more chicks in a Ferrari than a Ford, which is what I said when I originally mentioned the Atom.

[Sherwin]

Originally posted by Chemmy:
And you'd pick up way more chicks in a Ferrari than a Ford.

True.

[george68]

Originally posted by rambo47:
If you're talking outright scary speed, this is it. Accept no substitutes.

I've seen videos of supras destroying turbocharged hayabusas. They aren't all that.

- Rob

[Zimphire]

I have a video of a street legal Viper running high 8s.

[OreoCookie]

Originally posted by rambo47:
If you're talking outright scary speed, this is it. Accept no substitutes.

In Japan this bike is called high-acceleration coffin.

[Chemmy]

Originally posted by george68:
I've seen videos of supras destroying turbocharged hayabusas. They aren't all that.

- Rob

Anything that'll get you close to 200mph for $13,000 is nothing to sneeze at.

[george68]

Originally posted by Chemmy:
Anything that'll get you close to 200mph for $13,000 is nothing to sneeze at.

I never said otherwise, but it was referred to as 'accept no substitutes' like it was some end-all of high performance vehicles.

- Ca$h