I have to agree that the GT500 is a bit lacking for me as well. Although I have not seen it in person, I have seen a lot of pictures of it and most came directly from FORD so you would expect them to be the most flattering.
Sure, 500hp is nice. But as others have stated you can do that for a lot less and with much better looks. I am not the kind of person to buy a product simply because it has a fancy name attached to it or is a “special edition”. I look past that to what I am actually getting and what I would expect for the price.
Simply put for me the GT500 is lacking.
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- Sam
The shackles of opression and dependence are most easily slipped on with a smile and kind words of hope.
I've been unimpressed with the new GT500 from the moment Ford's online advertising kept trying to sell us on the idea that a supercharged modular engine putting out lots of torque equates "big-block torque".
While a supercharged modular engine is an impressive piece of technology, it'll never have the wierd, fantastic feeling that you get when a big-block engine strains against its motor mounts and the car just takes off... even in 190ish hp 455s (which still had nearly 370 ft/lbs of torque!) in big-body four-door Oldsmobiles, that feeling was there when you matted the go-pedal from a dead stop, it's about that massive weight shifting under the hood as it wakes up. I never understood it myself until I had my '75 Tbird (which itself had a 460 that put out all of 215hp and 366 ft/lbs of torque in stock form...) The supercharged 5.4 will just rumble, whine, and take off.... the unmistakable feeling of a big-block iron mill just won't be there.
A fastback Mercury, a stock 428CJ barely heard at idle, drop the hammer and for a split second all you hear is the thump of the Ram Air opening up in response to the vacuum drop. Then everything gets surreal, you feel the car twist from the motor mounts all the way till the rear axle is finished winding up, and then the rear tires are nothing more than 1/8 mile long smoking black lines on the ground. Your planted against the seat back so hard you could swear the thing is going to rip the bolts right out of the damn floor. The whole time you never really hear the engine that much, just the sound of air being sucked through the carburetor at an ever increasing rate.
Gee thanks man, you've got me kicking myself in the ass all over again for selling the '69 Cyclone CJ.
My bud's got a 69 Mach 1 with a 427 stroked to a 502(?) I believe. Nothing as advanced as today's motors but damn, it sounds awesome, pulls hard and simply rocks
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There are only three things the copilot should ever say:
1. Nice landing, Sir.
2. I'll buy the first round.
3. I'll take the ugly one.
I'll venture that the GT500 needs at least a 5.4, even if it isn't quite big block material.
Cubes and massive rotating assemblies are what add up to the big block feel.
Those '68 and '69 intermediates (especially the fastbacks) are among the most beautiful Ford products ever. When I was 16, I could've had a red '68 Torino GT for $500. It had a 302 with a column shifted automatic, and bucket seats! It was like this, but with black stripes.
Love the dash in these too...
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1992 Deep Emerald Green Mustang GT Hatch, 5 speed, 2.73s, Mac fenderwell cold air intake, '93 Cobra MAF, Mac 70mm throttle body & spacer, Explorer intakes, Mac unequal headers & offroad pipe, Magnaflow catback, Walbro 110lph fuel pump, Jet adjustable FPR, MSD Blaster coil, Accel 8mm wires, FRPP aluminum quadrant, UPR firewall adjuster, stock cable, Granatelli upper control arms.
Waiting to go on: Granatelli lower control arms, and GT40 Iron heads!
A fastback Mercury, a stock 428CJ barely heard at idle, drop the hammer and for a split second all you hear is the thump of the Ram Air opening up in response to the vacuum drop. Then everything gets surreal, you feel the car twist from the motor mounts all the way till the rear axle is finished winding up, and then the rear tires are nothing more than 1/8 mile long smoking black lines on the ground. Your planted against the seat back so hard you could swear the thing is going to rip the bolts right out of the damn floor. The whole time you never really hear the engine that much, just the sound of air being sucked through the carburetor at an ever increasing rate.
Gee thanks man, you've got me kicking myself in the ass all over again for selling the '69 Cyclone CJ.
DAMN IT I MISS THAT CAR!!!
Don't you know it though?!?! I miss my T-bird almost EVERY day! Sure it only got a whopping 16mpg highway and 6-8 mpg city, sure it had hidden rust problems that were going to be way beyond my financial ability to fix (all in the roof, under the vinyl top...) and it definitely was a pain to park that sucker... but...
My T-bird was a 5000+ pound land-yacht, and when I stomped the go-pedal from a dead-stop, everything got real quiet (and she idled whisper-quiet too!) then in quick sucession you heard: 1. All four barrels on a Holley 750cfm double-pumper click open, 2. 750+ lbs of engine lean hard into it's mounts, 3. two hee-uge BFGoodrich Radials screaming in pain
At the same instant, you felt: 1. The entire rear suspension compress, 2. The right-front wheel come up just the tiniest bit (seriously wish I could find the photo I had of this thing picking up that tire about 2"!!! 3. The entire car twisting (and it was full-frame old-school Detroit Iron!) and 4. Completely unable to breathe because you were pushed back into the massive sofa of a seat this thing had!
and you saw??? your life flash before your eyes!!! lol and this was from a WEAK big-block!!! Even in a luxury-barge Tbird, there was NO refinement when you gave the command to go, just the power of evil demons trying to escape from eight massive cylinders!
If any of the American auto makers had ANY guts, and I do mean ANY, they'd do it again! They'd tell Consumer Reports and JD Power and Associates to go to hell, build an all-out big-block boulevard-bruising Musclecar, with a NOISY and UNREFINED powertrain (gimme a stickshift like the GM Rockcrusher, c'mon, my elbow can take it!!!!) use all this "wonderous" EFI technology to put her above the gas guzzler tax in fuel economy (hell, Chevy's done THAT with that 427ci small-block in the Vettes!) and let fly!
But they're CHICKEN! (yup, just called GM, Ford, and Chrysler CHICKEN!) not that they'll care or read this.
I wanna see a 460 in the Mustang, I wanna see a 454 in the Camaro, and I want to see a 426 or a 440 in the Challenger! (it'll never happen unless somebody does it on their own though, and then it wouldn't be "street legal".)
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1976 Ford Mustang II Ghia: 302 with a 600cfm Edelbrock carb, Edelbrock Performer 289 intake, Dynomax Blackjack headers, 2.5" exhaust with Flowmaster Super 44s. RJS 11-gallon fuel cell, C4 tranny, chrome 16" pony wheels, fuzzy dice, brown vinyl half-top, and painted in the tackiest color ever (harvest gold, that's why I call it "The Goldenrod").
Also have a 2003 Dodge Ram (lightly modded daily driver/tow rig/office/dining room/home away from home/workshop... I call it "The Big Blue Dawg".)
Not impressed, looks... for lack of a better word... stupid?
Yeah, "stupid" is the best word I can come up with... and I feel stupid for not coming up with a better word... but it does look stupid. I think what I hate most is the little spoiler that makes the tail of the car look like a duck's ass.
Made me wanna go home and hug my Mustang II, (I was already in the 'vert, trust me, she was feeling what I was feeling through the steering wheel) too bad I was on my way to work.
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1976 Ford Mustang II Ghia: 302 with a 600cfm Edelbrock carb, Edelbrock Performer 289 intake, Dynomax Blackjack headers, 2.5" exhaust with Flowmaster Super 44s. RJS 11-gallon fuel cell, C4 tranny, chrome 16" pony wheels, fuzzy dice, brown vinyl half-top, and painted in the tackiest color ever (harvest gold, that's why I call it "The Goldenrod").
Also have a 2003 Dodge Ram (lightly modded daily driver/tow rig/office/dining room/home away from home/workshop... I call it "The Big Blue Dawg".)
yeah, I miss my Cougar, from time to time - I couldn't get from one part of Kansas City to the other without filling it up though .. . .
but yeah, it's awsome feeling the engine pulse through the whole car . . . All the manufacturers now beleive that what people want nowadays is "refinement" -Lexus engines where you can put a penny on the exhaust, and it'll stay there.
It's even infecting BMW.
I would rather get out of a car bruised with a smile on my face, rather than getting out of a car half-asleep.
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2005 Black GT Whipple HO | Oil Seperator | Steeda Tensioner | 93 dyno tune | Autometer Cobalt | GTAs
Since we are on the subject of these Models, has anyone seen the FOOSE rendering on the roads?
I went to the HOT ROD POWER TOUR when it came to town, seen one.... pretty friggin' hot! This guy must be like..... god of custom land.
