Mustang Shelby GT in Dallas Morning News - fabulous!

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Story: TERRY'S GARAGE

TERRY'S GARAGE

In a Mustang Shelby GT, maturity and cash fly out the windows

12:00 AM CDT on Sunday, July 1, 2007

tbox@dallasnews.com

By now, I had hoped to report a little progress in my long, slippery quest for maturity.

As much as I hate to admit it, I need a dash of it. At 56, I don't own a suit and long ago forgot how to knot a tie. My favorite shoes are sandals. I hate cellphones, microwaves and cruise control. I like loud exhausts and driving fast with the windows down. My retirement plan is death.

And now I have to contend with the 2007 Mustang Shelby GT, a retro pony-car steeped, basted and deep-fried in immaturity.

Take a look at this ride. Check out that nonfunctional plastic scoop riveted with a certain tacky flair to the hood. Or how about those nonfunctional hood pins, the giant skunk stripes, the lowering job and the exhaust pipes large enough to stuff baked potatoes into?

I never stood a chance. And that's important only in this context: Three days into my one-week test fling with a $39,180 Shelby GT, I decided to buy one. I gave up a perfectly good '05 Mustang GT with 21,000 miles and 11 payments left on it for the Shelby -- sort of like leaving a fun, good-looking wife for a tattooed, hard-bodied lap-dancer.

The bottom line is I'm back to square one on life's maturity game board. But it's all for a good cause, I think.

Like a lot of consumers, you may be a little confused about the Shelby GT. It is not the GT 500 Mustang, the supercharged, slightly overweight 500-horsepower beast that's still the best, most refined 1960s muscle car that you can buy today.

Shelby GTs start life as garden-variety Mustang GTs in either sinister black or refrigerator white. After they roll off the line in Michigan, the cars are shipped to Shelby's production facility in Las Vegas for a major infusion of attitude.

Up front, the Mustang's stock 300-horsepower, 4.6-liter V-8 is treated to a huge cold-air canister, larger mass-air sensor, a hotter computer chip with more aggressive throttle mapping, an X-pipe for the exhaust system and freer-flowing aftermarket mufflers. It's sort of a modern rendition of what Carroll Shel! by did t o Ford's old high-performance 289 in the '66 Mustang when he conceived the GT 350.

Underneath, Shelby installs different springs -- lowering the car about 1.5 inches -- and adds specially tuned dampers and stabilizer bars. For good measure, Shelby bolts on a Hurst short-throw shifter complete with an old-school white shifter ball.

Tenacious

These are not goodies that encourage leisurely drives in the country on sunny Sundays, picnic basket in the back. Ford rates the Shelby GT at 319 horsepower and 330 pounds-feet of torque, but Mr. Shelby says those numbers are pretty conservative.

"You know how Ford's lawyers are," he said in a recent phone conversation. "It's got a little more than that -- probably 330 or 340" horsepower.

Whatever the amount, the GT blazed to 60 in 5.1 seconds in a recent Car and Driver test and ripped through the quarter mile in 13.7 seconds at 104 mph. Those are pretty solid numbers -- especially the 0-to-60 run -- but are they $10,000 faster than the already stout Mustang GT?

No. In fact, the Shelby is only marginally faster than the quickest times I've seen for a regular GT. But the two Mustangs feel dramatically different. One is rakish and a little pumped up. The other is a punk street-fighter.

My regular GT handled pretty well but tended to squirm around some on its springs in corners. It was competent but didn't always feel happy or poised.

The Shelby turns in quickly with virtually no lean and hangs on tenaciously. Somewhere behind that striking billet-style grille, the car is wearing an evil little grin, whispering to you to push harder.

Expect to get some dents in your driver's license. Regular Mustangs don't ride especially well to start with, so you can imagine how much it's improved by lowering the car and stiffening everything up.

On the day I drove mine home, it felt better than your average stagecoach or half-full cement truck -- but not by much. Now, after 1,000 miles, the Shelby is at least as smooth as! a good Super Duty.

Also, if you care -- and some of you will -- the car is rated at 16 miles per gallon city, 23 highway, and its price includes a $1,000 gas-guzzler tax. In the real world, count on an average a lot closer to 16 than 23. (Mine is averaging 13.7, according to the computer.)

Sadly, none of that really matters to an old teen-ager like me. This is as close as I will ever get to a real GT 350 from the '60s.

Competition?

Maybe the car shook some hormones loose or something, but the world looks pretty good these days over that cheesy hood scoop. My view also includes a plaque from Shelby on the dashboard with the car's numbers in his registry and that great Hurst shifter -- which, incidentally, takes two men and a boy to shift, but is really positive.

This car is a wonderfully willing co-conspirator. Punch it and you get great old-fashioned noises -- big induction sounds through that cold-air canister mixed with a rich, rumbling exhaust note. With that as background, Delbert McClinton has never sounded better.

Moreover, the car feels even quicker, more balanced and intense than it really is. I love that side of this car's big personality, but I'm not sure it's a good thing. (I would like to point out in advance, officer, that just last year I made a $200 "contribution" to Dallas' road, bridge and city council refreshment fund for that little infraction on Forest Lane. We're square now, aren't we?)

Shelby built 6,000 of the GT coupes this year, and all have been bought by dealers or individuals -- though some are still sitting on lots. In '08, only 2,300 Shelby GTs will be offered, and most of those are likely to be the new convertible model unveiled last month in Tulsa. The base price of the convertible, which should be available late this summer or early fall, will be around $45,000.

That brings me to my biggest concern about these special-edition Mustangs. One reason I've owned seven Mustangs in the last 15 years is their combination of performan! ce, pers onality and value. They are very likable, affordable cars.

I'm not sure how well the equation works at 40 grand. For that sort of money, you could just about get into an '07 Corvette coupe -- a lighter, faster, better handling and more modern car than the Mustang. Could it be that with no competition in the pony-car segment, Ford is pushing its price to the limits?

Maybe. But I'm not losing sleep over it because they can't do it for long. We're fortunate enough to have not only the best Mustang ever on the market now but also an extremely strong-looking Chevy Camaro and Dodge Challenger on the way in a year or so. Power -- and competition -- to the pony segment, dude.

In the meantime, want me to do a smoky burnout?