Gadgetory

huh 1966 Popular Mechanics in the drive-in with Dan section Walter Eastman writes in to ask Dan Gurney what's the best all-round Street track sports car you've ever driven to which gurney simply replies a gt350 Mustang guess what we've got with us today let's see if gurney would be just as simple and just as positive in his endorsement Ford breathed on almost every part of a Mustang to create the gt350 one of the most obvious changes you can spot from the outside is the whole front clip so they pushed out the front track on the wheels almost an inch and a half as a result the bodywork has to reach out to cover it you get different fenders and a different hood than on any other Mustang now on top of the GT 350 you've also got the very rare our model only two seats they lose the back carbon fiber wheels extraordinarily unusual a magnetorheological adaptive suspension is standard on the are optional on the 350 and ideally no radio no air conditioning no rear carpet you can spot one by the red grill back then we've seen the insides of the new Mustang before nothing dramatically different there a couple of additional gauges three choices of gearbox for the rear wheel drive six-speed manual manual 6 feet or 6 on the floor learn to drive it that's your only choice here in the head unit you can have a basic display radio like we have here or you can go all the way up to their latest sync 3 touchscreen system or all the way down to a stripped are as I mentioned with nothing there no radio no a/c and here's your drive mode selector on the steering wheel other Mustangs put it as a toggle down here it's able to harness all these different drive modes you see on the dash but unlike other mustangs it can also roll in an adaptive suspension as part of its mix this is the first Ford ever to have that now whether you get a 350 or a 350 are you got the same mill a 5.2 liter naturally aspirated v8 no turbo no blow or nothing like that 526 horsepower that's nearly a hundred and two horsepower per liter a number called specific output and in this case it's the highest one Ford's ever posted without a turbo or a blower at fault the redline is 8250 peak horsepower occurs near that compare this to a Camaro z28 which uses a much larger 7 litre engine to get a lower 505 horse and only 72 horse per liter though it does make more torque and it uses technologies like low friction design for internal resistance free breathing heads and bow lots of lightning they took away as much weight as they could we've heard all that before to be honest but you probably haven't heard before is deep in the heart something called a flat plane crank crank shaft has counter weights at 90 degrees offset what a flat plane crank does is changes that 90 degree to 180 degrees the engine buyers from bank to bank and you get better exhaust scavenging so one cylinder doesn't disrupt the flow of the next cylinder some say oh it's a flat playing Craig maybe it's gonna sound like a Ferrari yeah like a Ferrari in a denim jacket hopped up on meth about this vehicle that I noticed immediately as it is the godson Animorph 302 my favorite modern Mustang ever white crisp muscular but not that's my kind of Mustang utterly and completely drivable every day some people are gonna find it not hard-edged enough not feeling special enough I would consider them to be purists without a cause now I focus on the gt350 in this story today because it's gonna be a lot more accessible VR is gonna be extraordinarily low production as far as we can tell and the 350 does most of what you want at a nice price psychologically comes in under 50 grand with delivery but then you've got this very difficult decision to make you can get the track package for 6500 which gets you the adaptive suspension heavy duty front Springs the drive control a spoiler in the rear a tower brace and heavy duty coolers or the tech package which also gets you adaptive suspension heavy springs and drive control but then add two infotainment like a better audio system sync three power seats and voice operated nav 7500 for that if you're curious and our ads about thirteen five to either configuration I'd go tech package and that gets you to about 56 - out the door that's a pretty good value for a car that has such track prowess and such nice street manners which is becoming the theme in the high-performance market from MacLaren's to challengers to Camaros most cars that are super brawny realize they also have to have clean fingernails or cars driven see next style standing by now at CNET on cars.com click on the road