http://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/a27194/road-track-2016-performance-car-of-the-year/
"the Mustang that all Mustangs have been waiting to become."
"the Mustang that all Mustangs have been waiting to become."
The Mustang Forum for Track & Racing Enthusiasts
Taking your Mustang to an open track/HPDE event for the first time? Do you race competitively? This forum is for you! Log in to remove most ads.
- Welcome to the Ford Mustang forum built for owners of the Mustang GT350, BOSS 302, GT500, and all other S550, S197, SN95, Fox Body and older Mustangs set up for open track days, road racing, and/or autocross. Join our forum, interact with others, share your build, and help us strengthen this community!
Road and Track PCOTY: We have a winner!
- Thread starterVoodooBoss
- Start date
AROUND NCM MOTORSPORTS PARK, the Ford Shelby GT350R feels very nearly as special as the Viper ACR. It has the same single-minded focus on high-speed balance and usable performance, and if it sometimes feels a bit like a taxicab compared with the Viper, it makes up for that with a simply magical V-8 that brings the caviar thrills of 8250-rpm performance to a beer-and-burgers demographic. If you could summon some sort of Lovecraftian dark magic to combine the best parts of the other seven cars in this test—the Bentley's on-road poise, the Cadillac's vivacious chassis, the Merc's bluff-nosed retro charm, the Cayman's accessible limits, the Ferrari's auditory drama, the Corvette's wide-hipped machismo, and the Viper's sense of purpose—then what would appear in the swirling mists would be, not Cthulhu the Great Old One, but Shelby the Baddest Mustang. Our winner by a runaway vote, the Ford Mustang Shelby GT350R is, quite deservedly, the Road & Track 2016 Performance Car of the Year.
- 73
- 0
R&T: Performance Car of the Year revealed
Article: http://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/a27194/road-track-2016-performance-car-of-the-year/
Article: http://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/a27194/road-track-2016-performance-car-of-the-year/
cloud9
Gary
All that at one third the average cost of the field. The most relevant point being it's affordable to actually use on the track as it was intended versus just bench racing it 
BOOM.
cloud9
Gary
Even the GT350 almost feels like you're driving on track tires so the R on essentially R-comps has to be amazing. I can't wait to slap some sticky rubber on this thing and raise Cain!ArizonaBOSS said:
Very interested in your feedback on-track.
I love that there was not a single mention of price...no big disclaimer about it's being great 'for the price'...though I suspect that's kind of what they were referencing with the 488 being 'too good'....it's just unobtanium for most people at ~$350k.
and what kind of a world are we living in now where the stang is almost dead last (only beats a caddy, and ties the 'baby' porsche) in a straight line but is lauded for it's chassis balance a poise. huh?!
my R is scheduled to be built 7 days from today. Perhaps it's the perfect time to make some sort of 'and on the 7th day' reference...
Also really interesting to see that sometimes more is less...as in the case of the Z06. I've always thought that if I were to buy a C7 vette...I'd probably prefer a mod'ed stingray.
and what kind of a world are we living in now where the stang is almost dead last (only beats a caddy, and ties the 'baby' porsche) in a straight line but is lauded for it's chassis balance a poise. huh?!
my R is scheduled to be built 7 days from today. Perhaps it's the perfect time to make some sort of 'and on the 7th day' reference...
Also really interesting to see that sometimes more is less...as in the case of the Z06. I've always thought that if I were to buy a C7 vette...I'd probably prefer a mod'ed stingray.
- Thread starter
- #10
Did anyone catch this comment:
"I'm busy leading Team Viper. It's the fastest car here, the most demanding to drive and yet the most rewarding when it's pushed close to its limits. The learning curve is steep, true, but you'd feel really good about yourself when you reached the top. Chilton agrees: "Looks like a race car and feels like one. It's also the only car that felt like it could keep on lapping hour after hour."
That last is a pointed aside about the GT350R and Z06, which are showing some scary temperatures on their displays."
It would be nice to have some more detail around that comment.
@cloud9
@Moto
@Black Boss
A couple of cool shots from the article.
"I'm busy leading Team Viper. It's the fastest car here, the most demanding to drive and yet the most rewarding when it's pushed close to its limits. The learning curve is steep, true, but you'd feel really good about yourself when you reached the top. Chilton agrees: "Looks like a race car and feels like one. It's also the only car that felt like it could keep on lapping hour after hour."
That last is a pointed aside about the GT350R and Z06, which are showing some scary temperatures on their displays."
It would be nice to have some more detail around that comment.
@cloud9
@Moto
@Black Boss
A couple of cool shots from the article.
cloud9
Gary
Probably going to be Black Boss as I'm out until at least March unless we get a nice El Nino this winter and I can slip down to MPH to shake it down......of course ambient won't be 90* eitherVooDooBOSS said:Did anyone catch this comment:
"I'm busy leading Team Viper. It's the fastest car here, the most demanding to drive and yet the most rewarding when it's pushed close to its limits. The learning curve is steep, true, but you'd feel really good about yourself when you reached the top. Chilton agrees: "Looks like a race car and feels like one. It's also the only car that felt like it could keep on lapping hour after hour."
That last is a pointed aside about the GT350R and Z06, which are showing some scary temperatures on their displays."
It would be nice to have some more detail around that comment.
@cloud9
@Moto
@Black Boss
A couple of cool shots from the article.
Would be nice to know what "scary" is. I've run 10,000+ track miles on the Boss with 240 Coolant early on until I removed the Oil/Water cooler and subsequently 280 Oil temps. I've never run NCM in high ambients, so have no comparator data for that track....
- Thread starter
- #13
Road and Tracks official press release:
"ROAD & TRACK NAMES THE FORD MUSTANG SHELBY GT350R THE 2016 PERFORMANCE CAR OF THE YEAR
New York, NY (November 9, 2015) – Road & Track today named the Ford Mustang Shelby GT350R the 2016 Performance Car of the Year, beating out seven of the world's best new sports cars. The article appears in the December/January issue, on newsstands November 17, and on RoadandTrack.com.
"With a flat-plane crank and Sport Cup 2 tires, the GT350R is a Mustang turned up to 11," said Larry Webster, editor-in-chief of Road & Track. "Not only does the car have soul and harness so much firepower with such ease, but the real achievement here is that it's so approachable. It's a car you can't help but love."
The Mustang Shelby GT350R was the winner by a runaway vote. According to Road & Track, "The only way the team at Ford SVT could get 526 hp from 5.2 liters—the fabled 100 hp per liter and then some—was to reengineer the whole thing into a bit of an insane race motor." The magazine goes on to say that the "GT350R is the Mustang that all Mustangs have been waiting to become."
To be eligible for the Performance Car of the Year honor, a car must be new for this year or feature significant functional changes and live at the very top of the street-car performance pyramid with a competitive lap time. Additionally, cars must connect with the driver on both road and track and engage a visceral, emotional reaction in the man or woman holding the steering wheel.
Road & Track's testing process takes place over the course of one week during which the editors and writers evaluate the year's best cars on both road – from Berea, Kentucky, down to Cookeville, Tennessee – and track – the National Corvette Museum Motorsports Park in Bowling Green, Kentucky.
Other cars in the running this year were the Bentley Continental GT3-R, Cadillac ATS-V, Chevrolet Corvette Z06, Dodge Viper ACR, Ferrari 488 GTB, Mercedes-AMG GT S, and Porsche Cayman GT4.
The Mustang Shelby GT350R succeeds last year's Performance Car of the Year winner, the Porsche 911 GT3."
"ROAD & TRACK NAMES THE FORD MUSTANG SHELBY GT350R THE 2016 PERFORMANCE CAR OF THE YEAR
New York, NY (November 9, 2015) – Road & Track today named the Ford Mustang Shelby GT350R the 2016 Performance Car of the Year, beating out seven of the world's best new sports cars. The article appears in the December/January issue, on newsstands November 17, and on RoadandTrack.com.
"With a flat-plane crank and Sport Cup 2 tires, the GT350R is a Mustang turned up to 11," said Larry Webster, editor-in-chief of Road & Track. "Not only does the car have soul and harness so much firepower with such ease, but the real achievement here is that it's so approachable. It's a car you can't help but love."
The Mustang Shelby GT350R was the winner by a runaway vote. According to Road & Track, "The only way the team at Ford SVT could get 526 hp from 5.2 liters—the fabled 100 hp per liter and then some—was to reengineer the whole thing into a bit of an insane race motor." The magazine goes on to say that the "GT350R is the Mustang that all Mustangs have been waiting to become."
To be eligible for the Performance Car of the Year honor, a car must be new for this year or feature significant functional changes and live at the very top of the street-car performance pyramid with a competitive lap time. Additionally, cars must connect with the driver on both road and track and engage a visceral, emotional reaction in the man or woman holding the steering wheel.
Road & Track's testing process takes place over the course of one week during which the editors and writers evaluate the year's best cars on both road – from Berea, Kentucky, down to Cookeville, Tennessee – and track – the National Corvette Museum Motorsports Park in Bowling Green, Kentucky.
Other cars in the running this year were the Bentley Continental GT3-R, Cadillac ATS-V, Chevrolet Corvette Z06, Dodge Viper ACR, Ferrari 488 GTB, Mercedes-AMG GT S, and Porsche Cayman GT4.
The Mustang Shelby GT350R succeeds last year's Performance Car of the Year winner, the Porsche 911 GT3."
cloud9
Gary
Job well done Ford Performance! That is an incredible accomplishment 8)
Amidst all the pressures for allocating resources inside the company, thank you for bringing this car to market!
Amidst all the pressures for allocating resources inside the company, thank you for bringing this car to market!
cloud9 said:
worth repeating. Ford Performance has done simply amazing here. And they're 1 for 1. No pressure Focus RS ;-)
TMO Supporting Vendors
Similar threads
Latest posts
Buy TMO Apparel
