Don’t lift, don’t shift
What is it?
“Don’t lift.” That’s been the mantra of race-car drivers, basically since the beginning of race-car driving. The physics being, if you lift midcorner when your mind tells you to, the weight comes off the back end, possibly sending it around in an uncorrectable and uncontrollable skid. With the 2016 Shelby GT350, we’re going to add “don’t shift” to that saying. The 5.2-liter flat-plane crank V8 doesn’t redline at 6,750 rpm like some old muscle cars, and doesn’t redline at 7,250 rpm like some new muscle cars. It only cuts out at an astounding 8,250 rpm. When the active exhaust is wailing, and your mind screams “shift now!” remember, you have about three more seconds of pull before your hand needs to drop off the Alcantara wheel and toward the stubby shifter with the red lettering.
The new GT350, like the first GT350, is the track Mustang to end all track Mustangs. Its V8 is the most powerful naturally aspirated engine the Blue Oval has ever produced, and the chassis is the most track-capable it’s ever produced. Good thing it put them together. Output on the raucous hunk of aluminum is rated at 526 hp at 7,500 rpm and 429 lb-ft of torque at 4,750. A six-speed Tremec manual is the only option for shifting. Power is sent rearward through a Torsen limited-slip differential.
The GT350 comes in two flavors, base and R. The R adds a bigger front splitter, bigger rear spoiler, carbon fiber wheels that weigh about half as much as their aluminum counterparts, according to Ford, and a few visual adjustments, a red Cobra badge being one of them. It also drops about 100 pounds, coming in at 3,655 pounds.
The flat-plane engines rev quicker and are more balanced than cross plane designs.
What’s it like to drive?
It’s the best Mustang ever built. Full stop. The flat-plane crank V8 revs up like a Suzuki GSX-R motorcycle, and drops rpms just as fast. Pushing the red start button brings out a medium-sized rev that you might think is loud—until you actually get into the throttle, then it’s all thunder and lightning. On abrupt lift offs it rumbles first, and then crackles like a stun gun. Ford says the engine only makes max torque at 7,500, but the curve feels flat and wide after about 2,500. At full throttle the GT350 screams until you hit redline, which is way, way farther away than it seems. See, your mind and ears get tuned to what a car sounds like when it’s ready to shift, which usually happens around 6,250 rpm, but in the GT350 you have another 2,000 rpms to go. It was barely possible — with a clean conscience — to even reach redline on the public roads around Laguna Seca where we got to flog the R model for a few hours before hitting the track.
The GT350 gets the first application of the company’s optional MagneRide dampers. They’re filled with hydraulic fluid impregnated with iron particles. Every seven milliseconds, sensors make changes to the density of the fluid, softening or firming as necessary. You can feel it on the road over uneven pavement, but even more over the rough curbing at the racetrack where it can loosen up the inside shocks while keeping the outer tires flat to the pavement and stiff.
The GT350 and GT350R with MagneRide have five drive modes: normal, sport, track, weather and drag. You’ll be familiar with normal, sport and track. They adjust the throttle, steering and dampers for each situation. Wet eases up on the throttle and tightens down the traction control for safer starts. The new drag mode is one of the more clever bits. It initializes launch control, softens up the rear suspension and firms up the fronts for the fastest and most predictable start. It softens again for the 1-2 shift, and then firms up automatically as you hit higher speeds.
Back to those mountain roads. We kept the GT350R in sport mode for most of the drive, but switched to track for a few miles just to see how it changed. We didn’t feel much difference, but Ford says that’s the point. The shocks adjust for the road. Other than moving to a slightly firmer base setting, if the road stays the same — mostly smooth — the shocks will stay that way, too. Besides the lovingly banked sweepers, the best part of the drive was hearing that exhaust echo off the mountains and bridges, still not hitting that 8,250 redline. The license plate should have said watch for falling rocks.
Both the GT350 and GT350R get Michelin tires. The base model comes with Pilot Super Sports and the R gets Pilot Sport Cup 2s, both of a unique compound, said Ford. Steering effort was a little too light for such a fast car, but the road feel was near perfect. Ford said it tried to “reduce wander” with the electronic power-assisted steering system, but we felt a good bit of it. The tires gripped the lines in the road and followed uneven pavement, but that’s what we call “feel” here in the business. It’s no manual-rack Alfa 4C, but it’s probably the truest steering we’ve felt in an EPAS car.
On the curves, rises and drops of Laguna Seca, it was even better. The GT350 went exactly where it was pointed, with no dead spot on center and with a directness that rivals some older Mazda Miatas and maybe a Lotus or two. The new Recaro seats come standard, were easy to adjust and supportive all the way up to the shoulders. That’s extra important when bouncing from apex to apex. A red dash marks 12 o’clock on the flat-bottomed wheel, which comically whizzed back and forth as we navigated the blind rising curves and the ear-popping Corkscrew, but at Laguna, the brakes were the workhorse.
The interior of the GT350 offers the new Sync system, and even air conditioning.
The two-piece, aluminum-hat rotors (love that term; conjures up little robots with shiny helmets) measure 15.5 inches in front with six-piston calipers and 12.6 inches in back with four pots. These brakes are some of the best parts of the car. One inch in, you’re at zero mph. As soon as your foot moves left, you’ve already scrubbed speed, somehow. A few times we had to embarrassingly get back on the gas after braking too early. They were fade-free in two and half hours of track time.
The brakes were the workhorse, but the powertrain was the star. Again, the engine revs quick, and to seeming infinity. Down the front straight it screams until your ears are bloody, and then goes 1,000 rpms higher. That front straight with the scary kink/hump, and then climbing the hill before the ‘Screw, were the only times we shifted near redline consistently. At 8,000 it sounds like a jet plane taking off. Your left foot wants to push the clutch at 6,000, but you have to stop it. Don’t lift, don’t shift. Getting back on the power after an apex was a cinch, and the super-sticky tires never gave up. The traction control light only came on once, though track mode is set up to allow a little slip. There was zero understeer, and only a touch of oversteer when we really tried to induce it.
All of the above means that this Shelby GT350 Mustang drives 500 pounds lighter than it is. Touchy but easy-to-modulate brakes, light, quick steering and a jack rabbit 5.2 will do that to a …pony car? Scratch that, a race horse.
Do I want it?
Let’s just say that if you paid $ 44,000 for 2015 Mustang GT Premium, you might be a little angry. A bare-bones GT350 will cost $ 48,695 including destination. However, you will want the MagneRide dampers, which only come with the Track Pack option at $ 6,500. The GT350R, which comes with the adjustable dampers and those sweet carbon fiber wheels, starts at $ 62,195.
Gas mileage is low at 14 city, 21 highway. Visibility, as with almost all Mustangs, isn’t great — even less so in the R with the big wing, which blocks most of the horizon. The effort on the twin-disc clutch is a little light and it took some getting used to. It’s also brash, loud and comes in a lot of look-at-me colors and stripes. If you want to blend in, this is not your car.
It does have air conditioning, though, and you can specify the Tech Pack that comes with the latest Sync system. The cupholders are offset from the stickshift, so unlike some track-focused cars it could potentially be taken on a road trip. It makes the old GT500 feel like rhinoceros. The non-R model even has back seats.
Whatever you do, at least on the track, keep that mantra in your mind. Don’t lift, and for chrissakes, don’t shift.
