2006GT

Having driven in Europe quite a bit, I can understand his review to a point. Would I like to drive a mustang over there? It would not be my choice... 80% of the roads are just to narrow to comfortably enjoy a Mustang. While the Mustang might not go with roasted lamb and smooshy peas, it does go well with a burger. And that's just fine with me.

Rampant

You guys are so caught up in thinking anyone could give a negative review, you missed the point.

His thoughts are the car can be summed up in this quote:
"....You see, I’m running through all this car’s bad points but I’m afraid my mind is consumed by the bit where I was doing 65mph on the 101, listening to some Eagles on 104.3."

Compared to other cars, the Mustang is a cheap and lazy way to have fun. But, there is no undenying the fun that it delivers.

Everything he says is right on. The main difference is the American culture and how this translates into making cars.

We are lazy. To make 300hp, we don't try to work on an engine to upgrade technology. We just make it bigger. Gas? No problem, it is cheap here (for now). We have huge, wide open, straight roads, so there is no need to worry about precision handling or anything like that. You can wander off line by almost half a car width, and still be in your own lane.

We want to hit the go pedal and get put back in the seat. We don't want to have to turn the wheel to have fun. Besides, it isn't like we have to turn much on our streets anyway. Becuase of this, we barely know what an apex is, nor do we care.

The roads, the cars and the drivers are very different in Europe and precision and sharpness are much more important when you are going 60mph one what we would call a one-lane highway that isn't straight for more than 200' while passing cars going the opposite direction with mere inches between you.

The bottom line is the Mustang is big, brash, crude, and a lot of fun.
And that is just the way we like it.

(For further evidence in his driving preferences/priorities, he lovedthe RX-8. And there is no denying the handling and drive that it delivers, even though it has no torque, gets 14mpg for a 1.3L and eats almost as much oil as fuel. It is just a different set of parameters to judge a car's ability.).

Sonic05

Right on Mike!

Two completely different countries, and two completely different takes on cars. They spend a fortune on cars, we don't. They are huge F1 fans, we prefer oval and drag racing. I'm sorry, but F1 is soooo borning. Not to mention the cars drive themselves.

But what I find so funny . . . when you watch British shows, what do you see them driving? Horrible little econo-boxes. How many people over there really drive the expensive cars?

I really have no respect for Clarkson. He has proven time after time he can't drive for crap, he obviously is EXTREMELY biased, and he exagerates everything to a point where it just gets stupid. He also has a tendancy to rave about a car, then tear it to pieces, which he didn't do here. Quite the opposite. That tells me he really does like it. And he obviously likes the price.

Uhhh, he says it has one cam? Hmmm, do some research buddy, it has two. Guess what? Their beloved BMW also uses single overhead cams with 3 valves (yes I know, German car). Guess what else? The Duratec engine . . . design bought from Porche!!! (Just a fact I recently learned)

rrobello

Well Clarkson is like most Ferrari owners and thats to say that they are more in love with themselves then the car, the reason they love the car so much and think it is all that and a bag of chips is because it is a status symbol and subconsciously it makes them feel big, making up for a total lack of personality or any redeeming values that would make people like them for anything more than just the car (now this is not all Ferrari owners, but a good majority of them). Ferraris are not that great, yes they are beautifully crafted machines, that perform well and handle nice and have pretty luxurious interiors for a sports car, all in all no reason not to say its a great car, but its nothing much better than a Z06, well most Ferraris (not including the Enzos and stuff like that). The Z06 is Americas Ferrari it is a race car that you can drive to the track. It will handle with the best of Ferrari and in some cases even better, goes into turns with the same grace and comes out of them with the same power and speed, off the line it will stay right there with them and stop on a dime, the interiors have come a long way and offer a lot and unlike the mustang (which is a muscle car) the Z06 is a sports car, meaning you get all that in a nice pretty package that is a smooth as a babies bottom when driving it, you dont feel like you are moving that fast with the exception of at launch, this is a huge selling point for Ferrari owners, to get all that power and feel like it isnt moving. But the Z06 is half the price, so what makes the Ferrari special is the status, everyone knows a Ferrari when they see one, not everyone can tell the difference between the Z06 and the base model (or even know there is a difference, just like the average person looking at the Mustang most people I encounter dont realize that there is a V8 and a V6 version, they think a Mustang is a Mustang) and when people see a Ferrari they see dollar signs, not the performance, they assume that because it is expensive that it is FAST, when in fact to buy anything less than a F355 is still over a grand and off the line the 05 Mustang can beat it (I have done it repeatedly). There are many better cars then the Ferraris and many of those are even cheaper in price. But back to Clarkson's lust for the Ferrari, he and others view these cars as a reflection of themselves and thats why they fall in love with them thinking there is nothing better when clearly there is and this is shown on top gear all the time, when they test a car it spanks the ferrari equivilant and then he turns around and says he still would rather have the ferrari, no one knows what a Noble is, or that the Carrerra GT is actually a 500,000 car, or that the Vanquish is as well or the SLR, they do not associate Mercedes, or Porsche with "exotic" and "super expensive" they know they are nice and pricey but ask the average person; they over estimate the price of Ferraris and think that because it says Mercedes or Porsche that it is at most 80-90 grand, they dont know. I have driven many Ferraris on and off the track and although I am always having fun and highly impressed, I would not own one, if for no other reason but to not be lumped into the same group of other Ferrari owners, I would buy one if I had a collection of cars but it would be way down on the list. The simple fact is that there are much better cars out there, and what can you do to a Ferrari, add some carbon fiber trim and change the exhaust???? big deal. I would much rather spend half the money to trick out my stang and spank those ferraris all day long on the street where most of the driving is done. If the goal was to race on the track I would own a car built for just that, not a street car that is capable of performing well on a track. He is always mentioning how cheap certain cars are as a downside, how is saving money a bad thing???? He is also always commenting that American cars are big and crude and you can feel everything and its loud and rough things like that, thats a good thing, its like a good woman, you want a woman who is a virgin in public but a freak in the bed, who wants someone who still has manners and is all prim and propper when it comes down to getting to business, it should be all inhabitions set aside and no holds bard, cast aside all worries of what people might think and if it is pollite. If your racing then your racing, its time to get down and dirty and have a car act like a car, being loud and rude and crude is great and lots of fun, no time to sit there sipping your tea with you pinky turned out like a wet blanket who is just going to lie there and take it. Go ahead and burp away people, its ok to be wild and a true man, I dont know what Clarkson is afraid of. Ill take brash hard core performance for under 25K everytime, Ill see you at the finish line Clarkson.


NOTE: I know I went off on the Ferrari when there was no real mention of it but that is because Clarkson is always comparing everything to one and things that they are the perfect car. So I was just comparing his favorite to the Mustang. The real reason behind his negative comments are because of what he wont come out and say, ITS NOT A FERRARI, and I am glad its not.

rrobello

besides what does he know about cars, he's british?????

wilsonchristian

Ummm...That's bag of Crisps. Heheheh. British cars compared to US cars suck bum-bum, but honestly the British know what makes a good car. Their models (across all platforms) usually have better handling hp and torque than comparble continental models (i.e. french and italian/spanish poop). Only the Germans have them beat in that department. They also have a long history of bang for buck you just don't see anywhere else in Europe. Anybody ever owned an Escort or Cortina?

More importantly, they are elistist (as a Britisher I can say this), and as such make it their business to have all the nice cars that (poor) people in other european countries don't have as well as a fair smattering of big SUVs pickup trucks and even vettes and stangs. Brits are big time car snobs, house snobs, garden gnome snobs. Hahahah..

My point is that British people spend alot of time thinking about cars, it just takes different kinds of elitists to like different things. I'm sure the majority of Englishmen would give their left nute, just to sit in one of these stangs. Geez, ANY stang. Some Englishmen would only sit in the best tho, as I'm sure is similar to more affluent Americans. Anyway, this Clarkson guy is just an elist among elistists. And as such he will only drive the best.

Just going back to the bang for buck for a minute. This is a VERY expensive car for the UK ($45-50,000 USD for GT), and he's right at those import prices you can get a BMW.....almost. So you gotta imagine he's driving the brutally honest stang round Lagina Seca things in his mind he's going "blooooody 'ell, imagine what one of these would cost back 'ome....And it only has 300 hp?"
-C

P.S. The elitism permeates whole car lineups in Britain. Ex:Look at an economy car and you will find rough 3x the number of trim levels that you would see in a similar family car back home. They are totally mental when figuring out who should have the car for the appropriate salary level

davetito

Out of curiosity - what is the main critisism of the GT brakes. Is the stopping distance that bad? Also - can someone describe how and why brake performance degrades after alot of braking and high performance driving.

Thanks!

Shifty

"It’s a 4.6 litre V8 with just one camshaft"

He's a retard, enough said.

Hollywood_North GT

You slept through the lesson about paragraph breaks in school, didn't you?

Louie

Brake performance degrades after high performance driving in ALL cars. This is due to heating of the discs and brake pads, but mainly of the brake fluid, which becomes thinner with overheating. In extreme cases, it can even evaporate, thus creating a discontinuity of the fluid in the circuit. Should such a discontinuity occur, the pressure applied on the brake pedal is no longer transmitted to the pistons in the calipers (happened to me once in another car, that was some scary s**t!).
The GT's braking performance is altogether not bad IMO, but there is room for improvement. I'm not talking about ceramic discs or any other top-end performance thingies, but cross-drilled rotors and better pads might just do the job. Unfortunately, test results have shown that the Steeda cross-drilled vented rotors have actually increased the braking distance with 9' on a stock GT. Personally, I'm still looking and waiting for a better aftermarket brake kit, which shouldn't empty my pockets though.

snkbtn99

What the heck does this mean? As a journalist, you are supposed to be impartial. Only an idiot would compare a $25k car to a $150k car. And to say that this guy thinks a Mustang is a piece of crap because he drives Ferraris all day is just as stupid a comment.

I wouldn't give Clarkson the time of day or **** on him if he were on fire in front of me ...

Imatk

Ouch... that sucks... so we have no better options for aftermarket brakes?

GhostTX

That does remind me of something. Two summers ago, my dad had our ex-exchange student resident come visit with her British husband. He SO wanted to drive my dad's F-150 with the beeeg V8, so we let him drive it. He was aghast with how much power it had 'cause what he drove in England had no power behind it. At the end, he really wanted to driver one of our American sports cars, after all, if a mere truck could pull like that, what could one our real power cars do?

97svtgoin05gt

Amen!! No one will fault BMW and their ability to produce a great car. What they will do is walk out of the showroom with their eyes bugged out all over pricetags.

Price is no object for Jay Leno and he had one before almost even Bill Ford did. Comparing a $28,000 American muscle car with pieces at least twice as expensive from Europe tells me one thing. Europe doesn't have anything to compete with it at that price.

Golf my ( ) ( )!!

06GT&06MCS

Jeremy Clarkson wears sissy pants.

Rampant

You miss the point. They are using the BMW engine as a hyperbolic comparrison to illustrate the low-tech and cheap nature of the engine.

Would you rather they talk about the Nissan 3.5 V6 which generates the same hp with 1.1L and two cylindars less, and is available in cars that are the same price as the GT? Would that make you feel better?
What about the 2.0L 4cyl 4G63 that makes almost 300hp?
Or the 2.5L boxer, 300hp, EJ25?

And as far as Europe not having anything to compete -- that would depend ENTIRELY on what you mean by "compete." Over there, the Mustang would not even come close to competing with the usability, size and precision offered by many other cars (GTI included) which fit their roads and driving conditions.

But, if all you do is goose the go pedal (which we do here in America), than little (for the price) can compete with the Mustang.

Oh, except the Evo and WRX and Z. But, then again, you don't want to talk about those cars either.

Why is it so hard to think that a different person, in a completely different part of the world, may, just may have a different opionion about the Mustang, and have some negative things to say about it?

97svtgoin05gt

EVO = MORE MONEY AND 4WD AND TURBO
WRX = MORE MONEY AND 4WD AND TURBO
Z = Supposedly the same horsepower but loses every time against Mustang

:notnice:

Shifty

Z's are slow as f'

sranger

Well, that is one opinion....

Here is how I see it....

I have literally seen the door fall off of an 80K jag because, as the dealer put it, " you opened the door too hard..." ( it riped the hinge out of the thin sheet metal that the author is so proud of )

The + grounding systems in the british "sports" cars were a snap shot of He||...

Put an italian exotic to work as a daily driver and those precision engineered super efficient engines will foul the plugs in a week of Atlanta Traffic... ( I doubt it would average as high as 18mpg either )

We could add 30hp worth of mods to our cars for what ONE oil change in an Aston, Lotus, etc.... would cost...

If you add 10K in performance mods to the mustang, will win almost any race you care to try with these euro cars he loves so much, and it would still be about 50-100K less expensive....

P.S. What in the main difference between a porcupine and a BMW?

The porcupine has the ****** on the outside.....

Shifty

Jag is owned by Ford. :bang: