It's been an interesting couple of days of test drives. I started Saturday driving a 2010 Plum Crazy Challenger SRT8 6-spd. Then drove a 2011 Fiesta 5-spd Monday followed by the 2011 GT 6-spd with 3.73s.

I was very impressed with how fast this car is stock. Quite frankly it makes me question why I have my GT500. Sure my car is "faster" but on the street a lot of the power goes to waste. A GT is going to beat me off the line all day. I was able to get the GT to hook and go on my test drive with no issue. Something that is **** near impossible to do on my GT500 with street tires. The exhaust note on the car was nice but on the quiet side. With the windows up just driving around it feels luxury car-ish at times with how quiet it can be. The Brembos on this car feel even better then on my GT500. Most likely because the car is lighter.

The one thing I didn't like about the car was the gauges. The ones on my GT500 are a much better font, size, and layout. However, it's certainly nothing that would keep me from buying one. It could use a better shifter **** as well since it was just the standard unit that looks like my stock 05 one.

Needless to say it was a fun test drive. It's nice when you have a relationship with a dealer where they just hand you the keys and let you go out alone. Test drives are a lot more fun and you can see what the car can do.

On another note the Fiesta wasn't bad at all. I'm seriously thinking about picking one up for daily driver duty.

 

Interesting perspective from a gt500 owner.

What was your take on the SRT8?

 

I'm a sucker for the looks of the Challenger. Something about it has bad *** written all over it. We stopped to get gas during the test drive and some guys at the station where checking it out. It seems to draw a lot of attention like the GT500 does when you drive it. I'm sure the purple color contributes a bit as well. As for performance the SRT8 is defiantly slower than a 2011 GT. I can tell it has more torque off the line making it spin much easier. As for the braking it stopped on a dime and gave you change which is surprising for such a big car. The car overall felt like the ultimate highway cruiser. Something you wouldn't think twice about taking cross country. I'm interested to see what the 6.4L does for the car in the 2011 model year. I just pray it gets a new steering wheel, the one in it is huge and belongs in my grandfather's Mercury Grand Marquis.

 

The challenger is miles beyond anything else out there in the looks department. If they could figure out how to take 5-600 pounds out of it and refine it a little, it would be a world beater.

 

I loved the Fiesta I drove in San Diego earlier this year. Peppy enough for a daily driver and it feels 100x more solid/stable than my mom's 03 Focus ZX5 (loaded with every option available then). You thinking of trading down to a 2011 GT after your clutch debacle?

 

are you still running the crappy tires that come on the GT500? you might be able to hook up better switching to the sticky tires they put on the normal GT.

 

Running the Hankook V12. They helped a lot when it was stock, but I was back to square one after the pulley swap.

Another thing worth mentioning is the 2011 GT doesn't grind going into second at WOOT like the GT500 does. That's pretty huge when you are getting on.