Ford – Car of the Day

Remember the Contour SVT?

garythepowers — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 15:40:12 +0000

The Special Vehicles Team at Ford have been tuning vehicles for some time now. They’ve tuned plenty of Mustangs, a few trucks, the Focus and even the Ford Contour.

The Contour SVT was 200hp 2.5 liter naturally aspirated V6. At the time it was called the best handling FWD sedan for sale in America. It was built for 3 years from 1998 to 2000, a little over 11,000 of these little hot rods were produced.

SVT took a slightly different approach when building its high performance economy sedan than most other car companies at the time. If you had a small sedan with sporty intentions it was most likely to a be a turbo-charged or high performance 4 cylinder. The Contour SVT took a page from BMW and built a quick reving 6 cylinder albeit in a “V” configuration instead of BMW’s inline 6 format.

The problem with rare and special cars like the Contour SVT is the enthusiasts know about them and snatch them up or modifiy them away from their original setup. A search of Autotrader shows a 2000 Contour with only 37k miles or only $8,000.

If you’re an enthusiast with a limited budget, don’t settle on used Kia, just take a short trip back in time and pick up one of these little bad boys. It may be a bit of hunt, but it will be worth it.

GT500KR vs GTO

garythepowers — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 19:00:16 +0000

For those of you who don’t know the GT500KR is a Carroll Shelby version of the GT500. The GT500KR is a Mustang GT with 540hp coming from its supercharged 5.4 liter V8 engine. Each GT500KR starts its life off as a simple GT500 and then is sent to Las Vegas to Carroll Shelby’s speed shop and is converted into a KR. KR stands for King of the Road. The price tag on a GT500KR is nearly $80,000. There is only plans for 1571 of this cars to built in the US for next 2 years.

Tonight I raced number 250 in my GTO and won and then I promptly lost the next race. While my 2006 GTO is fast, it is really out of its league with the GT500KR. The only reason I got a win was because this was a new GT500KR with a driver trying to figure out how to put an estimated 511rwhp to the ground. Apparently the GT500KRs are a bit underrated. By the end of the night he was running almost half a second faster than me and trapping nearly 10mph faster than my lowly GTO. The GT500KR is really in a whole different league than my GTO. The only reason I got a win was because it was one of his first runs down the track.

It was great to see such a rare car running at the track. I may never see another out there. Most people aren’t buying their GT500KRs to run at the track. This car was trailered in and still had the window stickers on it and factory plastic over the seats and parts of the dash.

The owner admitted that a person would be better off buying a GT500 for only $46,000 and then adding the bits that make the GT500KR a better car. However just adding the bits that make a KR the King of the Road wouldn’t create another GT500KR. A KR is a rare special car touched by the engineers at Carroll Shelby’s speed shop and when you get that car you get a piece of automotive history.

The GT500KR is also the car that is used as the basis for the new Knight Rider TV show. It is the modern K.I.T.T.

Keep an eye out for the all the Shelby GT Mustangs. There is a Shelby GT350 and GT350-H which are 4.6 liter V8 powered Mustangs with performance more like the slighty quicker Mustang GT. However, if you see any GT500s, remember that those cars are powered by the same engine as the Ford GT supercar.

Follow Frank Bullitt on His Historic Chase

garythepowers — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 02:58:47 +0000

Modern GPS tracking technology meets classic movies and Steve McQueen on the internet. This technology comes courtesy from Seero.com. Seero is a website that puts videos and GPS together.

They’ve taken the one of the most famous movie chases and put the video side-by-side with a GPS tracking map. It even “tells on the movie” a bit by skipping across town when the movie chase doesn’t follow actual geography.

Seero also has mapped the first chase from Smokey and the Bandit.

So if you’ve got a long ways to go and short time to get there check out this interesting mix of classic movie chases and modern technology.

Thanks to folks at Ridestory.com for doing a great write-up about all things Bullitt and introducing me to Seero.

My Favorite Mustang

garythepowers — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 03:15:27 +0000

The Mustang Mach 1 was reborn in 2003 and was only made until 2004. For 2 short years one of the best modern Mustangs was produced. The Mach 1 had 305hp and 320 lbft and was notorious for being under-rated. The word on the street is that the Mach 1 really produced numbers more like 330hp and 355 lbft. When equipped with a 5-speed transmission and a good driver it could hit 0-60 in 4.7 seconds and clear the ¼ mile in 13.2 seconds. Those are some very respectable numbers and those are stock.

The Mach 1 was built with cool shaker hood that allowed the driver to see the engine rumble. Retro font gauges and comfort weave seats really helped complete the best looking interior of that version of the Mustang.

The patient auto shopper can find some gently used Mach 1s with less than 35k miles for under $17,000. The Mach 1 represents some serious bang for the buck.

The base GT was a moderately quick car, but would lose a lot of stop light drags. The Mach 1 was the sleeper of the Mustang stable. There is also a great aftermarket and group of enthusiasts to help make these little gems go faster.

If you want to do a little extra reading there was a great write-up by a Mustang webzine and a Pontiac webzine where they took a 2003 Mach 1 and a 2004 GTO to the drag strip.

The Supercharged Mustang Bullitt is the COTD

garythepowers — Sat, 24 May 2008 06:27:36 +0000

Ford’s top of the line Mustang is the GT500 it is the 500hp supercharged 5.4 liter V8. However, this comes with the nearly a 500lb weight penalty. Sure, its the fastest factory Mustang, but there is another Mustang that has pretty close performance numbers, especially when you add the Ford Factory Racing Supercharger to it.

You can’t buy the Bullitt supercharged from the factory, but you can get a Ford supercharger added. And that will add all the performance of the GT500 and then some, without the penalty of the 500lbs that the GT500 gets because of its iron-block engine.

The Bullitt is real muscle car and sleeper at the same time. The Mustang also has a strong after market to support the quest for more power. And there are all the Ford Factory Racing parts that you can add to your Mustang.

Today’s COTD is a supercharged Mustang Bullitt. The Bullitt is special and the supercharger takes it to next level of performance. The level of my former COTD a Mitsubishi Evo with a Vishnu tune.