3/24/11

Ford Mustang FR500-GT 2006

Cars Mania Blog

Auto Car | Ford Mustang FR500-GT 2006 | With its Pep Boys-inspired rear wing, fancy stick-on graphics, and a growlingly means-business exhaust note, the King of All Mustangs does not just show up - it sort of presents itself. Its appearance should be accompanied by a "ta-da!"
Such as, "Ta-da! There it is rounding Turn Three!" And "Ta-da! Now it's coming into the pits!"



Ford would like to sell you one. "Ta-da! Thanks for your $225,000! Please enjoy your new full-race, 550-hp Mustang."
Your first question is, of course, "Can I drive it on the street?" The answer: If you live in Hazzard County, maybe.
The list of available-to-the-public hot Mustangs, already lengthy with efforts by Ford's own SVT and tuners such as Shelby, Roush, Steeda, and Saleen, grows by one with the pending addition of the King of All Mustangs, which comes from an unlikely source: Ford's own racing division, which turned to Multimatic Motorsports, a Canadian performance company, to complete the project. The naturally aspirated engine comes from Roush-Yates, the NASCAR boys. The inspiration and the initial investment come from Dan Davis, director of Ford Racing Technology.



As befits the fastest, most powerful Ford Mustang ever to be sold by the company, almost everything on the car that doesn't make it go faster has been eliminated. That carbon-fiber and aluminum rear wing - 15 possible positions - is there for a reason, as is the carbon-fiber front splitter. They help hold the car down at top speed, which, we learned, is 172 mph, engine screaming at the 7200-rpm redline in sixth. Geared for top speed, this is certainly an over-200-mph car. As it is, performance numbers are pretty respectable for a car built not for acceleration but for road-course racing: 0 to 60 mph comes in 3.9 seconds, the quarter-mile in 12.1 seconds at 123 mph. The skidpad number is 1.15 g, with a full tank of 100 octane.



Typically, an automaker's motive for building a car like this is slightly masturbatory, conceived, then achieved, with little more of a long-term goal than making yourself feel good while showing off. Not so with the King of All Mustangs: Ford, which is expected to lose upwards of $5 billion this year, really isn't in a position to engage too much in self-gratification. Dan Davis figures he can build two of these cars a week and already has orders for them, despite minimal publicity.

The car's formal name is the FR500GT. Insiders refer to it as the "Man Racer." The $125,000, 420-hp FR500C Mustang, having just wrapped up it its second year racing in the Grand-Am Cup Series, was originally called the Boy Racer by Ford executives. So this new Mustang, with 130 more horses, has been referred to as the Man Racer.

Source : www.askmen.com

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