Update: 2015 Mustang Runner Up in R&T's PCOTY

Minority Report: Should the 2015 Mustang GT have been PCOTY?

A vocal minority shouted the Mustang GT's praises, very loudly.


This is just the second year for Road&Track’s Performance Car of the Year, but the broad and largely subjective range of criteria used to crown our prom queen of performance cars has already led to a level of squabbling and outright manipulative behavior among our staff that would have shocked Machiavelli himself. That’s the Italian Machiavelli, the author of The Prince. As opposed to Makavelli, also known as Tupac Shakur. Which is perhaps a more appropriate analogy, because when the process of casting the ballots for this year’s PCOTY began, it quickly devolved into the same kind of drama and contention that marked the infamous beef between 2Pac and Biggie Smalls.

This time, however, it wasn’t West Coast vs. East Coast, but rather America vs. Germany. In one corner, you had the 991-generation Porsche GT3. A master of all trades from the superslab to the Motown Mile, Porsche’s newest trackday tool had even its strongest detractors reluctantly admitting that it had the right stuff to take the PCOTY laurels. It’s hard to argue against a car that runs neck-and-neck with the far more focused Ferrari 458 Speciale around our airport course yet crawls through Michigan traffic like a Coupe de Ville? It isn’t even that expensive, at least not when compared to other cars that offer a similar level of capability.

Still, even in the face of such undoubted competence, there were whispers that the GT3 lacked a certain… something. A certain charm, a certain tossability, a certain joie de backroad. Okay, they weren’t whispers. They were shouts, delivered across a folding lunch table set up in a hangar of the Detroit City Airport. And the shouting was mostly in favor of the new-for-2015 Mustang GT 5.0.

It’s true that the big ponycar can’t stay within telescope distance of the Porsche around a track or down a twisty road. But PCOTY isn’t about the numbers. It’s about the ability of a car to involve you in the driving process, to make you a companion and ally in a compelling adventure—and in that respect, very few cars on the market today can touch the new Mustang.
To begin with, it’s got that engine. If your blood doesn’t heat up when you hear Ford’s Coyote five-liter, then you’re either dead or a member of a Subaru enthusiast’s forum. This is what the American V8 was always meant to be. Has there ever been an engine this thrilling, this deeply stirring, in an affordable production car? Hell no.

But last year’s Mustang had it too, so that can’t be the reason why the 2015 GT resonated so strongly among our seasoned crew. No, it’s more than just the engine. It’s also more than the new silhouette, although that too is a triumph, combining retro and modern with a deftness that its bloated, occasionally cartoonish competitors can’t approach. On the surface, the Mustang is supremely desirable, and if you never did anything with it besides drive it back and forth to work you’d be completely and totally happy with it.

Want to be even happier? Put the Mustang on a fast back road, such as the ones we used to separate the wheat from the chaff this year at PCOTY, and it comes alive like Peter Frampton clutching a triple-pickup Les Paul. All of a sudden the pony shrinks around you and it becomes possible to hustle it like it was an E36 BMW. The feedback through the steering, brakes, and shifter is just right, a testament to Ford’s willingness to steadily refine this platform and its component parts over the course of a decade. It could use more brakes, but that’s par for the course in a sub-$50,000 performance car. For a quick blast, however, they’re enough and you can trust the status reports you receive from the middle pedal.

In the context of a challenging two-lane, the Coyote motor’s wide rev range and low inertia becomes electrifying, allowing you to hold it against the 7000-rpm redline all the way to the next corner. Meanwhile the chassis is working with you in a way that you’d expect from an Euro sports sedan, allowing the rear to slide and the weight to shift but never letting things get too out of hand. Want to kick the tail out around a hairpin? The engine can do it and the chassis can catch it. Want to hit a complex series of off-camber turns and zero-gravity hills? No car of this sheer size and bulk has ever been this confidence-inspiring.

Suddenly, the Mustang can do things it could never do before. Yet the core competencies of the brand and the platform remain stronger than ever. It can still haul ass in a straight line, it can still turn heads at a cruise-in, it can still serve as a trustworthy companion across the Interstates. None of that’s changed. The changes are all in the things the Mustang didn’t like to do: handle narrow roads, fast roads, sharp hairpins, broken pavement.

In other words, Happy learned to putt.

The result is the best ponycar in history and a real challenge to the established German performance sedans. Think of it as a bigger, brasher, bolder E92 M3 and you’ll be on the right track. Should it have been PCOTY? Plenty of our staffers thought so. After all, the new GT3 is great, but how much greater is it than the old one? Put this 2015 Mustang GT on the PCOTY loop with the old model, though, and you’d see a Grand Canyon separating the two.

When the votes were tallied, the Porsche had it hands down. But at the end of that day, as we packed up our gear and prepared to leave the airport, there was a sprint for the Mustang’s door handle. Yes, the 911 GT3 is our PCOTY, and it richly deserves the honor. But there’s always a minority report.

http://www.roadandtrack.com/voices/minority-report-should-the-2015-mustang-gt-have-been-pcoty

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The rules of the game are simple: To be eligible, a car must be new for this year or feature significant functional changes. An example of the former: Alfa Romeo's 4C, arriving on these shores for the first time. An example of the latter: the you-can-call-it-a-Dodge-again Viper SRT TA, with a revised aero package and engine tuning. Cars that do not meet either criterion are not welcome, not even if it is last year's winner, the 2014 Corvette Z51. There's no champion's provisional.

Fourteen cars were invited to our challenge, ranging from the $34,005 sensible-shoes Volkswagen GTI to the $336,120 Ferrari 458 Speciale. Every one of them someone's dream car, every one outstanding in at least one empirical measure, every one special and exciting to drive. But that isn't enough to win PCOTY. That's just your buy-in. To win, a car has to deliver on every level. It has to shine on the road and shimmer around the Motown Mile, R&T'sprivate airport test track. It has to flatter the novice driver while challenging the experienced racer. It has to offer value for money, regardless of the MSRP.

Most of all, however, the PCOTY winner has to be the look-back car. The car you want to drive again, even with 13 other brilliant automobiles surrounding it. The one that you truly want, the one you'd go into debt for. In other words, the one. And like the man said, there can be only one. So let's go.

When Executive Editor Sam Smith pulls up in the Ford Mustang GT, he's grinning like the canary-swallowing cat. "I don't want to say anything, don't want to influence you, but—" Hush, Smith! Let me try it for myself. Okay, the 32-valve Coyote V8 is as brilliant as it ever was, but when the road starts twisting and falling beneath the Mustang's wheels, the car reveals a depth of competence and personality its predecessors didn't know was possible. The damping: brilliant, letting the chassis move in a way that rewards and demonstrates enthusiasm without ever getting out of hand. The steering feel: leagues better than what pony cars traditionally have, capable of communicating minute differences in available grip without kickback or grittiness. It's BMW steering, the kind you don't get in a BMW anymore.

Even the brakes are reasonable, halting the GT without much drama or pedal fade. All the parts here are good, and their sum is even better. The Ford shrinks around the driver at speed. But not everyone is convinced. "Big, bouncy, truckish gearbox," says Senior Editor Josh Condon. "Feels like the old one," Editor-in-Chief Larry Webster notes, in a way that indicates it's not a compliment.


FINALISTS

Two days, hundreds of laps, and more than a few shattered preconceptions. It doesn't come easy, but after a series of arguments that verge on personal and heated, the staff has settled on three favorites.

We also singled out the Mustang GT Coupe Premium. It's okay to believe the hype about this nearly perfected pony. It's not just the best American two-plus-two in history, it's a credible rival to the high-power European competition that sells for two or three times the price. On a back road, it's accessible and thrilling for every level of driver. Like last year's winner, the seventh-generation Corvette, it redefines what's possible at a relatively affordable price. Every sub-$50,000 car on the market will have to answer to the Ford from now on, no matter what badge it brings to the table.

The problem, if there is one, is that this Mustang doesn't fully exploit the potential on-track brilliance of the model's new platform. That will come next year, with the flat-crank, harder-than-hard-core GT350. We're expecting great things from that car. But for now, the Mustang remains more "road" than "track."


http://www.roadandtrack.com/features/magazine/2015-road-and-track-performance-car-of-the-year

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Todd15Fastback said:

Damn...beat me to it!

Yes!! The Mustang made it to the final 3 with a 458 Speciale and Porsche 911 GT3.

Not bad for a Domestic car, huh? KUDOS TO FORD!!!

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KARR_956 said:

:ford:
No gripes at all that the GT3 was chosen, though!

Taking into consideration, that it is less than half of the cost of the GT3, shows that Ford hit it out of the park.

3 years ago, if I was told that the Mustang would have its performance compared to a Ferrari and a Porsche, I would have put you in the looney bin xD

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Todd15Fastback said:

LOL!!! I agree. Ford did a great job with this car. Proud to have one on order with a VIN that will be built in the next 2 weeks:love:

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KARR_956 said:

:ford:
No gripes at all that the GT3 was chosen, though!

Taking into consideration, that it is less than half of the cost of the GT3, shows that Ford hit it out of the park.

3 years ago, if I was told that the Mustang would have its performance compared to a Ferrari and a Porsche, I would have put you in the looney bin xD

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1320' said:

Clearly this was in an alternate dimension since everyone knows the Z/28 is unbeatable and is in fact a product of miracles.

This is the part where the Bowties are going to write off R/T as being "just a second rate rag" or whatever

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OppoLock said:

Dat 2D crankshaft "flat crank."

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1320' said:

Clearly this was in an alternate dimension since everyone knows the Z/28 is unbeatable and is in fact a product of miracles.

This is the part where the Bowties are going to write off R/T as being "just a second rate rag" or whatever

Click to expand...