S550guy
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UPDATED 11/9/15: WINNER!
http://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/a27194/road-track-2016-performance-car-of-the-year/
http://www.roadandtrack.com/car-cul...cars-will-be-our-performance-car-of-the-year/
Mods, move this to the 'reviews' thread if need be
:ford:
http://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/a27194/road-track-2016-performance-car-of-the-year/
After lunch, it's a Le Mans start from the restaurant booth, so I do the natural thing and run to the Ford. This Mustang is very much the track variant, squatting on suspiciously sticky rubber and what looks like three degrees of negative front camber. After the frenzied Ferrari, I'm hoping to catch my breath, to relax a bit behind the family-sedan-sized wheel of a nice, friendly big grand tourer. The clutch is comically light, like it's sourced from a Fiesta. That's good. But from the moment I start the engine ā¦
Let me explain. The only way the team at Ford Performance could get 526 hp from 5.2 litersāthe fabled 100 hp per liter and then someāwas to reengineer the whole thing into a bit of an insane race motor. Flat-plane crankshaft. So I open the throttle, following Webster in his beloved Ferrari up a series of sharp hillside hairpins that seem designed to test second-gear acceleration and broken-asphalt traction at the same time, and the moment the tach hits about five grand, I hear The Sound.
I firmly believe that when human civilization finally collapses and our descendants are nothing but hipster-bearded cavemen on a quest for fire, stories of The Sound will still be told every night, to frighten children and preserve all that is worth preserving of Western civilization. From generation to generation. "What an engine! What a noise!" says Chilton, in much the same way that human beings will ten, twenty, fifty thousand years from now.
THE WINNER
AROUND NCM MOTORSPORTS PARK, the Ford Shelby GT350R feels very nearly as special as the Viper ACR. It has the same single-minded focus on high-speed balance and usable performance, and if it sometimes feels a bit like a taxicab compared with the Viper, it makes up for that with a simply magical V-8 that brings the caviar thrills of 8250-rpm performance to a beer-and-burgers demographic. If you could summon some sort of Lovecraftian dark magic to combine the best parts of the other seven cars in this testāthe Bentley's on-road poise, the Cadillac's vivacious chassis, the Merc's bluff-nosed retro charm, the Cayman's accessible limits, the Ferrari's auditory drama, the Corvette's wide-hipped machismo, and the Viper's sense of purposeāthen what would appear in the swirling mists would be, not Cthulhu the Great Old One, but Shelby the Baddest Mustang. Our winner by a runaway vote, the Ford Mustang Shelby GT350R is, quite deservedly, the Road & Track 2016 Performance Car of the Year.
http://www.roadandtrack.com/car-cul...cars-will-be-our-performance-car-of-the-year/
Mods, move this to the 'reviews' thread if need be
:ford:
One of These Eight Cars Will Be Our 2016 Performance Car of the Year
It's that time of the year again. We're spending this week on the roads of rural Kentucky and Tennessee, as well as two days at the National Corvette Museum's race track, to decide which of these eight cars will be crowned R&T's performance car of the year.
In order to pick the eight, we had to be pretty picky. The cars had to be significantly updated versus the year before (so no BMW M3, no Alfa 4C, no Nissan GT-R), and they also had to be at the top of the performance bracket, which means that even though it pains us so, cars like the Mazda Miata had to be left behind.
Now, you might be saying to yourself, where's the Lamborghini Huracan and McLaren 675LT? Unfortunately, those brands declined to participate in our test.
After much hemming and hawing, we got the long list of cars down to just eight. In no particular order, here are the contenders:
Mercedes-AMG GT S
The newest sports car from Mercedes has a turbo V8 good for 510 horsepower, a sweet shifting gearbox, and some of the best looks on the road.
Porsche Cayman GT4
It was a tough choice between this or the 911 GT3 RS, but we ended up going for the GT4 since it's the first time Porsche has even gotten close to allowing the Cayman to realize its full potential.
Ferrari 488 GTB
Ferrari's first turbocharged mid-engine car in 30ish years demanded our attention. And with 670 horsepower, a full 70 over the spectacular 458 Speciale that we tested last year, it promises to be quite the hoot. But will turbocharging ruin that Ferrari magic or make it even better?
Ford Mustang GT350R
How could we not include Ford's track special Mustang? With a 526 HP, 429 lb. ft 5.2 liter V8 with a FLAT PLANE CRANK that is linked only to a manual gearbox, magnetic ride suspension, sticky Michelin rubber, and carbon fiber wheels, it has all the ingredients we need.
Dodge Viper ACR
Yes, we tested the Viper T/A last year, but we felt like the ACR deserved to come to see just how good it is. There is no street car with a more aggressive aero setup than the ACR, but can its astounding track performance convert to road excellence?
Bentley Continental GT3R
Sort of an odd ball, the GT3R is a Continental GT V8 with weight taken out by the barrel full. It has a full dose of carbon fiber everywhere you look and the VW Groups monster of a V8. Dark horse pick?
Chevrolet Corvette Z06
The Z06 should need no introduction. A supercharged V8 with 650 horsepower and 650 pound feet of torque make it basically a supercar. And it's no stranger to victory lane, the Corvette won our competition in 2014.
Cadillac ATS-V
Finally, Cadillac has a BMW M3 competitor. It has a superb chassis underneath, but the laggy powertrain has gotten some flack from us, though it is pretty damn fun on the track. No, it doesn't have the downright pace of any of the other cars, but it might just be fun enough to make a name for itself.
Our full results won't be out for a little while, but check out our Instagram for all the photos you could possibly want from this week's activities.
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:ford: