Q&A with Dave Pericak

[stable68]

Let me chime in here since I feel it behooves me to say this. Earlier last year we were told by someone we deem to be very trustworthy that the new Mustang actually gained a little weight, which of course conflicts with the other info just posted.

Now, before you get too worked up, keep in mind this was last year before all production parts were completely finalized let alone available for weighing; you can be sure Ford has been hard at work. What this should tell you is that many people have been guessing at a moving target. It should also tell you that any potential weight loss would not be monumental. If you are still expecting 200+ pounds trim for trim, you may end up disappointed. Take comfort that whichever way the scale tips, we have been told emphatically by people who have driven the car that the driving dynamics are vastly improved.

Completely agree with this. Im sure the car will end up just a tad lighter, but the car doesnt have to be light to be fast or handle well. I hate to say it but the Z/28 proves this as it is a heavy car but handles extremely well. Weight distribution and suspension balance play a great role in the handleing of the car. This new mustang looks to take weight out of the front end and add a little in the rear which should help it get closer to the 50/50 mark.

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[Rickycardo]

Personally I hope you all believe the new Mustang will be inferior and then none of you will buy one and they'll all be mine!!!! :headbonk:
Seriously, I want what the new design has to offer and I can live knowing it's not the fastest car on the street.

 

[S550guy]

Personally I hope you all believe the new Mustang will be inferior and then none of you will buy one and they'll all be mine!!!! :headbonk:
Seriously, I want what the new design has to offer and I can live knowing it's not the fastest car on the street.

This. I was surprised by the amount of doubt on this thread. As well as the amount of people who broke down what they thought they knew based on a few pictures and a lot of speculation. Do you all not trust the mustang team? as in, do you not think the mustang development team took everything into consideration?

Can't wait to purchase my S550!!!!!

 

[Whiskey11]

Completely agree with this. Im sure the car will end up just a tad lighter, but the car doesnt have to be light to be fast or handle well. I hate to say it but the Z/28 proves this as it is a heavy car but handles extremely well. Weight distribution and suspension balance play a great role in the handleing of the car. This new mustang looks to take weight out of the front end and add a little in the rear which should help it get closer to the 50/50 mark.

Do not confuse handling prowess with track times. You'd be surprised what a set of decent tires, decent springs and decent dampers (shocks/struts) will do to a car like the Camaro, but it does not make it a good handling car. Case and point, take a Mazda Miata, it has slow lap times, argue to me that it is a poor handling car. Go ahead, try it! There isn't a single shred of evidence to support that any of the Miatas are poor handling cars. There is a lot of evidence supporting that they are slow around x, y, or z racetracks but no one would call the car a poor handler.

Contrast that with the Z/28 which is some multiplier more expensive and runs impressive lap times around Ze Nurburgring Nordschleife. Describing that car's handling relative to say a Miata or even the new BRZ/FRS or a Corvette ZR1 or a Porsche 911. Sure it will run faster times than most of those cars on any number of tracks, but WHY? Well, power, for one, tires for two, good springs and dampers for three and four. The car isn't lightweight and will most likely handle like it is heavy (as most heavy cars do), the outward visibility blows, and I've heard less than stellar things about the new Camaro's steering being vague and numb.

If you REALLY want to test how a car HANDLES then you need to start looking at autocross where power is not an advantage, where mechanical grip and transitional response are paramount and where driver feel is required to really dance a car on the limit. Even the S197, a very forgiving car and an easy car to drive hard and at the limit, isn't what I'd consider a good handler. It's fast, and can get some good lap times, but it has a number of flaws that hold it back.

What am I getting at? Well, weight is one of those factors. There are very few good handling cars that weigh in excess of 3400lbs. Corvettes, some Porsches and Supercars probably fit into that zone. Giving me a lighter weight car gives me a much more nimble chassis to work from, less body roll, less consumable wear, better overall grip, quicker braking, etc. The ultimate performance level is higher on a lighter car too, meaning I can mod a lighter car to be faster than a car that starts out heavier.

Ford has a lot to GAIN from going to a significantly lighter car and most of them come in those pesky "numbers" that magazines always harp about, slalom times, 0-60, quarter mile times, 60-0, figure 8 times, time on x, y, z track, and the big one: fuel economy. A lighter Mustang is a huge advantage and I don't think the changes they talk about making are going to really make it significantly faster if it is also heavier.

Finally, the Camaro is dropping weight, supposedly, in the next generation, Ford would be stupid to have that weight (literally) hanging from the Mustang's sales figure. Like the Live Axle thing, reading a Camaro review will almost always bring up the crappy outward visibility and the heft in how the car drives.

 

[Trackaholic]

The next Camaro will be interesting. I'm not a huge fan of the current one due to weight and styling, but I drove a friend's 1LE and it was a surprisingly nice car, and darn quick on the track. He says it is very easy to drive fast and the balance is quite good (although the weight is an issue).

The next Camaro will be based on the ATS platform. The ATS currently weights in at 3461 with the V6 according to Cadillac's website. I would imagine that certain parts of the Camaro would be heavier to handle the available V8. So, maybe the next Camaro will be 3500 lbs (Keep in mind that the Vette is about 3400 lbs with the Z51 package).

IMO, the Camaro and Mustang will be much more evenly matched next generation, with the Mustang gaining an IRS, and the Camaro losing weight. Both will have great engines, with the Camaro having the edge on the low end, and likely more HP. I'm guessing the Mustang will be a bit down due to the smaller displacement and lack of DI. 440 for the Mustang and 445 for the Camaro. The ATS is said to have one the best chassis in its segment, and the Camaro will benefit from a couple years of extra tuning, so it will probably be a very good car.

But, the Boss 302 was always considered an excellent drivers car, and if the new GT has better handling due to the improved suspension, it should be able to hold its own.

I think both companies will have outstanding cars over the next few years.

-T

 

[nametoshowothers]

Do not confuse handling prowess with track times. You'd be surprised what a set of decent tires, decent springs and decent dampers (shocks/struts) will do to a car like the Camaro, but it does not make it a good handling car. Case and point, take a Mazda Miata, it has slow lap times, argue to me that it is a poor handling car. Go ahead, try it! There isn't a single shred of evidence to support that any of the Miatas are poor handling cars. There is a lot of evidence supporting that they are slow around x, y, or z racetracks but no one would call the car a poor handler.

Contrast that with the Z/28 which is some multiplier more expensive and runs impressive lap times around Ze Nurburgring Nordschleife. Describing that car's handling relative to say a Miata or even the new BRZ/FRS or a Corvette ZR1 or a Porsche 911. Sure it will run faster times than most of those cars on any number of tracks, but WHY? Well, power, for one, tires for two, good springs and dampers for three and four. The car isn't lightweight and will most likely handle like it is heavy (as most heavy cars do), the outward visibility blows, and I've heard less than stellar things about the new Camaro's steering being vague and numb.

If you REALLY want to test how a car HANDLES then you need to start looking at autocross where power is not an advantage, where mechanical grip and transitional response are paramount and where driver feel is required to really dance a car on the limit. Even the S197, a very forgiving car and an easy car to drive hard and at the limit, isn't what I'd consider a good handler. It's fast, and can get some good lap times, but it has a number of flaws that hold it back.

What am I getting at? Well, weight is one of those factors. There are very few good handling cars that weigh in excess of 3400lbs. Corvettes, some Porsches and Supercars probably fit into that zone. Giving me a lighter weight car gives me a much more nimble chassis to work from, less body roll, less consumable wear, better overall grip, quicker braking, etc. The ultimate performance level is higher on a lighter car too, meaning I can mod a lighter car to be faster than a car that starts out heavier.

Ford has a lot to GAIN from going to a significantly lighter car and most of them come in those pesky "numbers" that magazines always harp about, slalom times, 0-60, quarter mile times, 60-0, figure 8 times, time on x, y, z track, and the big one: fuel economy. A lighter Mustang is a huge advantage and I don't think the changes they talk about making are going to really make it significantly faster if it is also heavier.

Finally, the Camaro is dropping weight, supposedly, in the next generation, Ford would be stupid to have that weight (literally) hanging from the Mustang's sales figure. Like the Live Axle thing, reading a Camaro review will almost always bring up the crappy outward visibility and the heft in how the car drives.

Agree with what you said in general, but a car that handles well in auto cross, does not necessarily handle as well on high speed road courses and vice versa. So if you want to see if a car handles well you need to first define the course at which to measure against. Bigger, wider is better for big high speed courses (to a point) and vice versa. In general all weight is bad as you said, but it shows up worse in autocross.

 

[Taneras]

Agree with what you said in general, but a car that handles well in auto cross, does not necessarily handle as well on high speed road courses and vice versa. So if you want to see if a car handles well you need to first define the course at which to measure against. Bigger, wider is better for big high speed courses (to a point) and vice versa. In general all weight is bad as you said, but it shows up worse in autocross.

Very true, the smaller, tighter, and lower speed a course is, the more it'll favor light weight low power cars.

Those same cars won't do as well on larger tracks with wider turns and straight-a-ways.

Different cars do better at different tracks.

I'd imagine if you made a track tight enough I, or perhaps a conditioned athelete, could outrun a Miata on foot...

 

[Whiskey11]

Agree with what you said in general, but a car that handles well in auto cross, does not necessarily handle as well on high speed road courses and vice versa. So if you want to see if a car handles well you need to first define the course at which to measure against. Bigger, wider is better for big high speed courses (to a point) and vice versa. In general all weight is bad as you said, but it shows up worse in autocross.

Actually, I think you need to first define what handling is rather than define the course it is being done on. A Miata handles well because it has good suspension geometry, reasonably good spring rates, reasonably good dampers, light weight, usable power, RWD and good balance at the limit. Just because it isn't fast on the Nurburgring does not make the car any worse for handling, it just means it isn't fast on big open courses. Not that the Miata is slow on a roadcourse either, just that it is slower than a stock Mustang is because it's down on power. Really though there isn't a better car for driver feel, transitional response, and overall handling prowess. Even on narrow tires it still has pretty high lateral g capabilities while still being stable in high speed events.

As for your comment about road courses vs autocross and one not handling well on the other, that isn't entirely true. The car setups are different enough to be distinct but not so different that an autocross car can't do well on a roadcourse. It will probably be a touch loose but being loose isn't always a bad thing. By contrast, a well setup and prepped roadcourse car will probably have trouble in the quick transitions and tighter corners because the car is setup only as loose as necessary to allow the car to get around the most important corners the quickest. If anything I feel that autocross will play to the handling characteristics of a car more than a roadcourse will because it focuses on the things that define good handling cars like quick transitions, body roll characteristics, lateral G's, etc. Does it benefit lighter and narrower cars? Yes it does because those cars can navigate smaller gates quicker (less pucker moments!) but a lighter car will always make use of it's tires better and a narrower car, while less stable in high speed, if wide enough to still be stable will always have less distance to make a straighter line and use the power it has on a roadcourse.

This again brings me back to the Miata vs Mustang GT argument, or BRZ vs Mustang V6 argument. The Mustang will have the faster lap times on a roadcourse, but neither in stock trim without the track pack or Boss packages would be considered "good handling" cars out of the box. Decent, yes, good in comparison to the competition, no. By contrast the BRZ and Miata will run lower lap times but are better handling cars.

 

[nametoshowothers]

Actually, I think you need to first define what handling is rather than define the course it is being done on. A Miata handles well because it has good suspension geometry, reasonably good spring rates, reasonably good dampers, light weight, usable power, RWD and good balance at the limit. Just because it isn't fast on the Nurburgring does not make the car any worse for handling, it just means it isn't fast on big open courses. Not that the Miata is slow on a roadcourse either, just that it is slower than a stock Mustang is because it's down on power. Really though there isn't a better car for driver feel, transitional response, and overall handling prowess. Even on narrow tires it still has pretty high lateral g capabilities while still being stable in high speed events.

As for your comment about road courses vs autocross and one not handling well on the other, that isn't entirely true. The car setups are different enough to be distinct but not so different that an autocross car can't do well on a roadcourse. It will probably be a touch loose but being loose isn't always a bad thing. By contrast, a well setup and prepped roadcourse car will probably have trouble in the quick transitions and tighter corners because the car is setup only as loose as necessary to allow the car to get around the most important corners the quickest. If anything I feel that autocross will play to the handling characteristics of a car more than a roadcourse will because it focuses on the things that define good handling cars like quick transitions, body roll characteristics, lateral G's, etc. Does it benefit lighter and narrower cars? Yes it does because those cars can navigate smaller gates quicker (less pucker moments!) but a lighter car will always make use of it's tires better and a narrower car, while less stable in high speed, if wide enough to still be stable will always have less distance to make a straighter line and use the power it has on a roadcourse.

This again brings me back to the Miata vs Mustang GT argument, or BRZ vs Mustang V6 argument. The Mustang will have the faster lap times on a roadcourse, but neither in stock trim without the track pack or Boss packages would be considered "good handling" cars out of the box. Decent, yes, good in comparison to the competition, no. By contrast the BRZ and Miata will run lower lap times but are better handling cars.

You did make my point, handling is down to definition, and the purpose. Therefore, your opinion is 100% correct for you definition! but not necessarily for my definition or expectations. Not sure I am that impressed with a brz. But I would definitely trust your advice for autocross as this is not something I have often done

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