[eolson]

Being a person that had to build the performance into my October of 2005 delivery of my 06' Mustang GT, because there was no other fantastic high performance sport coupes around. Corvette was beautiful but only had two seats, and the Pontiac GTO which was being phased out, and the Dodge Charger SRT models were really not very agile.

I'm proud of the fact I fit my car out with much more power, and a lot better suspension with good chassis stiffening, better breaks. Car was a blast to drive all fit out.

Problem is, all the magazines do is hype factory cars, which they must do, but there is rarely road course track times or slalom times, or figure eight lateral G ratings, for popular cars that have been fit out with better equipment. Why hasn't Steeda, put all there stuff plus some other stuff on a Mustang and said "here's what a car does fit out properly with our stuff"

With the new cars being fit out so well with their track pack options, and all this new technology, it's hard to remember you can actually improve a car's handling a good deal for not that much money. The problem is there is no equivalent after market testing to actually convey recorded improvements.

Most of the suspension improvements on the New Mustangs came from aftermarket deigns with technology sharing that proved to increase performance.

To end my rant, I'm just tired of seeing the same 5 magazines control information on performance as if what happens on giant release factory cars is the only thing to test and verify better performance. Which is bull. The magazines should at least invite to testing a few independents, who could demonstrate real gains through improved items This happens with Horse Power and in Drag racing, but how often do you see a car with a changed out suspension, weight loss, and chassis stiffening compared to the factory model. Ever?

So we'll wait some more before all 5 magazines and all the car companies decide on how they agree to spin these cars and there comparisons and results, and then pretend that they just grabbed some drivers and went out and tested the hell out of these cars.

So now we'll see the same boring pattern for the comparison between the ZL1 and the GT500. They've all rehearsed their lines, and we'll hear" GT500 has more muscle, is more crude, harder to drive, don't like the interior, can't corner as good, isn't as refined" blah blah blah, and the ZL1 is slower in the 1/4, but it drives way smoother, it corners way better, it has a Rolls Royce interior, the PTA will like it better".

How about the truth" we didn't bother actually driving the GT500 through the road atlanta course for a time, or dare take the car to another road course and actually drive it to it's max against the record time for that course".

Now we'll wait until the media has rehearsed how we should think of these cars. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz z z z z z z z z z z z z z. Erik