Combining an oddly flat soundtrack with muscle car growl just doesn’t work as well as expected.
I have never been disappointed and got along with this car quickly. The Ford Mustang Shelby GT350R is a favorite with those who have owned one – I knew about its glowing reputation before reviewing an example for Cars & Bid. However, I’ve never had one, and unlike when the car was new, I went into this one with a clearer context.
Historically, we’re at the end of the road for cars like this as turbochargers and smaller electric motors continue to dominate the market. I returned from my home, immediately thinking about one thing – the GT350R is truly special. Without a doubt, what makes this car unique is the Voodoo naturally aspirated flat-plane crank V8 engine. Flat-plane engines are expensive to develop and they are typically reserved for small-displacement, high-power applications, which is why Ferrari typically only uses them.
The significant benefit of the flat-plane design is that due to the alternating combustion order from one blade to the other, exhaust flow is optimized, maximizing the engine’s fluid dynamics and supporting rapid recovery. its fast. The drawback is that these motors are more difficult to balance than their through-plane counterparts, resulting in more counterweights to compensate for corrections. Applying this design to a large capacity engine was an expensive engineering challenge, but Ford pulled it off with this car.
It’s essential to understand all of this because to see this level of engineering and R&D put into a Mustang underscores how serious Ford is about building something of historical significance. This car celebrates naturally aspirated engines, and honestly, it’s hard to believe they were willing to put resources into an engine that’s only used in two cars: the standard GT350 and the GT350R. But the notable additions to the GT350R don’t stop there.
Ford used the Treмec TR-3160 6-speed manual transmission as the sole transmission for this car, and that’s an important distinction. The standard Mustang GT is also available with a manual transmission, but it has a 6-speed Getrag transmission and is nowhere near as sweet as the Treмec. The gear changes are strong but crisp and perfectly match the personality of this car. I felt right at home and shifting gears was really satisfying. The rates also rate well for being fast and fun around town.
Ford’s MagneRide system is also excellent. Yes, the car is stiff; it is a sports car. So, the magnetically movable dampers give the suspension a lot of compliance. In general, I like to keep cars with adjustable suspension in “Normal” mode, but that makes me very confident in the car as a whole. Likewise, the chassis dynamics are truly excellent. I couldn’t really push this car into corners (because it’s not mine), but you can tell that the performance of this car is very high, certainly on par with the 991 GT3.
