Walk Away Insurance?

Hello everyone.  Well shit went down at my job. I was doing great for 8 years but decided to try a new role which did not work out for me and I was let go.  I should have stayed where I was.  Well lesson learned I guess.

Losing my job leaves me with a 2014 GT500 draining my remaining finances. Since my career of choice tends to be rather unstable at times, so I bought the GT500 with this possibility in mind.  I purchased what they called "Walk Away Insurance." I'm rather upset to be losing my Shelby but now that I have a need for the policy I've looked into the details.

First you need to prove two things.  One is that you were let go.  So a you must provide your exit paperwork.  The second is to prove you were let go legitimately and therefore are eligible for unemployment.  I suppose this shows that you lost your job for work reasons rather than for streaking naked or something that wouldn't allow you to qualify for unemployment.  Basically that you didn't so something on purpose to lose your job or get out of your car loan.

What my particular policy does is make your car payments for 12 months without affecting your credit score.  So far I'm unclear if this needs paid back.  One would assume no since it's insurance.  If after 12 months you still do not have a job then they take the vehicle, also without affecting your credit score.

On the one hand I'm a little relieved because I may possibly be able to save it once I find new employment however I'm thinking I should perhaps just sell the car.  This gets rid of my payment and takes it off my car insurance lowering that as well.  Also if my next job is outside of Canada which it easily could be I can't take the car with me anyway.

If you are living in Ontario and are interested in a low miles GT500 please leave a message below this post.

Driving This Summer

Now that my daily is a Focus RS and my “weekend” car is the Shelby GT500 the differences are HUGE!  This might seem obvious but it is clear that some cars are fun and others are serious.  The RS is quick, you can toss it around, floor it and listen to the pops.  It has a lot of helpers to keep you safe, it’s a fun car.  The Shelby on the other hand is serious.  If you plan on being frisky with it you can very quickly go from wheeeeeee to dead.

The best analogy I can think of is playing with a paintball gun and a real gun.  One you can run around laughing and popping it off while the other when you pull the trigger you better know what you’re doing or someone dies.

This is why I'm often considering selling the Shelby.  It's a car that you need to really get to know if you want to enjoy it but I just don't have the time and don't know the places to do it.  Little sad.

Finally Awoke the Shelby

This Sunday was finally a nice enough day to start getting ready for the summer car season.  So I took the opportunity to get the Shelby off the jacks stands and see where we're at.

The first thing was the battery was totally dead which sucked.  During the winter I noticed my trickle charger had dies and allowed the battery to croak.  But I went and bought a new one as well as let the car run for a solid hour but apparently that wasn't enough.  The new charger was working but the battery was still dead.  So I grabbed my portable jumper and got it running.That thing is the best purchase.  Saved me so many times.

Immediately the computer started telling me that the tire pressures were back.  Again the portable jumper to the rescue.  It has a compressor as well and I got the pressures up high enough to get it to the station.

After fiddling around with the jack I finally got it down on the ground and backed it out.  Everything seemed good but I needed to drive it to be sure.  So I took it to the station and filled up with air and fresh fuel.  Drove around for about an hour.  It was about 45 F so way too cold for those tires forcing me to be reserved and driving like an old man.

My old '07 Mustang GT would require that you set the idle if the battery went completely dead but this doesn't seem to be the case with the Shelby.  It all seemed just fine.  After I got back I let it sit a couple hours and then attempted to start it again and it popped to life right away.  So I might get away without buying a new battery.  I'm going to take the portable jumper with me for awhile just to be safe but it all seems fine so far.

The next nice weekend I'm going to swap the Focus RS winter tires to summer ones.

The 2019 Shelby GT500 is Coming They Say

So there’s going to be a new Shelby GT500 in 2019.  Ford is saying 700+ horsepower and some speculate it will be more like 750 hp.  Rumours have the engine as being a supercharged version of the 5.2L voodoo flat plane crank V8 but nothing has been confirmed.  Ford just promises it will be street legal.  Well I certainly hope so.  Hard to say who they are aiming for, the Dodge Hellcat or the Dodge Demon but looking at the horsepower numbers I would guess Hellcat.  Ford usually has a Cobra Jet version for drag racing.

As an owner of a 2014 GT500 I’m not thrilled about the news.  I was kind of hoping my model year would be the last since it would certainly help keep the 2014 value higher.  Mine is at least the last Shelby Carroll Shelby had input in which they can never take away.  My Shelby has 662 hp and it would take little more than a cold-air intake and tune to match numbers with the 2019 model.  Also my 5.8L while not a flat plane crank could certainly compete with the 5.2L without much trouble.  However my car has a solid rear axle with is not ideal compared to the 2019 independent rear suspension. 

I don’t really have any plans to purchase one.  That of course may change once the details and reviews start coming out but for right now I don’t see the point.  My ’14 Shelby is still quite a handful to master and I’m finding a car that spends 6 months out of the year sleeping in the garage is rather frustrating 

2017 Focus RS After 1500 Miles

The Ford Focus RS.  It’s the car on many people’s lips recently.  All over the internet there are reviews after reviews telling you it's the top “hyper hatch.”  Videos on YouTube show people astonished when they drive it, blown away by its power and amazing grip.  On the dark side it’s also a car that has been haunted by engine issues of leaking head gaskets and cracked blocks requiring complete engine replacements.  Word is this is a 2016 only problem and Ford has fixed it in 2017?  Is the Focus RS all that they say it is?  Well I bought one so here are my thoughts after owning it almost a month with about 1500 miles on the odometer.

I think to properly understand my views you first have to know where I’m coming from, automotively speaking.  I bought the Focus RS to replace my 2007 Hummer H3 daily driver which was awesome but was also costing me $520 a month in gas.  I could accept the gas cost as part of Hummer ownership but it started going down the road of having mechanical issues and after investing over $6000 in repairs and more on the way I decided that was enough.  I also own a 2014 Shelby GT500 which is a 662hp supercharged monster.  It’s my sunny day fun car. A few hard pulls in that will leave you shaking with excitement.

To replace the Hummer I wanted something sporty but AWD for winter.  Better mileage would be nice but not essential and realistically everything gets better mileage than a Hummer.  After lots of deliberation I decided to go with the 2017 Focus RS.  I decided the Golf R was too plain, the STI was too dated, and the Audi RS3 was out of my price range.  Here in Canada the most dealerships had a strict “no test drives” rule with Focus RS.  I would assume to prevent people stopping in for a joy ride.  So if you're interested in a purchase you just had to go for it and put the money down.  Kind of a smart move on Ford's part, it not only keeps people from beating their cars but a test drive could expose things you might not like.  This would have certainly been the case with me.  If I would have drove it I doubt I would have bought it.  Instead I totally trusted the YouTube vids and made my purchase.

I wanted the Stealth Gray color which took the dealer some time to locate but after about a week I went to pick it up.  They handed me the keys and I started it up expecting to be amazed.  Slowly I left the dealership lot and pulled onto the road and gave it some juice but nothing crazy.  As my girlfriend chattered away I felt a bit “meh.”  I would call it a peppy car but mind blowing it wasn’t.  In fact it was extremely civilized.  If there wasn’t a boost gauge I wouldn’t even know the turbo existed, no spooling sounds or blow off valves could be heard.  Driving home on the highway steering was very responsive and sharp.  The seats were uncomfortably tight for me but my petite girlfriend described them as comfy.  Since my she was in the car I didn’t try to do anything fun but I was a little disappointed.  I was thinking, “If I had test drove this, I wouldn’t have bought it.”

Later that weekend I was able to sneak away and go for a little drive alone.  I decided to blast down the curviest road in my area so I switched to sport mode and the car woke up a bit.  A 30 km corner I took at 80 km with no issues.  Every bend in the road the grip was there, even in the sandy roads of early April and still wearing winter tires.  This is what the car was made for, not acceleration but grip.  Seemingly endless grip.  I was beginning to lose my regret.

Later the next week as often happens in Canada we had a late snow storm dumping several inches of snow while I was at work.  The snow kept falling and I was pretty nervous at the thought of driving home.  This was the car I replaced my winter driver with.  Would it really be able to do the same job as the Hummer?  I was super cautious all the way home.  The roads were extremely slick and with the traffic of the commute I didn’t want to screw around.  But once I got away from the main roads I decided to see how it dealt with the road conditions so I took it down that curvy road.  The first thing I did was slammed on the brakes.  It stopped immediately.  The Hummer would slide forever due to its massive weight. That felt good.  Then in the corners I could feel the AWD system dealing with the snowy conditions encouraging me to go faster.  By the time I got home I was super happy with the car.  On snowy roads it was a superstar and gave excellent confidence.

Now after 1500 miles of daily driving back and forth to and from Toronto how does it hold up?  First of all the good things.  As expected the gas mileage is better than the H3.  I ended up getting an average of 21 or 22 mpg and that's a 50/50 mix of highway and city driving.  So that is good.  It’s peppy on the road which is great for a crowded city like Toronto when you need to rush to a hole in traffic.  The uncomfortable Recaro seats have broken in like a new pair of shoes which I can now describe as comfortable most of the time.  Many reviewers complain about the ride quality but I never found that to be an issue.  The Stealth Gray paint is doing exactly what I hoped it would do which is keeping the RS under the radar of the police and “boy racers” looking for a challenge.

What don’t I like?  Well the Sony stereo sucks.  I’m not a huge audio guy so I don’t require much, I mainly listen to metal so I just ask that it’s loud.  But the way this stereo is set up feels strange.  When I picked it up it felt like the audio balance was all towards the front of the car.  So I moved it back to center which dramatically lowered the volume.  I turned off that annoying auto volume system that raises and lowers the volume with the car speed and that seemed to lower the volume even more.  Fiddling with the settings in the driveway for quite some time I just can’t seem to get the stereo to be more of a rear speaker balance and also loud.  I also really don’t like the piped in engine noise through the speakers.  If you’re sitting in the car with the engine off there is a faint white noise hiss coming through them.  I’m planning on disabling the fake noise at some point.

Another thing I don’t like is the RPM ratio.  This could be because I’m use to my big 5.8L V8 in the Shelby but I expected that when I shifted into 6^th gear the RPMs would drop down to like 1500.  But when I’m keeping with traffic on the highway at about 120 km (70ish mph) the RPMs are at like 2500 to 3000.  That feels way too high for me.  I keep feeling I need to shift again.  Same goes when turning right or left onto a new road.  Normally you’d shift into 2^nd gear but with the RS it feels more like I need to be in 3^rd.  Shifting into second brings the revs way too high.

Overall I expected the RS to be more visceral.  I want to hear the turbo spool, I want to hear the blow off valve.  The pops and cracks from the exhaust are nice but since I know they are faked they don’t mean much to me.  My Shelby does pops too but it’s because it’s a bad ass car not faked.  Watching the people testing them online I was expecting to be amazed by the experience of driving it.  The grip is amazing without question, but I still find the acceleration to be kind of boring.  That being said it is great for the exact thing I bought it for, which is a daily commuter car.  Perhaps if I didn’t own the Shelby I would be more thrilled with the experience, however I am still thrilled to have the Focus RS as my daily.

Everything said and done it’s a fun all season commuter car.  I’m not blown away by it but also not upset I bought it.  The Focus RS is perfect for the position I wanted it to fill.  Combined with the Shelby I'd say I'm pretty spoiled.

Welcome to YouTube

American Motoring just started a YouTube channel.  So please feel free to follow us.  We'd appreciate it.  To start off the channel we posted a quick video or our 2014 GT500 Shelby Cobra starting up and backing out of a garage.  It's short but we hope you enjoy the sound of 662 hp.  American Motoring YouTube

662 HP Can Be Tricky

Yesterday I was playing with my Shelby at a stoplight and did a hard pull.  I got grip, shifted to second, got grip and then at about 70mph I lost grip and the tails started to come around.  It didn't become a crazy disaster because I lifted and it straightened right out, but this seems to be the common reason why GT500s end up tangled in the trees.  You really aren't expecting to lose grip once the tires have traction after the shift.  Just like the guy in the video below.  I didn't get as squirrely as this guy because I lifted but I can certainly see how things could get out of hand quickly.

I have a pretty solid respect for this car so I'm usually ready for anything when I'm giving it the beans but still it was pretty unnerving.  The Drive Channel listed the 2013 and 14 Shelby GT500 among the top 10 cars out there that is trying to kill you.  Perhaps more serious tires are in order.

2018 Ford Focus RS500 / The Grass is Always Greener

If you read my blog at all you know that last year I was going bonkers trying to get rid of my 07' Mustang GT and get anything with more power.  I was looking at GT500s, the new Mustang GT350s, Lotus, even old Panteras. But I settled on a 2014 GT500 Shelby Cobra.

I know they say the grass is always greener on the other side but almost immediately after finalizing the purchase I had buyer's remorse.  I wanted a badass monster and I got it but my gut was telling me, "You shouldn't do this."  What my gut said was trade in the Mustang GT and the Hummer H3 for a Ford Focus RS.  With all wheel drive it could be a fun everyday car that would be easier on gas and have lower monthly payments.  But no, I went for the beast that takes all the money and gas I can afford to shovel into it.

Now like with the Mustang GT350R Ford ups the options with the 2018 Focus RS500.  With an estimated 380hp it will be one mean little hatchback as the video below shows.

Now I'm not an asshole, I know I have a great car and I appreciate and respect it.  But now that the new wore off and my budget stabilized I really think I made the wrong choice.  So trade it you say?  Well the loan on the GT500 can be paid off at any time but that is of course including interest.  Right now the full loan is higher than the car's value.  Maybe once things level off it would be possible but not any time soon.  Live and learn I guess.  Next time listen to my gut more.

GT500 Postmortem: Buyer's Remorse?

I’ve owned several what I would consider to be nice cars.  They were all “every man” cars, nothing too exotic or fancy.  The Mustang is of course one of these, you can count several on almost any drive.  The GT500 is sort of a Mustang but then it isn’t one and purchasing the GT500 had some implications that I did not expect.  What I’m referring to is the way owning one shifted people’s views of me.

I have a group of “car guy” friends and we were all kind of in the same boat, tuning and upgrading what we have and dreaming of something better.  We could all relate to each other and shoot the shit about car culture and what was happening in it.  Then I bought the GT500 and I was kind of surprised to discover I’d been kicked out of the group.  Not literally of course but the attitudes of the guys I used to talk to certainly changed towards me.  Instead of being excited and encouraging about my purchase they had a bunch of jealousy and hatred.  Two people flat out told me they were jealous, another said they hoped I wrapped it around a tree, one said they wished they had my problems, and even my brother said, “I kind of hate you.”

I really never saw this coming.  It’s not like I bought a Ferrari or a Lamborghini, it’s basically just a Mustang with some extra juice.  If I had built my Mustang GT up to 662hp with a bunch for track goodies everyone would be fine with it.  But something about purchasing the Shelby gave people the attitude that I had obtained something that they cannot and therefore I’m an asshole.

Just to be clear I’m not wealthy.  I’m not rolling in cash and on a whim decided to drop a pile of cash on a play thing.  If anyone looked at my budget they would say I should not have purchased it.  I’m going to be paying a lot of money every month for a very long time.  But I made the decision that I wanted to have this and I made the sacrifice to have this huge burden on my budget. 

I’m a car guy, cars are my hobby and passion so I did what I felt I needed to do to make me happy.  I went from a car that I was extremely bored with and a car that really had nowhere to go in regards to tuning and upgrades, to a car with loads of possibilities.  Even in stock form I have so much to learn from it.  And from an investment standpoint it’s a car that could even pass on to my kids for them to sell or whatever.

If I could do it all over again I would not buy the GT500.  Normally I don’t give a crap about what people think or say but these were my buds.  I don’t want them thinking I’m some rich twat dropping bills on whatever I want.  It’s not like that at all.  So I asked the dealer if we could forget the whole thing and just switch it all back.  They were not responsive to this idea so I guess it's mine.

To Stripe or not to Stripe

My new GT500 hasn't even arrived yet and I've already been thinking of ways to make it more mine.  This is a little harder to do since it's a Shelby and modifications tend to lower the value rather than add to it.  So I think I want to stick with things that can be put back to stock if needed later.

2016 GT350R

One thing I really liked about the new GT350R vehicles is the red pinstripe following the racing stripes.  The R has the red and the regular GT350 has white.  This sounds like an easy modification. My GT500 already has the racing stripes to only the red pinstripes would be needed and then could be removed if in the future I even want to sell it.  They also make the car look like a black widow which I find pretty snazzy.

I'm unsure if this could cause any future problems such as paint fade becoming uneven in the area where the pinstripes were.  Maybe that could still affect the value?  Frankly I wouldn't remove it while I owned it so it would only be removed in the case of a future buyer not liking the look.

So I would love to hear opinions.  I know there are some black out purists out there that are crazy about black cars being all black but I'm not really one of those guys.  Do you think I shouldn't mimic the GT350R and just let the GT500 stand on it's own?  Personally I like it.  What are your thoughts?  Would you also do the GT500 side stripe with a red pin?  I think that might be too much.

Below I have created a quick and dirty Photoshop edit to compare the looks.

Black is the New Orange - Traded-in My 2007 Mustang GT

So it has finally happened.  After years of moaning and complaining that I wanted something else in my garage I finally made my choice.  I purchased a 2014 Mustang GT500 Shelby Cobra.

A couple weeks ago I narrowed down the choices between the 2014 GT500 and a 2016 GT350.  The GT500 was in Nova Scotia and the GT350 was being shipped from Ford to a dealer here locally.  Both were black which isn't a color I get excited about but both are damn hard to find so it's hard to be picky about the color.

2016 GT350

The GT350 is of course an awesome car and has all the hype around it this year.  Everyone wants one and I was lucky to have found one.  But a few things bothered me about it.  First the car had been ordered by a guy who ended up getting divorced and canceled his order.  So the car coming to the dealership wasn't something I would pick.  Like I said it was black, no stripes, and had the technology package rather than the track package.  Why someone would rather have the nav and fancy stereo than the extra cooling for racing I have no idea.  They had no others so I couldn't come for a test drive.  So I told them it wasn't really exciting me.  Then out of the blue they said a guy that had ordered an orange GT350 was thinking he'd rather have black so there was a chance he would want to switch.  Well I was all over that idea.  If he wanted the black one I would happily take the orange one.  But in the end he decided to stick with orange.  I gave the dealer another chance saying, "If the black one just had the GT350 stripes I'd want it."  But they either didn't take the hint or weren't interested in adding them because he said, "Well you can do that yourself later."  I looked up the cost of adding a stripe to the car and it was around $900.  So awesome car but no sale.  I called other dealerships, the best I could find was one dealer willing to take a deposit to order a 2017 GT350 when available.

2014 GT500

The GT500 was also black but does have matte black stripes which looks pretty mean.  It's also fast as hell with that 662 hp 5.8L.  This particular car only had 4000 miles (6000 km) so is basically new.  It has the track package but not the performance package.  Personally I'd rather have the extra cooling than the adjustable dampeners so I was fine with that. Carson Exports was willing to take my '07 as trade-in which would bring the car's price down to $63,000, not bad for a car selling for $68-69k here in Canada.  The biggest bummer was that the car was clear in Nova Scotia.  So I wasn't going to take it for a test drive or anything.  I had driven one locally last fall and really like it so I had an idea of how the car drove.  What really made my decision to get the GT500 was Carson Exports.  Such a great bunch of guys!  Really easy to talk to and very down to earth.  They even offered to ship the car and pick up my trade for free!  To be honest I was pretty wishy-washy at first on whether to get it or not and they were super patient with me.  No pressure.

In the end I had to just be realistic about it.  Both these cars are super expensive for my modest income.  Cars are my passion so I'm willing to have this expense on my budget.  But due to the extreme expense this is likely to be my last "fun car" purchase ever so I wanted it to be a good one.  The GT350 is a track car, it's slower 0-60 and slower 1/4 mile than the GT500.  The GT500 is a street brute and the GT350 is a driver's car.  But the question I had to honestly answer was would I really use the track capabilities of the GT350 or would I most likely just drive to work on sunny days and cruise around on the weekends?  The real answer was that the GT350 would be wasted on me.  Currently I haven't gone to a track day since I got to Canada and the few times I might go the GT500 would be loads of fun.  So I went with the GT500.

And another thing I had to admit is that if I owned a GT350 there would always be a little voice in the back of my mind reminding me that somewhere out there is a GT350R that is a lot better. ;)

So my GT500 should arrive in a few weeks.  It's going straight into storage until all this Canadian snow and salt is off the roads and gone.  Here are a few more dealer shots.

The Dream Is Dying

The guy that was selling the 2014 Mustang GT500 I wanted told me he was going to store it until spring before he listed it for sale again.  I was really hoping I would be able to find a buyer for my Mustang before spring so I could have first shot at it.  Just for the hell of it I thought I would take a look online and I see he has listed it again.  Apparently spring wasn’t soon enough for him and the car has been listed for the past 6 weeks.  I'm really disappointed.  I really had my mine set on this car.  Of course nobody has bought it yet but I assume it's just a matter of time.   

My Mustang being a car from the States has really screwed my ability to sell it off in Canada.  Realistically trading it would be the better option but I don't really want a new car.  

http://www.autotrader.ca/a/Ford/Mustang/MAPLE/Ontario/19_9022415_/?showcpo=ShowCPO&orup=2_15_3

Opinions Please!!

I am quite literally in the cusp of buying a 2014 Mustang GT500.  I have had several loan approvals for the $65,000 price tag being asked by this private seller.  Yesterday I went and test drove it.  The car was amazing and with only 6500 km (about 4000 miles) it is basically a new car.

So what's stopping me?  Well there are several things.  One is of course the fact that's it's a lot of money for a 2014 vehicle, even one with 662 horsepower.  I can make the payments well enough but right now I have no car payments and really like that.  Plus the loan officers look at me like I'm crazy.

The big question in my head is whether this Shelby will follow the trend of other Shelbys and
appreciate in value or am I buying a $65,000 car that will be $30,000 in a few years.  This model is the end of an era in the Mustang styling and the most powerful Mustang to be produced.  It's a factory car that can do 200 mph.  Certainly that is something that will hold value in years to come but if the 2017 GT500 has 700+hp will it cause my car's value to plummet?

Another thing is my 2007 Mustang GT sitting in the garage.  We don't have lots of space and you aren't allowed to park anything on the street longer than 3 hours even in front of your own house.  So what the hell am I going to do with two Mustangs?  Of course I need to sell the 07 but how long will that take?  Especially going into the winter months.

So what should I do?  Should I drop the hammer and purchase it or hold on?  The car is stunning in person and sounds amazing with the Borla exhaust added by the seller.  The interior is crap but that's not why you buy this car.  If you had $65,000 approved loan would you do it or go for something else?  Or do nothing at all?  The pictures here are of the car I intend to buy.