Am I Trading my 2014 Shelby for a 2020 Shelby GT500?

So the new 2020 Shelby GT500 has been announced and it’s coming with 700+ horsepower as we’ve all heard.  So many people have been asking me, “Chad, are you going to trade in your ’14 GT500 for the new hotness?” The answer is pretty easy.  No.  My 2014 GT500 taught me a lot about high speed, high horsepower cars. 

One is that cars are no fun if you can’t connect that power to the road.  Having a car that constanstantly smoke the tires sounds awesome until you realize that’s about all they can do.  My GT500 with its 662hp can roast a set of tires in multiple gears but it’s hard as hell to launch.  So when you’re lined up next to someone you really have to count on the supercharger to pull you out of the hole because you most likely aren’t going to win the launch.

So what if the 2020 GT500 has amazing launch control?  Then would I get one?  Still no.  My current GT500 is freakin’ fast .  It claims 0 – 60 in 3.5 sec, a quarter-mile in 11.7 seconds, and a top speed of 200 mph.  None of that can be experienced when I pull it out of the garage on a sunny day.  Mainly I just experience the excruciating frustration of sitting in bumper to bumper traffic with very few openings to actually enjoy what the car was built to do.  Certainly there could be track days I suppose but the closest drag strip is over two hours away and requires driving across Toronto.

My 2014 Shelby GT500 is a really cool car with incredible abilities that I never get a chance to use.  It mainly sits in the garage which is exactly what the 2020 GT500 would do if I bought it.  There was a time I really craved having the highest horsepower machine I could buy.  I was drooling for it, but then I got it and it was all a bit of a letdown.  On the other hand my 2017 Focus RS is an absolute blast and a car I can have a lot of fun with no matter where I’m driving it.

So I’ve kind of learned my lesson.  I’m sure the 2020 GT500 is going to be incredible, it certainly sounds incredible but I’m going to let it pass.  I’ll still be interested what others think of it though.

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.

2017 Ford Focus RS 24hr Feedback

Yesterday I picked up my Stealth Gray Focus RS from Barrie Ford in Barrie Ontario.  Like most dealerships they don't allow test drives so I bought the car from what I saw in reviews.  Therefore the first drive I had was taking the car home after I bought it.  This was not really a situation I was comfortable with.  I bought the car to be an all season daily driver, my commuter car.  But also I wanted it to be fun.

Driving the car out of the dealership and onto the road I was just getting to know the clutch which sort of engaged at a weird position but that wasn't a big deal.  Very quickly we turned onto the highway and I gave it some gas.  I must say I was pretty disappointed in the power.  I expected a huge kick in the pants and it really wasn't there.  Certainly it had some power but I wanted to hear and feel the turbo and if there wasn't a boost gauge I don't think I would even know it had a turbo.  Playing with it on the highway I really didn't get the big grin from the car I was hoping for.

To be fair I don't know that I can properly report on the power.  My other car is the 662 hp Shelby GT500.  I recently took that car out of winter storage to gas it up and put air in the tires and the power is still shocking to me.  After you get out you are shaking for several minutes and have to calm down. It's not fair to compare the RS to the GT500 but it's hard for me not to.  So I drove home and didn't really play with the car much other than setting up the stereo and nav settings.  I was a little bummed out.

The next day my girlfriend had to go to a party leaving me home for most of the day.  It was cold, cloudy, and wet but I decided to take the RS out and get to know it more.  So I found a few curvy roads and gave it some real juice.  This is where the car really shined.  Even with damp, sandy, wet roads the RS would take the corners as fast as you had the balls to take them.  Definitely at speeds I wouldn't dream of taking the GT500 into a corner.  I was having a blast!  And that was on winter tires.

It could be a coincidence but after switching to sport mode and driving around my area enjoying the pops from the exhaust I saw a cop.  Then after about a half hour I saw two cops together cruising the area.  I started wondering if the noise was generating police calls so I switched back to normal.

Monday I will start my commuting with the car which is sure to add to my opinions of the car.  As of right now I don't have any regrets and look forward to getting more acquainted with the RS.  The power may have been a disappointment but that's not really what this car is truly about.  At it's heart I think it wants to be a rally/track car which for me is an excitingly new kind of fun that I want to play with.

But you know that since I went ahead and purchased my RS that means next generation is going to be the more powerful RS500.  It just always happens like this.  Perhaps next weekend I'll write another review after my week of commuting.

I Purchased a 2017 Focus RS......I think.

Last week I decided to trade in my '07 Hummer H3 for something a little better as a daily driver.  The less practical genes in me made the decision to get a Focus RS.  So I went down to a local dealer to see what they'd give me for the H3.

I wanted to get $8000 for the Hummer but due to an exhaust leak it had at the manifold they said they could only give me $5000.  I agreed however and said I wanted wanted the RS in Stealth Gray, they only had access to the blue.  I'm a little past the "boy racer" age so I passed and decided to look at other dealerships.

Calling a dealership in Barrie they said they could definitely get me gray.  I went to see them and they also determined the same trade price for the Hummer, oh well.  They also didn't have a Stealth Gray on the lot however they said they can get it and we signed the papers.

Now trying to be a clever person I had kept my insurance policy in the States when I moved to Canada.  At the time not only was this a cheaper rate but Allstate US and Allstate Canada don't talk to each other so when I would get speeding tickets in Canada my US insurance would never hear about it.  It was perfect.  They even allowed me to put my Shelby on the policy which was a Canadian car registered in Ontario.  I'm not exactly sure how they did that but I was cool with it.  But all good things must come to an end and when I asked to add the Focus to the policy as well it seems I "shook the monkey tree." They started asking why I was getting the car, how long was I going to be staying in Canada, where was my US residence in the States?  The jig was up and they dumped me.  So I needed to find insurance in Canada.  Fortunately my girlfriend's insurance had added me as a secondary driver so it wasn't hard to get my own policy but poking into my record of tickets getting a good rate could be a challenge.  Currently they are still investigating and haven't come to a decision.  If I can't get proof of insurance I can't pickup the RS.

In the meantime the dealer kind of sold me a car that didn't exist.  I don't think they did it in purpose but while they were selling the me Stealth Gray RS the dealer that actually had it was also selling it.  So the bill of sale was written up on a car that was sold to someone else.  Not they need to find me another gray RS if they can.

So right now I'm waiting to hear if I have insurance and also if I even have a car.  Maybe I should have gone with the VW Golf R like I had originally thought.