MY 19 GT350 vs any GT350R?

[Brian@BMVK]

While comfortably running to the grocery store.

Yes

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[Seven]

Let me know if it becomes serious.
I had another idea..... There are used Rs at dealerships all over. Why not go do a test drive?

I've gone to 4 different local dealers to drive a GT350, not even an R... Showed up with a 700+ hp Z06 and all of them are like "no we don't test drive those"
I ended up going to an Aston Martin/Alfa Romeo/Jaguar dealer who had a used 19+ ... They had no problem, but no twisty roads nearby.
I went to a boutique used dealer (one that has a 959, and an Enzo) and drove a Cayman GT4 without so much as a sales guy riding along.
The experience with Ford dealers really rubs me the wrong way at times.
No one local even has an R for sale, I could myself lucky I even drove a non-R tbh.

Im not just a ford guy, and I can say objectively that this engine is special compared to anything else out there at the price point. So.... definitely stick with a voodoo.

Now, ask yourself, for the same money do you want a 4 year used car that’s 1.11% faster “as determined by Andy Pilgrim (2019 gt350 vs 2020 gt350R), or do you want a 5 years 60k powertrain warranty for a car you’ll be tracking? Lots of value there.

The voodoo is a party piece for sure, but if it isn't obvious based on my posts... Steering and chassis feel are the most important to me.

This is my .02 cents, I already know I will get some hate, but this is my thoughts, coming from being a Porsche guy. My understanding from listening to Randy's comments when comparing the 2 versions, and the comments from the head of Ford Performance was ...."it's most all in the shoes". "I can really feel the added grip of the R's cups". etc etc. While not quite reaching the amazing featherweight of the carbon wheels, (which I seem to trip on a set of these for sale near constantly....so strange for a low production rim), adding forged wheels that are lighter then stock is easy. And can be just resold later. I'd think underneath it all most of us really know a 2019 and up base with a set of Forgeline or HRE super lightweight rims and the more aggressive Cup 2 version tire than the base's "cup 2 lite" would bring the 2 models REALLY close, the hardcore R fans may tell themselves "he still just doesn't get it", but I think I do, and posters and sales people and badges won't change that. With forged rim/ standard cup 2's, the R then would still have some, but limited advantages (different 'settings' doesn't mean all that much better, but if for nothing else, Marketing would HAVE to make things different to get people to get buy in). The wing on the R is amazing but a base swing with Gurney is going to keep your wheels down, your not going to fly away, trust me, its enough your not going to think "gee, if only I had even more down-force on the tail for the track days". The swing is on the newest base GT500 and Mach 1's for a reason. I think it would be so minor that the drivers skills would negate any difference, which is hands down the most important variable you can't gimmick or "buy" your way out of. And you would still be way under the prices of an R and you can always sell off the forged rims separately when done. So...on one hand, you have the base... less chin splitter curb rash, cooled seats...back seat standard (best part is it folds flat and it's huge trunk then) costs less money, etc ..... but on the other hand, your don't have designer, purebred dog breeder bragging rights. I watched my share of fancy cars, including these Shelby's, get beat on the track by the Focus and Hellcats, cuz' their drivers were really good. Let's face it, none of these are 'real' race cars like the GT4, it's just how close to that you want to live with day to day and I feel with such a small difference, I'd prefer the better daily car as would my particular passenger taking this bad-ass on trips. If Fords own numbers show how close performance-wise they are and that's NOT with forged wheels and full bore Cup 2's, I for one am convinced. But your mileage may vary

Agreed on a lot of counts here.
I don't personally care about DD/backseat stuff though, as I have a nice comfy truck for that.

Give me $70k and I'll build a GT that will make a stock R look slow. C'mon man. That's hilariously wrong.

The R is amazing. It's in a tier of track-ready road cars that is very small. Don't be deluded however, into thinking it's a racecar or cannot be easily beaten within the same platform for a lot less.

The difference is this... a lot of top tier cars had engineering time to make them not only fast out of the box... but APPROACHABLE and somewhat friendly when near/at the limit.
You can build any car to do anything for most budgets... How approachable or friendly at the limit they are... That depends on the parts you choose, and the research and development as well as calibration you do. And many (most) don't have the time to constantly test parts and swap them nor change calibrations.

That time invested in making everything work at the limit right out of the box is what you're paying for.

 

[Tomster]

I've gone to 4 different local dealers to drive a GT350, not even an R... Showed up with a 700+ hp Z06 and all of them are like "no we don't test drive those"
I ended up going to an Aston Martin/Alfa Romeo/Jaguar dealer who had a used 19+ ... They had no problem, but no twisty roads nearby.
I went to a boutique used dealer (one that has a 959, and an Enzo) and drove a Cayman GT4 without so much as a sales guy riding along.
The experience with Ford dealers really rubs me the wrong way at times.
No one local even has an R for sale, I could myself lucky I even drove a non-R tbh.


The voodoo is a party piece for sure, but if it isn't obvious based on my posts... Steering and chassis feel are the most important to me.


Agreed on a lot of counts here.
I don't personally care about DD/backseat stuff though, as I have a nice comfy truck for that.


The difference is this... a lot of top tier cars had engineering time to make them not only fast out of the box... but APPROACHABLE and somewhat friendly when near/at the limit.
You can build any car to do anything for most budgets... How approachable or friendly at the limit they are... That depends on the parts you choose, and the research and development as well as calibration you do. And many (most) don't have the time to constantly test parts and swap them nor change calibrations.

That time invested in making everything work at the limit right out of the box is what you're paying for.

When it gets to that point, let me know.

 

[lonegunman]

Given the VooDoo is prone to issues if break-in isn't done correctly and Ford does not recommend hitting 8250 until after break-in and an oil change I can see why dealers decline to let people drive the car. My brother spent his middle years, "test driving" the crap out of cars he had no interest in buying and could not afford. You can thank people like him.


That being said, I bought mine without a test drive and I'm fine with it. No one else drove it either. I'm okay with a back seat and a 1/10th of a second slower 0-60 time for well over $15,000 less. I bought mine at the peak of the Corona panic for a nice deep discount.

 

[Brian@BMVK]

The difference is this... a lot of top tier cars had engineering time to make them not only fast out of the box... but APPROACHABLE and somewhat friendly when near/at the limit.
You can build any car to do anything for most budgets... How approachable or friendly at the limit they are... That depends on the parts you choose, and the research and development as well as calibration you do. And many (most) don't have the time to constantly test parts and swap them nor change calibrations.

That time invested in making everything work at the limit right out of the box is what you're paying for.

And for the price of an R I could easily make that too. Your last statement is 100% right. You're paying for it to be done off the showroom floor. My rebuttal was the the person who thinks that you can't build a Mustang to equal or better it for less. That's utterly false. You're paying for it to be 1) new with a warranty, 2) specialness of the engine and the unique looks, and 3) not having to do any math or pay someone to do math to make it substantially quicker/better performing.

 

[Rusherific]

The voodoo is a party piece for sure, but if it isn't obvious based on my posts... Steering and chassis feel are the most important to me.

Sure but the GT350 isn't exactly lacking in those departments either. The R wouldn't be matching a 991 GT3 around a track with nothing but 65hp over a mustang GT.

 

[svttim]

Give me $70k and I'll build a GT that will make a stock R look slow. C'mon man. That's hilariously wrong.

The R is amazing. It's in a tier of track-ready road cars that is very small. Don't be deluded however, into thinking it's a racecar or cannot be easily beaten within the same platform for a lot less.

Where in here did it say anything about a GT? We were discussing GT350/GT350R.

 

[Seven]

he's saying that for $70k you could buy a GT and make it faster around a track than an R.

 

[DrumReaper]

he's saying that for $70k you could buy a GT and make it faster around a track than an R.

With a hodgepodge of parts... yes. But, will any of those accessories invalidate your warranty? Will said accessories allow that GT ride as nicely on the highway comparably to the 350? And, wouldn’t you have to keep a list of all those parts for future referencing and/or repairs?

Even then, you leave out the most vital fun part... the hummingbird.

I’d rather pay for the 350 and be done with it.

 

[corrieb]

Great thread, enjoyable and interesting read.

I'm sure I read somewhere that the R has a better radiator. I may have imagined this, but it wasn't mentioned anywhere. I know from experience how important that is for serious track use.

Like you I had this debate with myself, knowing I would want to track the car. A couple of things that swayed me to the R:

- I found that video where the two are tracked side by side to be very interesting. Yea there's only 1.5 seconds in it, but when you look at the stance of the GT350R going around corners vs the GT350, it looks much more planted. I defer to those who've tracked both, but the difference does look to be more than tires.

- I was unable to test-drive an R. Dealer would let me test drive a GT350 but not the R. It felt more compliant than I was expecting and I definitely felt I could take a firmer ride. In the end I knew that if I bought the GT350 and there were aspects of it that I didn't love, I'd always wonder whether I should have gone a different route. With the R, I will never wonder. If there's something I don't love, then there's nowhere to go other than aftermarket. Spending this kind of money, I never want to wonder.

- I don't ever plan to sell the car, but agree with Tomster that the VIN alone is worth something to me. This will probably be the most expensive car purchase I ever make and I want to get it right.

Ben

 

[lonegunman]

he's saying that for $70k you could buy a GT and make it faster around a track than an R.

Maybe from one stop light to the next. Then you have braking and cornering and how well it will survive on a track that has something other than 1300 ft of pavement. You can get close with a $50K plus PP2 car that will still boil the trans and rear axle and drop into limp mode after 15 minutes on a road course.

In the end you will own a flogged GT with a ton of mods that have almost no value on the resale market and marginal value to car collectors. Yes, you can make something similar to a GT350, but it still is not a GT350.

You can make a rifle similar to a USMC M40A3 and even paint it just like a real M40A3 but in the end it is not an M40A3 and when you see a real USMC rifle sell for $20K on a high end Rock Island auction you can ignore it because you still own a $3k rifle that will sell for the value of the used parts. Just like that GT.

Did you ever see a Porsche buyer walk out of the showroom and head for the local NAPA to slap mods on a used Mustang because he wanted to be the only sports car lawyer in town who could roll with the street racers?

 

[Seven]

Maybe from one stop light to the next. Then you have braking and cornering and how well it will survive on a track that has something other than 1300 ft of pavement. You can get close with a $50K plus PP2 car that will still boil the trans and rear axle and drop into limp mode after 15 minutes on a road course.

In the end you will own a flogged GT with a ton of mods that have almost no value on the resale market and marginal value to car collectors. Yes, you can make something similar to a GT350, but it still is not a GT350.

You can make a rifle similar to a USMC M40A3 and even paint it just like a real M40A3 but in the end it is not an M40A3 and when you see a real USMC rifle sell for $20K on a high end Rock Island auction you can ignore it because you still own a $3k rifle that will sell for the value of the used parts. Just like that GT.

Did you ever see a Porsche buyer walk out of the showroom and head for the local NAPA to slap mods on a used Mustang because he wanted to be the only sports car lawyer in town who could roll with the street racers?

You can absolutely buy mods for a GT to make it out-perform a stock 350R.
You can call companies like griggs or maximum motorsports, or companies that specialize in RACING.
You also wouldn't buy a PP2, you'd buy the cheapest GT with the base options you HAVE to have (basically a shell with a driveline)
Then you'd toss the brakes, all the suspension, buy a cage, do chassis work, any cooling etc.
If you bought a used 15 GT for $20k... $50K in pure race stuff will absolutely destroy a 350R.

However my point was... if you do that - it's a ton of setup, it'll likely drive well on track but be unbearable on the street. There's a lot of trial and error etc.

The 350R is an already sorted out package, which sure it has resale etc. But a REAL prepped track car that's well-sorted out, has a log book, etc - also has a lot of value
It's the stuff in-between that doesn't

 

[Seven]

Also I'll add... We're getting off-topic here and additionally... I don't want a race-only car. I could just buy a Mustang/Camaro GT4 car if I did. I want to be able to drive on the street for fun

 

[GT30fan]

Great thread, enjoyable and interesting read.

I'm sure I read somewhere that the R has a better radiator. I may have imagined this, but it wasn't mentioned anywhere. I know from experience how important that is for serious track use.

Like you I had this debate with myself, knowing I would want to track the car. A couple of things that swayed me to the R:

- I found that video where the two are tracked side by side to be very interesting. Yea there's only 1.5 seconds in it, but when you look at the stance of the GT350R going around corners vs the GT350, it looks much more planted. I defer to those who've tracked both, but the difference does look to be more than tires.

- I was unable to test-drive an R. Dealer would let me test drive a GT350 but not the R. It felt more compliant than I was expecting and I definitely felt I could take a firmer ride. In the end I knew that if I bought the GT350 and there were aspects of it that I didn't love, I'd always wonder whether I should have gone a different route. With the R, I will never wonder. If there's something I don't love, then there's nowhere to go other than aftermarket. Spending this kind of money, I never want to wonder.

- I don't ever plan to sell the car, but agree with Tomster that the VIN alone is worth something to me. This will probably be the most expensive car purchase I ever make and I want to get it right.
Ben

Very sound logic in my book. I don't know if the radiator is different, but I tracked mine in 90 plus degrees, she was a champ and cool as a cucumber.

I'd think just the lowered stance would give it that look, but what driving modes were they in? The Magnaride setting matters too

1.5 seconds against a car that didn't have forged rims and better tires

 

[DrumReaper]

Very sound logic in my book. I don't know if the radiator is different, but I tracked mine in 90 plus degrees, she was a champ and cool as a cucumber.

I'd think just the lowered stance would give it that look, but what driving modes were they in? The Magnaride setting matters too

1.5 seconds against a car that didn't have forged rims and better tires

Is the OP going for stock vs stock? That’s what I was assuming.

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