Originally posted by twin 93 svt
And having owned seven Mustangs, I didn't know they were the Buick enemy, Till visiting the TR web rings, Believe it or not it's the Camaro Z28......
The "enemy" changes over time. In the heyday, when GNs were new or slightly used, you had the pony car rivalry going. The "enemy" then was the 5.0 Mustangs because they had a similar bang-for-the-buck factor.
Now, 5.0 Mustangs are somewhat of a rarity on the street around here (relatively speaking). It's weird because gobs of them show up at the track but they're not as prevalent as they used to be at the stoplights. When I do see one it's usually either a nicely cared-for late-80s one on a nice day (which is cool to see having owned an '88 droptop GT) or a totally ratted out piece of crap that shouldn't even be on the road.
In the early-90s, Ford threw in the towel on the pony-car race by putting a weaker 5.0 in a heavier, redesigned '94 GT as GM put a very powerful LT1 drivetrain in their redesigned F-body. We turned our attention to that new, bang-for-the-buck king-of-the-hill. Then later to the LS1 F-bodies. The Mustangs were pretty much out of contention from a street car perspective (obviously the rivalry still existed at the track with cars like yours and the annual Mustang vs. Buick events). Let's face it, if you've tweaked your Buick to run with an LS1 f-body, there aren't many stock or mildly modified Mustangs manufactured over the past 20-years that can keep up. Until now.
Now, the '03 Cobra comes out. It's nice to see Ford upping the ante in the power department when they really don't have to. There's no competition in that segment of the market. Because of their performance levels they're compared to Z06 Vettes and whatnot, but they serve a different market. They've even redesigned the Mustang for 2005.
Manufacturers keep raising the bar on the new stuff, and the innovators in this community keep stepping up to it. Thanks to them (and the people who tirelessly toil to keep boards like this running), we mere mortals can keep our 1987-era Buicks running with the quickest stuff out of Detroit even 17 years later. I think it's pretty cool that threads like this even exist.
Jim
