Nels Nelson

For the 1958 model year, the Lincoln and Thunderbird switched over to unitized construction and were assembled in a new plant at Wixom. The cowl, firewall and windshield were shared along with other various components. The Thunderbird switched to the body on frame chassis of the full-sized Fords and Mercurys for 1967 model year and the Lincoln switched over for the 1970 model year.

The Pontiac Solstice and Saturn Sky are worse than the Mustang. Inventory numbers for the GM cars are 21 and 22 days respectively and 80 for the Ford. The Fusion will be so much better than the Saturn Aura. Fusion inventory increased from 56 to 68 days. The inventory of hotselling Zephyrs has gone from 91 days to 119 days. The inventory numbers for the CTS, STS and SRX are 68, 101 and 74 respectively. For reference, 60 days is considered normal.

The doo-doo is getting deeper for Ford. It will be impossible for them to join with another carmaker without the Ford Family losing control of their eponymous company.

It is hard to believe that Toyota is serious. But then the Bank of Toyota could swallow the GM horse without dying, of course. Eliminate a competitor and go on to world domination.

Skor, Thanks for pointing all of that out. Now I understand. But it seems all of those things cost a lot on a Mustang. I have all of that on my '03 SVT Focus and only paid $15,000 for the car new. Furthermore, it has HID headlamps, Recaro seats, a sunroof. I could go on all day.

The fastest Ford at the annual Pure Stock Muscle Car Drags is a '69 Ford Mustang with a 428SCJ. It runs the quarter mile in 12.8 seconds at 110 mph. In 1969 this car cost less than $4,000 which equates to approximately $22,000 in todays dollars. The '07 GT500 runs in the high 12's at 112 to 113 mph and costs $47,000 MSRP before ADM. Now that's what I call progress.

From Car & Driver: "What surprised us, however, was the GT500's loss in acceleration runs. Its 100-hp advantage should have left the Vette in a cloud of rubber dust. The GT500 also has a useful launch-control system that's part of the standard traction control. To get a nearly perfect hole shot, all you have to do is rev the engine to 3200 rpm, dump the clutch, and floor it. The system automatically modulates engine power to make the the driver look like Kenny Bernstein."

Just received the July issue of Car & Driver. It contains a comparison of the Shelby GT500 and the base Corvette with the 400 horsepower 6.0 liter V-8. Bad news: the Shelby weighs some 600 pounds more than the Corvette making it slower even with a 100 horsepower advantage. Not only was it slower than the Corvette but the new Shelby GT500 was no faster than the previous generation Mustang Cobra with the 4.6 liter supercharged V-8. Don't think paying $20,000 over the list price of the new Shelby that is already $15,000 more than the previous Mustang Cobra is a wise investment. Compounding this is the fact that the base Corvette at $44,490 is probably about what the MSRP is going to be on the Shelby GT500.