And that's the beauty of the f-bods and having 1 v8 option. You don't have to spend big bucks to get the top of the line motor. That's one of the reasons why i want the 5th gens to stick with the one v8 method they've employed since 93.

On the other hand, the mustang is one where you have to pay for the "hot" motor. The "GT's" role isn't that of the fastest car in the lineup, but more of an "entry level" performance with the special editions like Mach and Cobra packing the real heat.

As for the GTO, regardless of performance, it was clearly a better car than Camaro/firebird. People probably flamed it because it was introduced at a time when the Camaro/firebird's future was in limbo, and it being a GM performance coupe with an Ls1 (what 4th gen camaro was) and now a GM performance coupe with an Ls2 (what 5th gen should have been) kind of made it a more sensative issue with the camaro faithfuls probably. Probably why it was measured up to the 4th gens so much. Either way, the majority of flames directed at GTO were/are mostly directed at the understated styling more than anything else.

 

Everyone here is comparing just power, eh, go play around with the car, went to look at an 05 gt last night..... Even getting into the car, it did not feel like i was climbing into something sitting on the floor. the car felt great, interior quality is wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy above our fbodies.... The cheap plastic interior on our fbod's is a joke compared to anything else in the world.

 

Well, yes the Fbodies interior is horrible, and I would hope that Ford would revamp there halo car with a quality interior.
GTO has a great interior too, but I remember people saying that interiors dont win races.

 

Heh, this got me laughing actually. Interiors don't win races.

And horsepower don't win sales.

 

I think they're about the same...The Cobra was VERY underrated at 390HP while the LS2 is somewhat underrated at 400 Would be interesting to line up those graphs.

 

There aren't too many Ls2 dyno's to go by (still too early since production is still low), but one 2005 GTO dyno was around 351rwhp and 349rwtq. A google of a baseline dyno of the 2003 Cobra pointed me to UPR's 2003 Cobra which made 365rwhp and 367lb-ft tq stock. So the Cobra probably makes a bit more hp than the ls2 going by those two dyno figures. Still hard to say, but we'll know once we get more ls2 samples that are more representative of what they put out on average. The Cobra #'s seem to very with some in the low 350's while others have dyno'd as high as the 370's and even mid 380's stock, but i think most on average around the lower to mid 360's.

Would be interesting to compare averages. Niether's short on power, tq, or potential .

 

03/04 cobras are generally dynoing in the 360's stock...the c6's are somewhere in the 355ish area..Some of the vette enthusiates(on the vette boards) are saying that a z51(think thats the performance option offered) 6spd c6 runs door to door w/ an 04 z06..In stock trim comparing 1/4 times (SO FAR) it looks like they run pretty head to head ...but you would have to give the c6 the edge cause of the much lower weight.

 

Now, C6 is lower weight than C5, but C5 Z06 is also lower than C6.

C5 Z06 is listed at 3117 lbs from one site, and GM lists C6 at 3179, so C6 is actually heavier by about 60 lbs.

Interestingly, GM Canada website lists the convertible at 3199, only 20 lbs heavier than coupe. That's great engineering if you ask me to have such little weight gain by going to vert.