Something with the Shelby name getting sued.

Instead of Shelby suing someone, well that's new.

Mustang owners sue Ford, claiming 2016 Shelby GT350 overheats, loses power for $228M

First, it gets waxed by the ZL1 and now this. The new GT350 isn't having a good go of it, is it?

Maybe Ford hired the previous Vette team to take care of cooling?

In reply to FlightService:

It also barely outran the old Z/28. Why Ford set a 5 year old car that was on the way out of production as their performance bar, I will never know.

Sheesh. Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaah. You take a high power street car that is not equipped with the manufacturer Track Pack to the track and it needs upgrades to run hard for more than 15 minutes. There's a lawyer that needs a bit of time in the salt mines.

Seriously who buys a street car without the track package and then takes it to the track in the desert.

Ford was pretty upfront about needing the package when I spoke with them if I was going to do any track work. Heck so few people took the option that they made it standard the next year.

In reply to Keith Tanner:

Sheesh. Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaah. You take a high power winning lawyer and marketing hype of a company trying to sell something to a particular demographic you better deliver plus some. There's a tuner/builder that needs a bit of time in the salt mines.

I would put my money on Ford either retrofits existing models and pays legal fees or just settles for cash.

FlightService wrote: First, it gets waxed by the ZL1 and now this. The new GT350 isn't having a good go of it, is it? Maybe Ford hired the previous Vette team to take care of cooliong?

I feel like 2.6 seconds around a track that's over 7 minutes long, isn't exactly "waxed".

In reply to lnlogauge:

How many owners of either car have the talent to come even remotely close to that Ring time? With these cars isn't about them doing it, it is about the bragging rights. 2+ seconds is waxed.

If this was the track pack equipped cars having problems, I'd be a little more sympathetic. The customers didn't buy the fully prepped version of the car. I'll bet that Ford could make this go away by offering up four sets of Track Pack oil coolers and no warranty hit.

If you had me build you one of our V8 Miatas but insisted on a crap suspension, you'd get zero sympathy from me when you came to complain about the ride and handling.

That would be the smart play, but as much as I love the Blue Oval, they don't always do the smart play.

Reminds me of the whole Raptor deal. "What do you mean I can't do massive jumps in this thing? What a POS!"

If you're going to spend that sort of money on a car, expose it to the hazards of track use, and not buy the track pack? Kinda dumb IMO.

In reply to FlightService:

Ford was telling people who purchased Tech Pack cars that trans coolers would be needed for track use. Also, the coolers became standard for 2017 models I believe, so this suit applies to 2016 cars with the Tech Pack only.

Lawyers ruin everything. Anybody with a shred of mechanical sympathy knows that additional cooling is required for nearly all fluids on a track-driven vehicle. The fact that those modifications were a factory option makes this even more asinine.

And I think FlightService needs to look up "order of magnitude" on Wikipedia.

In reply to Sky_Render:

I don't get?

Guys, look, I am not agreeing with the lawsuit. I know anytime you run anything at the top of the output chart you need to beef up support systems (not just coolers on race tracks, you add them when towing heavy too, more robust here, higher duty cycle there blah blah blah).

What I am saying is, for as cool as the GT350 is, it is getting beat by the ZL1, and the ZL1 doesn't have the Shelby ego tax on it either. Now you have a lawyer with a class action suit filed that has a track record of winning these things. His argument is legally sound. Ford made ads and marketing hype that the vehicle was this track beast and people did ignore the asterisks. Most on here know what needs to be done to do these things. We go ga-ga over track packs on the hairdresser versions. We get it.

That doesn't mean Ford will win. The smart play is for Ford to agree to put the coolers on with a small settlement for the assorney. We all know Ford's cost on those is about 1/5th of what it would cost us. Ford sets aside money for this on every car they sell. It is part of the sunk costs.

Expecting to flog the non-track-pack cars at the track without detriment is almost as asinine as expecting the GT350 to be a direct competitor to the ZL1 for Nurburgring lap times.

In reply to Driven5:

FlightService wrote: What I am saying is, for as cool as the GT350 is, it is getting beat by the ZL1, and the ZL1 doesn't have the Shelby ego tax either.

Of course the ZL1 is faster. It's got 130 hp more than the Shelby and almost 220ft-lbs more. That supercharger adds a lot of torque down low too, where the Shelby is pedestrian. But the ZL1 GT4 (the actual race car) comes with the naturally aspirated LT1 from the Corvette, gets no fancy Carbon brakes, loses the whiz-bang 10 speed trans, and has standard adjustable shocks vs the magnetic pieces on the stock car. That tells me, at least somewhat, that GM doesn't feel comfortable tracking the stock ZL1 all day either.

As for the lawsuit, I think Ford made a mistake and assumed people weren't sue-happy idiots. Seems like they may have put it in writing that the cars shouldn't be routinely tracked without the coolers (the Track Pack and the GT350R both came with the coolers) though. IF that's the case, then the lawsuit doesn't have much basis.