sowaxeman

.....ok, so you might think this is off-topic and I'm breaking my own rule -but I will stick to my guns This is an opinionated comparision of the Shelby GT-H edition to my S-281. The Shelby GT-H is supposed to have in the neighbor hood of 330 hp I believe, maybe a tad more. My S-281 has the standard setup from Saleen, but I did a little enhancing via a CAI kit (same as the Shelby uses) and a Diablo tune. My car puts down 299 rwhp and I would guess the Shelby to be not much less than that [&:] Unfortunately the Shelby was an Auto so maybe that is the main reason for my displeasure - although most people say the auto tranny in these new S197's is very good.

The car fealt like my dads AT C-5 Corvette.....very sluggish out of the gate. It had plenty of power say from 40-100+, but still didn't feal as powerful as my car. I disabled theTCS button blocker(hope theHertz police are watching ), but even with it disabled the damn thing would barely get sideways from a start into a turn [&:] So I would say from a dead stop the thing would be toast against my car or Mustang GT's in general. I can only assume that this car suffers from a bad tune, a de-tune, or most likely the dreaded throttle lag issue (just needing a simple reset).

Now I did take it up to about 125 a couple times and the sound was musical. The exhaust note from the Shelby modified exhaust was nice. However, I prefer the sound of an o/r setup. The Shelby's note sounds very docile in the cabin, but you can tell there is sweet music coming out of the rear. In my S-281 with an o/r midpipe, you can hear AND feel the rumble under your **** in the cabin [8D]

The car had 11k miles on it, but IMO it looked like 100k the way it was taken care of. The rear bumper/stripes were scratched all the hell from careless folks and their luggage, and the interior had fine scratches all over the place [&:] I guess this proves the cheap plastic in these S197's really won't hold up well....good thing I baby mine like crazy! And it was obvious this car gets run through a carwash or hosed off with just water and wiped dry with any old garage rag they can find. Man o man this car will need some serious refurbing and compounding/polishing before it can be auctioned off []

It was a fun time though. I picked the car up on Friday and drove up to Prescott, AZ for a sales meeting. On Sunday I drove back down the mountain the backway, and man o man what a scenic mountain drive. If any of you saw the news, I drove through a near white out snow storm that also caused major problems in Flagstaff. But the Shelby did just fine, and 25 minutes later and 3000' feet less elevation I was cruising in sunny 55 degree weather

Good times! If anyone is ever in Phoenix looking for a fun trip - head up to Prescott, then back down the backway through Congress and Wickenburg....you won't be disappointed.

Downtown Prescott, getting ready to venture back down to Phoenix


A quick photo opp at the National Forrest


And to think less than100 milesaway it was supposed to be sunny and 60 degrees!


Just another of several great photo opps along the way down the mountain.


Tell me this doesn't look like a scene out of the movies!!


Just got to the bottom of the mountain - yes that is snow on the airdam!


A look back to the northwest up the mountain - about 3000' and 25 degrees warmer


Quite possibly the ugliest stadium I have ever seen - this is the new University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale - yes, the site of last months Super Bowl! I can only assume all of those ugly, silver, Michelin Man looking panels serve some sort of energy or cooling purpose!!


And my favorite....pasted out of a short video clip [sm=gears.gif]

eviligloo

Thanks for the writeup! I was thinking about renting a GT-H for my trip to SF in 2 weeks, but I think I might pass. Besides that....they want like $1700 for a week versus like $400 for a v6 convertible. That's a little too much in my opinion.

How did it handle in the snow???

sowaxeman

Actually I can't really attest to that. I was desending down a mountain at the time of the snow stormin a line of traffic that was riding their brakes at about 15-20 the whole way. However at the final stretch there was a 1000' passing lane so I goosed it up to about 40, went around 5-6 cars, but as the lane was coming to an end the road was about to curve back fairly sharp to left [] With TCS enabled, I held my breath and gripped the wheel as I went through the curve. I tapped the brakes onceand made it through so I guess it would do OK.

I have a video of this part of the decent, but its 37MB []I'll have to see if I can host it somewhere.

However on the straights, even with the streets glazed with snow and rain - it did very well. At one point I passed a line of cars, still in the snow dusted streets, and I looked down and was doing about 65 in a 40, so I thought better of it and backed it down. At another point I passed two vehicles in the rain, and ended up doing 95! Not safe now that I look back on it, but I guess the cars are capable of handling the rain & snow with the right tires and TCS.

I paid $99 per day in PHX, so apparently SF rates are grossly inflated [&:] Even after PHX's ungodly taxes I only paid $429 for 3 days.

sowaxeman

Ok, the vids:

This is the video of the decent in the snow. Nothing too exciting, just gives you an idea of the conditions and of course the tight road winding down. Its about 4 minutes, and if you like White Lion and Ratt then you will enjoy it as I was jamming out to Sirius' Hair Nation (#23) I cut the camera off a couple minutes before I passed the line of cars at the very end. Good thing too because I'm pretty sure the camera would have went flying across the dash as I gripped the wheel [8D]

http://s34.photobucket.com/albums/d1...CN1364_NEW.flv

Here is the illegal vid....police officers feel free to disregard

http://s34.photobucket.com/albums/d1...CN1370_NEW.flv

ninja205

At a guess I would say the 11k miles on the car were put on the car in the hardest possible way seen as the car is a renter! this might account for the lack of 'wanting to go' feeling perhaps?

tk5075

i drove one of them down in daytona in the summer of 2007it had 001 miles on it , i thought it handled very well, and i have a stage 1 roush manualand it felf faster than mine, mabey becasue it was automatic, i loved the car though

Chuckdoc

Nice write up and vids!!

I have a buddy with a GT500 AND a GT-H. I love the story and rarity behind the H's (only 500 out there....) and think these will be the ones to watch when it comes to resale and auctions in the future.... (maybe distant future).

I like the hood treatment on these cars and don't mind the automatic, but that may be what makes the car feel 'slower'. My buddies H has a lot of scratches like you said... Cool car.

speedster1322

I think there would have been a little pucker factor comming down from the mountains.

HaneyMotorsport.Com

backway through Congress and Wickenburg...Yes, it would be awesome if we could have that closed to open traffic and make for a "pikes peak" deal Just be luckey you didn't get caught going up behind a dually pulling a 40' trailer. Makes for a llooonnng, **** me off trip.


I heard that there was over 100 cars involved in the major pile up by Flagstaff. I think it was around 4-6 killed

Casey

mills281e

Sounded like a good time Jason!

I've always been skeptical that they would put the same amount of power/tune into special edition rental cars like this. Maybe they dyno the same as what the publicly offered Shelby's dyno (and I'm way off with my suspicions)....but, I can't help think that Hertz, etc... doesn't trust their customers with all that power