brockLT1

haha good call

LUV2REV

Almost all variants of the 911 are more GT than sportscar this day and age.

OCMusicJunkie

There has never been a Mustang that handled as well as a Corvette in the history of the two vehicles. You think Ford will suddenly produce one that does? I doubt it. The car is just too big and heavy, regardless of how much they tune it.

My R2

Cobra R handled as well as the same year vette....

Slamnasty

The Cobra R was a factory-built race car, of which very few were even available. Put the Cobra R against a C5R and see what happens.

I can only expect the Vette's dominance over the Mustang to continue, since the Mustang keeps adding girth. The new one, for all intents and purposes, is positively enormous.

Penforhire

The 03+ Cobras are non-handlers. Watch them at auto-x to see just how clumsy they are. They might as well have kept a solid rear axle in them and saved 200 lbs. The C5 Z06 vette is a stellar handler in stock trim. Throttle steer, off-balance braking, catch-and-recover, you-name-it and the stock Z06 does it well.

As far as power goes, the C5 Z06 runs just as fast with 75 less HP (actually them seem even at 100 HP down). Part of it is weight. But another big part of it is how hard the Cobra's s/c power is to modulate on street tires for launching, something that gets worse when modded but partly recovered with DR tires (and then again, handling takes a hit if you're driving around on DR's).

The Cobra is cheaper to modify for monster power. But considering the C6 Z06 costs twice as much as the Cobra most vette owners should be able to afford the "vette tax" on aftermarket goodies. We already know LPE's C5 427 twin turbo designs are as fast as anything you can buy so the sky is the limit for the affluent.

I'm expecting build quality to be similar between them. Nobody buys these cars for their reliability or interior refinement.

Given the price, I figure the Cobra has absolutely nothing to be embarassed about. But people who claim it is a "better car" in some way other than price are just fan-boys.

jiggagnome

Quite a bit of discussion about a hypothetical car V.S. a car being produced, the New Cobra has not even been released but from rumors, it sounds like it is going to be a straight line monster, and it is hypothetically going to be released at 40 K, which gives you PLENTY of money to tune up that suspension, and lose a few pounds, but I agree that it will probably never handle like the zo6, but like others have said, its not in the same market
my 2 cents

My R2

It might have been a factory built race car but it was a production car and it could hang with ANY vette built in its time period...

Therefore this statement

There has never been a Mustang that handled as well as a Corvette in the history of the two vehicles.

is false.

C5R was/is not a production car, is it?

mingster

i recall reading all mustangs (even the cobra) will have solid rear axle? that's a great hadicap to handling right off the bat no matter how much "tuning" they put into it.

Slithr

Yep, solid axle this time around. Don't discount the solid axle in the handling realm. They do get tricky on rough surfaces, but on a smooth surface they do OK. The Mustang guys wanted a solid axle for drag racing so Ford obliged them and held down costs, too.

I don't know what the f/r weight distribution will be with the iron block 5.4, but I can guess that it won't be 50/50. The new chassis is much, much stiffer than the old and will make a better place to start.

The point was made above that the Shelby will be a GT as opposed to a sports car and I think that's a fair/accurate evaluation. It's a bigger, heavier car than the Vette and will suffer performance compromises as a result. However, it's got a decent trunk and will carry 4 more easily than the Vette. I wouldn't ask anyone to ride to California in the back seat of mine, but for a masochist, it would be possible.

It's also some less expensive and looks to be good bang for the buck. I'd like to have the Z06, but with two starting college before too long, I'll probably be driving the Ford for the foreseeable future. If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.