Any day now, the Blue Oval’s skunkworks division will unleash the 2016 Shelby GT350 Mustang. As things stand now, there are only three big questions still left unanswered: the flat-plane crankshaft 5.2-liter V8’s output, the curb weight and the price.
Until FoMoCo will get down to business or a fan of the US-bound prancing horse will leak the intel on the Internet, we can compensate your longing for GT350-related data by presenting the MangeRide dampers.
Both the standard 2015/2016 Shelby GT350 Mustang and the more extreme GT350R will benefit from this bit of kit as standard. It’s Ford’s first-ever application of MagneRide continuously variable dampers and, on paper, it all seems promising.
Put bluntly, the MagneRide dampers are filled with a hydraulic liquid that’s impregnated with iron particles. When an electric current is passed through the fluid by the electronic brain of the system, the performance of the suspension can be adjustment almost immediately.
In Ford’s own words, “changes can be made to each corner every 7 milliseconds for optimum handling performance.” To put that figure into perspective, the average duration of a human’s eye blink is not 0.007 seconds, but 0.3 to 0.4 seconds. Impressive stuff, innit?
“When we started working on this car, we wanted to build the best possible Mustang for the places we most love to drive – challenging back roads with a variety of corners and elevation changes, and at the track on weekends,” declared Raj Nair, FoMoCo group vice president of global product development.
“Every change we made to this car was driven by the functional requirements of a powerful, responsive powerplant – nimble, precise handling and massive stopping power.”
The adjacent release contains further information on what makes the 2016 GT350 Mustang a driver’s car.
After a 1:43 scale model of a Ferrari 250 GTO sparked Mircea's interest for cars when he was a kid, an early internship at Top Gear sealed his career path. He's most interested in muscle cars and American trucks, but he takes a passing interest in quirky kei cars as well. Full profile
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