DanMan35

I'm in the market for a car around the $50,000 mark in the next year. The cars I've pretty much narrowed it down to are:

16-18 GT350
17-18 ZL1 Camaro
17-18 Grand Sport 2LT/3LT

The GT350 is the cheapest and can be found for anywhere from mid 40's to low 50's.
The ZL1 can be found for high 40's to mid 50's
The GS can be found for low 50's to mid 50's or so

Trying to decide what I'd like to do.

I think I enjoy the looks of the GS the most, and I like the interior as well as the removable hard top. It's also got good power and should be relatively easy to mod although probably expensive.

The ZL1 has the most power and I think it looks badass, except for the rear end. The interior is pretty decent, not as nice as the GS though. I feel like the back seats are an absolute waste though. You can't put anyone back there and they are dead weight just hanging out in the car.

The GT350 looks awesome and sounds great but has the lowest power and I've heard the power for the street sucks below 4000 rpms. Not sure how easy or expensive it is to mod but I think it would be pretty f'n cool to have a supercharged GT350 making somewhere in the area of 600-650rwhp

Anyways, has anyone here owned some or all of these cars? I'm looking for real world experience. What did you guys like or not like. Would you buy the cars again or not?

Skid Row Joe

Forum member; 'The Dude' has one.

... He's a renowned expert around here on anything Mustang or Shelby Mustang of any vintage. And a great and helpful guy.

Cygnus

Last year I bought an 18 GT350 and had it 4 months. The first week I owned the car the AC began acting up. By the end of the first month the motor was leaking oil. The car spent more time at the dealer in the first three months than it did on the road. After replacing the motor, the problems only got worse and by month four, Ford bought the car back.

Not all of the 2015 and newer GT 350's have problems, but there are enough that after my experience with the newer ones, I bought a very low mileage 2013 350 and have never had any issue with it.

I would highly recommend that you look on the Gt350 forum and read through the common problems before buying one. There are plenty of people who have had no problems at all, just be aware of what the possible problems are and buy accordingly.

As far as mods go, there are many out there and compared to vette mods, they are a lot cheaper.

The_Dude

I have a '17 and it's been flawless. However, I don't track the car or drive it in the winter. @sublime1996525 also has a '17 and I think he has put quite a few miles on it.

DanMan35

Thanks for the info. Always good to hear from someone who actually owned one.

DanMan35

I don't drive my cars on the track or winter (Las Vegas doesn't have much of a winter). I do street driving only. With that said, have you found that in stock form the GT350 is weak in the power department? That's what I've been seeing online.

The_Dude

I had a Terminator for a while before buying the GT350 and just recently sold it. It had much more torque down low than the GT350. The GT350 doesn't really shine until you get it up over 4k rpms. You have to somewhat wind them out to have fun.

sublime1996525

I also have a ‘17 GT350 and it’s been flawless. I’ve got 12k miles on mine and love this car. I live 5 minutes from Utah Motorsports Campus and will track it this summer. I considered the ZL1 but the GT350 felt more special to me. I don’t like the C7 so that wasn’t on my radar.

I understand the power is down compared to the ZL1 but the first time you take the GT350 to 8,200 RPMs, all that goes away.

clearwaterms

isn't that somewhat of an apples to oranges comparison? The 15+ Ford GT350 is a factory built flat plane crank sports car on the Mustang chassis compared to the 2013 which is a tuner car built by the shelby corporation that started out as a Ford Mustang GT.

Cygnus

I completely agree, it is like comparing apples to oranges. The factory built 15+ models have a considerable percentage of problems that the earlier built Shelby models do not.

I also wanted to be perfectly clear that not everyone has had issues with the 15+ models, but that any potential owner should research the possible problems and be aware of them prior to buying one.

On the other side of that, the earlier Shelby tweaked cars are not known for having to replace motors.

sublime1996525

It’s because those Shelby Corp models are pretty much the stock GT motor. Not much special about it.