It’s 1982

It’s High School graduation time, Ford released the 1982 Mustang GT H.O. (for high output) and magazines proclaimed “The Boss is back!!”. This GT had 160 horsepower which is laughable today but back then it was a sign that the era of decal performance was over. By decal performance what I mean is stickers applied to the Trans AM, Camaro and Mustang to give the impression of performance with nothing to back it up under the hood.

Fast forward to 2011 and Ford releases the most powerful naturally aspirated Mustang ever at 412 horsepower, no supercharger, no turbo, just one of the best engines ever produced in the United States. 5.0 liters of pure muscle. Is Ford happy with that? No, Government Motors (that would be GM) allows the Chevy division to build a king of the hill Camaro called the ZL1 making 550hp, Ford replies I’ll see your 550hp and raise you 100hp to 650hp!

This is insane, the Z06 Corvette has a top speed of 198mph, this new monster Mustang GT500 has a top speed of 200+ mph. Seriously, if somebody told me back in the day that you could buy a 650hp Mustang at the dealer I’d call you a liar, no way.

Many people think, where can you put all that power to use? That’s not the point, gearheads know what I’m talking about. Just knowing you have it is enough and besides, there are legal ways to use all that power and half the fun is figuring out how to get all that power to the ground. 0 – 60 for the GT500 hasn’t really changed even though power keeps going up, why? Well, tires really don’t have a way of gripping the road any better so most buyers of these monster buy aftermarket street legal drag radials to make it possible to launch the car properly.

By the time most cars are at 60mph these monsters are at 100mph, simply amazing. Not only that but a 160hp Mustang in 1982 got 16mpg, if it was lucky, a new Mustang GT is rated at 17mpg but I had one, I averaged over 23mpg with 550hp on tap. These new brutes are cleaner, get better mpg and are built infinitely better than they were in the past.

You can walk right into a Ford dealer and walk out with a car capable of blowing away full blown race cars from just 10 years ago… Amazing. A new 2012 Boss Mustang is the best Mustang ever produced, this isn’t me saying that, although I agree, the critics that always bad mouth Mustang’s are saying it. You see, they hate live axle cars, but they love this one!

The must have it side of me has been waiting for these cars my whole life, people who know me will be shocked when they learn I have no interest in buying one… my how far I have come.