It's funny I just found this post since I've been going though the same feeling, of course my car is older and I've had it much longer. Unfortunately for me I had no choice but to get a V6 Auto, as much as I wanted a GT my biggest issue was that no one would insure me unless I paid $14k. Doesn't help I was fresh out of college working as a car salesman just for a pay check. I decided to lease it too since it was a lower payment and I figured by then my luck will change I'll have a good job and by then old enough insurance won't matter. But in a few month I lost my job at Ford and sacrificed a lot to keep it since well I didn't have a choice I signed a contract, and I'll admit I burnt through almost every dollar I had till I could eventually find something, oh yes and this was right at the housing bust of 07. And things went well after that, well until about when the lease was up since a couple months earlier the company I worked for moved to Colorado and was nice enough to put us all on unemployment. I don't know why but I made the decision to just buy the damn car from Ford, think it was that it would be months until the Coyote would be out and plus I built a lot of sedimental value in it. And lately, I have been fancying the 2013/14 GT500.
I want the power, I want the speed, the looks, it just is an amazing machine with so much soul. But I come to 3 problems, I don't want to trade my old one, this one cost far more then I can ever save or afford, and the worst, this will pretty much be the last car of its kind. Like I said a lot of sedimental value, and also I'm still paying for my V6, I know it's taking me 8 long years. Next is the price which that college degree isn't going to help I think it creates a horrible glass ceiling, where ever you go it's just puts a value on you as a person, unfortunately I went to state, not a very good one, actually one a lot of people avoid and laugh at, much thanks to my useless college counselor in high school. So my ability to make enough to even afford it are slim to none, and here is why: I don't buy used and by next year, it'll be gone... forever.
We all know Ford is already well into developing the successor to the s197, and even higher stakes are this car will launch not as a 2015, but in honor of 50 years, as a 2014.5. Yes, that last few anniversary cars weren't really any great homage to the Mustangs of yesteryear, with just a badge on the current version and sent on its merry way. Hate me if you want, it felt empty and boring, and I'm sure there are many who felt the same. Which brings me to why, the current GT500 is the end of an era, it's a car that in always ways lives like it's in the 60s, it's a big engine based on brute force, it's still uses a live rear axle so you feel the road and you feel it when it goes like hell, there's still more knobs switched and buttons on it then an iPhone, and even in all its complexity it's still simple. But Ford has said this will all be gone, the live axel replaced with something called independent rear suspension, it will get a modern cockpit with all digital touch fun stuff as well as fit finish and refinement since now they are going to sell them to Pierre from the French country side, but the worst part comes from this little thing called EPA.
As the price of fuel has been increasing along with a green movement of cleaning up the earth using smug, pressure has been put on auto makers to increase their gas mileages. Although new rules apply to individual car types, the main regulation is fleet mileage, so now at the end of the year manufacturers count up how many cars they sold, and then as a whole calculate the average MPG and they are fined for each MPG below a given standard which will gradually increase each year. Which gives auto makers a big incentive to develop, build and sell more fuel efficient cars, and this is where the part I hate comes in, the business part. The F series trucks, the 150 in particular are Ford's bread and butter, they sell 1 every minute and with current trends are close to even 2 a minute, but we know these are not powered by chippy little engines like a Fiesta is, so the algebra isn't looking good and that's where the dreadful bean counters come in. Accountants, which are known to lack anything resembling personality or soul and more for spreadsheets, calculations and return on profit, will make their ruling. For Ford to live sadly the Gt500 as we know it now might have to die. There is talk the next generation will see the likes of turbochargers, direct fuel injections, that the V6 and GT will continue on and even welcome a baby brother 4 cylinder, but there is a lot of optimism there will be a Gt500. Sadly with the passing of Carol Shelby who personally oversaw the 2013 development and the state of the industry no promises can be made. Should though the gt500 continue on, it won't be the same animal, and quite possibly far more rare and exotic then it already is, while being on the endangered species list...