What's Wrong With This Picture: Modern Obesity Edition

Edward Niedermeyer
by Edward Niedermeyer

Forget distracted driving, the new Shelby GT350 proves that obesity is the real epidemic in America’s automotive life.

Edward Niedermeyer
Edward Niedermeyer

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  • Dabossinne Dabossinne on Jan 20, 2010

    That thing is just god-awful. An overwrought, blinged-out bastardization of a perfectly good Mustang. $34K for what, tacked on ricer-look body cladding, a supercharger, lower springs, stripes and dubs? You gotta be shitting me! Oh...forgot....it's the Shelby M.O. Sell a schmuck, make a buck.

  • Tigre Marino Tigre Marino on Jan 20, 2010

    Boeing (whose CEO was Alan Mullaly at the time) is now fighting for the all-new carbon-fiber 787 Dreamliner to be lighter to comply with contracts with the airlines. Ford (whose CEO is now Alan Mullaly) keeps making cars fatter and porkier. And Toyota. And Honda. And Chrysler. And... Heavier ain't safer. Ask the SUV people.

  • DweezilSFV DweezilSFV on Jan 20, 2010

    #1. AAA reports that nearly 70% of motoring fatalities are from people being too stupid to wear a seat belt. Width and length add weight as proven over 110 years of the designers making every iteration of their "new & improved" models bigger and dumber than the last. And it wasn't safety items they were building into the bloat, just an unconcious, slavish following of the "bigger is better" syndrome. I liked the new Mustang, till I saw what a porker it is. It is what it was.... in 1973. Might as well call it the LTD III.

  • Ronnie Schreiber Ronnie Schreiber on Jan 20, 2010

    Sure it looks fat. It also most likely outperforms the original GT350 in speed and handling and probably gets better fuel mileage to boot, all while being a much safer car with nice features like A/C and a nice sound system. Also, with fuel injection, electronic ignition and a digital ECU that actually knows what's going on inside the engine, modern cars are much more reliable. I'm old enough to remember when you carried around a screwdriver just so you could jam the choke open when you flooded the engine trying to start it. BTW, the '65 Shelby had a curb weight of ~2800 lbs. The 2011 is about 1200 lbs heavier.

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